One of the first things that Webb found is that content was the most important part of dating profiles

Content Is King

According to her findings, writing long and elaborate dating profiles is actually detrimental to online dating success. In fact, the most popular men and women were far more concise, using 97 words on average. Now while you don’t necessarily want to restrict yourself to an arbitrary number you do want to keep things short and to the point. The web is increasingly the domain of shortened attention spans; unless the content is extremely compelling, the longer a person spends on an individual page decreases proportionally with it’s length2. TL;DR isn’t just a Reddit joke, it’s how many people treat online interactions.

So take the same advice that every editor gives aspiring writers: kill your darlings. A well-written dating profile is a well-edited profile and that means being willing to take a hacksaw to it. Be as verbose as you want when you write it… then take another pass and slash it to the bones. Having restrictions can work to your advantage; it means you can’t afford to fuck around.Read More