Online dating: Picture or text - what draws more attention to your dating profile? Learn to make it more appealing

Before swiping right or left, your profile is judged based on your picture or the text you post. What is noticed more-picture or text? Read to find out.

Dating tips: Since covid, online dating has picked up the pace all across the world with most people signing up for these online dating apps to find a good match as per their needs. The attractiveness of the profile picture and texts varies depending on what level of attention is in play. It is essential to understand that your picture and the bio or text creates the groundwork for the first impression and have nothing to do with how the person might turn out to be.

According to a study titled, "What People Look at in Multimodal Online Dating Profiles: How Pictorial and Textual Cues Affect Impression Formation" published in 'Sage journals' in 2021, "...pictures and texts are processed independently and lead to separate assessments of cue attractiveness before impression formation."

This study assessed a number of factors like profile pictures, profile texts and dating profiles and further analysed measures- eye tracking and attractiveness perception. 

This study quotes that more than 75% of the people were fixated on the text and about 15-20% were focused on the picture.

Tips to make your profile attractive

1. Smile, please!

A simple smile goes a long way in creating lasting impressions but make sure the smile looks rather genuine.

2. Put your travel story

A solid winner for an attractive profile is travel. Simply show yourself in an exotic or scenic location which will be a great conversation starter.

3. Avoid bathroom selfies

No wonder the dating app Bumble banned bathroom mirror selfies in October because they were too common and not at all aesthetically pleasing. 

Instead, go for a selfie that shows you and your pet!

4. Don't just show, tell too

Don't write vague statements about your daily routine or your past life, be more methodical in your approach. Choose a statement for your bio that creates a visual image of your text.

5. Talk holiday plans, not family plans

Your dating profile bio or text can have items from your bucket list or vacation plans with your partner. But talks of a family business, your niece and especially your mother should be left out from your dating profile. Leave that for later, perhaps!

Here's a pro tip people, while initiating a conversation try adding a compliment with that "hey" or a flirty question maybe instead of going plain old "Hi, how are you?". Go big people!