I have two sites that I will be promoting that are dating type sites. I'm wondering if anyone has any ideas about getting a site going. What are some of the common strategies?
I think one thing you should do is Google for dating/relationships forums, find the most popular ones, advertise your site in your signature and post in threads related to dating. That way, interested people will see your advert and find out more! One thing you might want to bear in mind is people only tend to join if there are plenty of other people, so you could make it "officially open" in a month or so and let them sign up early so when it opens, there will be a lot of new, active members!
What I would do is whore it out in the comments of people's profiles on sites like myspace, hi5, friendster, etc. That way you can target the social and attractive ones.
I considered doing this, then started reading some of the horror stories. Are you prepared to deal with legal issues that can possibly arise? All it takes is for one minor to slip through the cracks and fall upon a bad experience. This puts you in a courtroom paying to defend yourself. The bigger your site becomes, the better the chances someone will want a piece of you. Think about it........
If you're aiming for a dating site....you have your work cut out for you. The best thing I can suggest is to aim for a niche audience.
Dating? Hmm.. get a few dozens of gorgeous & handsome looking members and post their best lloking pic/profiles everywhere in main page. Btw, they must be single.. And yes, post about your forum on other dating forums too..
Just in case you get down to link exchange increasing you SE rankings - PM me, I will give you a list of the websites related to dating that willl do you good!