A Better Website - More Users

I suggest increasing the monthly $120 goal to $400 and strictly using those funds to do strategic advertising and SEO.

The biggest metric of a successful dating site is the # of people that use it.

The more people that use it, the more value it automatically has.

Many people feel that there are not enough people on the site, in their area.

More users would fix that problem and create a more engaging website.

Steel173 wrote: I suggest increasing the monthly $120 goal to $400 and strictly using those funds to do strategic advertising and SEO.

The biggest metric of a successful dating site is the # of people that use it.

The more people that use it, the more value it automatically has.

Many people feel that there are not enough people on the site, in their area.

More users would fix that problem and create a more engaging website.

Great points! Although the site could use a facelift. The user interface and general layout is very dated. Feels like Soompi when they first started, but even their initial site was a bit more enjoyable. The reply system should automatically quote the post that's receiving the response. At least, make it a feature one can enable.

Steel173 wrote: I suggest increasing the monthly $120 goal to $400 and strictly using those funds to do strategic advertising and SEO.

The biggest metric of a successful dating site is the # of people that use it.

The more people that use it, the more value it automatically has.

Many people feel that there are not enough people on the site, in their area.

More users would fix that problem and create a more engaging website.

It won't work, the whole site is against that objective since its such a niche target market that you'll never obtain enough users to the point that would self sustain the site financially. You can increase the budget but that's going to be $400 wasted on ads that don't convert.

Furthermore keywords such as "Asian" "Free Dating" "White Singles" are highly competitive given the online dating platform offered by many competitors. They use their HUGE profits they make from their Subscriptions that competing for any keywords related to online dating would be mute. How are you going to get a free to use website with its only source of income coming from donations to compete with this? The only feasible way for Hey-Ai to get users is through SEO --> Make a blog section and use popular keywords to rank higher in the Google Search Results Or Site Link Referrals from other highly rated websites. Honestly even promoting the website through Google Reviews or any sort of Review platform would drive up searches.

Joomla is good for seo too but admin need to put all the things, 2nd forum need to be open for general people, 3rd website need to be posted on yahoo, bing & google too... Even if admin can do some css changes this website will rock in the market!

That is like the most foolish idea and would be a waste of money. Let alone the odds of getting it to 400 a month. The excess funds of 2.4 k a year would hardly be enough for any real competitive SEO work.

And even if somehow the site can pay that amount every month, for someone who is a financial analyst, you should solidly know that it's not like the more money you put in SEO, the later returns would be in a guaranteed linear fashion. It doesn't work that way. There's a targeted amount required and a site like this wouldn't reach that goal. "To achieve SEO results that will provide the visibility and engagement required to see a return on your investment works out to be around $1000 a month and up" And according to what I've read, this site is struggling to pay the bills already as it is.

If one was truly business savvy, it's more on who you know and partnerships and being prudent with your spendings. This website has only one quality - an established member community. If the owner was skilled enough to form silent partnerships with other companies. It may go far tho I prefer this site to be relatively small and not some Soompi k-pop themed site. But there are so many smaller ways business deals can be made on the cheap that may deliver back high returns.

Do a bit of blogging and target already popular sites like Reddit, Soompi, etc and make threads and references to sites like these for dating or penpals, etc Google will easily index them when people search up for such terms and find it easily with search engine. - IT costs relatively nothing to do so.
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Or be ambitious and a little cray cray - just thinking on top of my head - Approach a Korean entertainment company

Do a deal to make one of those dispensable heartthrob celeb k-pop idols already famous in the west, say he's on this site and looking for a gf as he's into western girls. I guarantee there will be no shortage of crazy fan girls signing up.

In exchange, the company that manages him, will get a promised portion of the stock of the website if website succeeds. If the one-shot promotion is successful and the website is pulling in a lot of views. Make the site more professional by forgoing the low paying middle man - google Adword revenues and approach actual Korean fashion labels and entertainment companies to offer their deals and news feed in exchange for a contracted set pay amount every year. They may be interested given one look at the audience demographic. And never hurts to ask but do it in person, give references of the celeb endorsements, and look professional at the minimum.

Lastly, give notice to some Private equity company that you're willing to sell and then cash out and the owner is rich. It's not his problem anymore.

But there are two issues - you're selling out to big corporates and reshaping the site to be less of its original self and I don't think that's realistic to do all that as you need to be seriously a good businessman to ever pull this off. There is little risk IF REJECTED and pays offs if one can pull it off. It's waaay better and realistic than your SEO plan which is just throwing money into the sink.

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400 US dollars a month is a large amount to gather. Some months, there's even very far from the targeted $ 120 in Hey-Ai's piggy bank. Not everyone can afford to donate, cause we have many students among the members. But those who can afford to throw in coins or even banknotes are very welcome to do so...starting with OP maybe ?

I love watching all these techie guys debate. I'm just a fly on the wall...hmmm hmm lalalaaa~~

I was considering to donate since I've started to use this site more often. But, my IP is blocked. Each time I use the site I have to "hack" into it by masking my IP. Never got a warning for the infraction I caused. So, I'll be taking leave from here soon enough. Fyi, that's how you lose any kind of funding.

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Are you connecting from a public WiFi maybe ? University or library 's hotspot ? anything like that ? If so, could you try from your phone's data just as a test?

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aziaelion wrote:
I was considering to donate since I've started to use this site more often. But, my IP is blocked. Each time I use the site I have to "hack" into it by masking my IP. Never got a warning for the infraction I caused. So, I'll be taking leave from here soon enough. Fyi, that's how you lose any kind of funding.