READ MORE FREE DATING ARTICLES, INTERVIEWS AND DIARIES...

Are you an older woman dating a younger man? - Read more about the new social norm

Composing your personal ad - Hints and tips on writing your online dating profile

Attention grabbing dating headlines - Ideas for writing your online dating profile headline

Honesty is essential - but remember to exercise constraint in your online dating profile!

What's in a dating username? - What will your online name be?

Is that love in their eyes ? - Seven ways you (or they) can interpret an online dating photo

Online dating safety tips and advice - Some simple ideas to keep you safe

The most common dating disasters men cause - Some male dating delusions revealed!

Dating as a single parent - Introducing a new partner - Advice from other single parents

Meeting your partners kids - Help if the date of your dreams turns out to be a parent

First date advice for women - Don't be nervous, read this article before you go!

An interview with a successful dater- Find out more about this online daters experience

Dating younger women - Some advice on how to make it a success

Example dating headlines - Real life examples to make you laugh, cry or inspire you!

Funny or foolish? - Real life example dating usernames for you to consider.

First date advice - If you are nervous about your first date then get some help here

Ten great first date ideas - Don't know where to go? Here are ten ideas to help

Getting your dating photo right - Your dating photo is key to your success so get it right

Do you need a photo in your dating profile? The answer is undoubtedly yes! Read why

Dating an older man - Can be a daunting experience so read more about what to expect

Emailing for attention - You've seen a profile you like; now how do you get their attention?

Are you putting off online dating? - Why you should just do it instead!

First date tip - watch your body language! - Hints and tips for first date success

Are you ready to date? Getting yourself back on the dating scene can be hard sometimes

Single mums dating diary - June - Has she finally found love?

Single mums dating diary - May - A new start, new tactics and finally a new date

Single mums dating diary - April - Diappointment, more dates and more disappointment

Single mums dating diary - March - A holiday and a possible romance?

Single mums dating diary - February - First dates and some lessons learnt

Single mums dating diary - January - The decision is made, online dating here we come

It's certainly not obligatory to include a photo in your online dating profile and quite often people don't like to as they feel shy or embarrassed, or just plain hate having their photo taken, but there are some very compelling reasons why you should include yours.

Most dating sites will tell you that putting a photo on your dating personals ad will significantly increase your chances of dating success, but why is this so?

There are three key reasons;

• Most people don't even view a personals ad that doesn't have a dating photo
• People tend to trust people they can see

• You'll get more responses when you email other people

The majority of people searching an online dating site will click the 'photo ads only' box or similar if there is one and if not their eyes will be scanning the personals ads that have photos and will skip right over onew without them most of the time.

"We all want to interact with a real person - a dating photo makes you seem exactly that to a prospective date...real"

It’s human nature to want to want to interact with a real person rather than a piece of paper and including a photo in your online dating profile turns you into exactly that – a real person.

It's true that people will make assumptions about you based on your dating photo but at least you have control. You can choose the image you present in your online dating photo and you can therefore influence what potential dates think about you.

This is why you need to put some consideration into your dating photo rather than use a low resolution shot from your camera phone or take that image of you and your ex and just cut them out, kind of!

There are some basic rules about smiling, lighting, framing your picture and the clothes you wear that you should consider when taking the photo for your dating personals ad. Read our article on taking your dating profile photo for more help, or visit our dating photo service, MaxMyPhoto if you still can't get the results you need.

"you'll increase your chances of potential
dates contacting you"

Choose a good likeness that shows you at your best and you'll not only increase your chances of potential dates contacting you, you'll also increase your chances of getting a response from them if you send them an introductory email!

If you receive an email from someone on a dating site then the first thing you do is look at their profile right? And I'm pretty sure that you make an assessment of their photo as well as reading the content of their profile to see if you think you want to get into touch… this is what people will do to you and if there's no photo there's a good chance they'll think you've got something to hide or feel uncomfortable communicating with someone who doesn't seem real.

If you're not sure then why not experiment? Choose a few photos you like (see our dating photo article for advice on choosing) and then add them to your dating personals ad. Try a few days with no photo, then try a few days with photo one, photo, two etc. Bear in mind that dating site traffic varies throughout the week and month so it will not be an exact science but you may just be surprised by the results!

At just £7.99 our MaxMyPhoto eBook is great value. It contains detailed help and advice on taking your photo, including topics such as lighting, composing your shots, body language and what to wear.

Click here to find out more about our unique dating profile building tool which can help you create your own original headline, username and profile.