How to Make an Online Relationship Web Site like PlentyOffFish.com Using Joomla

Introduction

Let's start with some facts: According to Tekarati, The U.S. online dating market is expected to increase spending to $932 million in 2011 and is considered the largest segment of "paid content"

Now the question is - how do you grab this opportunity and make such a site for your own personal needs or that of a future client?

Before we get to the technology how to, it's important to first decide what kind of a dating website you should create. One of the most popular ways would be to start a generic dating site but because of the excess in such kind of websites, the above step would lead into an unproductive business so instead what you should consider is follow the strategy which the most successful dating sites follow which is, create niche dating sites that pair people by race, sexual orientation or religion.

To start with, there are quite a few script options that can be used - some good, some not as good; but in this article, I'm going to be covering the best approach that I know of - making it using my favourite CMS - Joomla!

Step By Step How To Of the Technology Behind Making Dating Sites

Here is a step by step breakdown on how you can do about doing this:
1) Install and Configure Joomla - This one is easy; if you are not familiar with the process, check this how to video out. [Visit Official Joomla Website]

2) Install and Configure Love Factory - Out of the many Joomla community extensions, I found Love Factory one the most apt since it's specifically meant for making this kind of a website. [Visit Official Love Factory Page]

Installing and Configuring this extension is as easy as setting up other Joomla extensions and doing in minute details of the process is not unproductive and also out of scope for this editorial, so what I'll do is just give you a brief overview of the features so you get the picture :
- Member Pages with fully configurable fields!
- Photo Gallery (users can specify the images order)
- Comment System (page owner can delete any comment on his page or report them to the admin)
- Messaging System (users can create, send and receive personal messages)
- Interaction System (sending kisses between user)
- Rating System
- Friends List (including pending requests; user can set the page status visible only for friends)
- Ignore List (to avoid spamming or any unwanted contact)
- Advanced Search (to find friends or matches after certain criteria's like gender, age, etc., criteria's which are fully configurable by the administrator from the existing page fields.
- Radius Search (using Google maps).
- Membership Plans with integrated Payment Gateways: Paypal and Moneybookers (support for one till four membership-level, so that users can upgrade their account in order to receive a higher number of allowed photo and friends. For each level, differentiated prices can be set, depending on the time period. The membership plans feature can be enabled or disabled by the administrator.)
- Highly Customizable Looks

Extending Your Dating Site

Here are some extensions that can be used to extend your dating website:
- jNews - It's a newsletter system with which you can keep your members updated and keep coming back to the website. [Visit Website]

- Agora - A forum extension that will help your community interact better and thus grow organically [Visit Website]

- Chat Factory - Allows the members of the community to chat with each other on the website itself - much like what facebook chat does [Visit Website]

- jEvents - One of the strategies you could consider is listing speed dating events that your company organize. [Visit Website]

The Sites Done - Now What?

Now that the website is done, here are some ways with which you can use to monetize your dating website:

1) Provide Paid Membership (Most popular)
2) Display Advertising
3) Use Affiliate Marketing To Sell Other Peoples Products
4) Sell Dating E-books

To conclude, I would like you to ponder over what a Wired magazine article forecasted in 2002: "Twenty years from now, the idea that someone looking for love without looking for it online will be silly, akin to skipping the card catalogue to instead wander the stacks because 'the right books are found only by accident.' Serendipity is the hallmark of inefficient markets and the marketplace of love, like it or not, is becoming more efficient."

The marketplace is becoming more efficient, the technology is out there for you to deploy and if I was your clan mate in counter strike, all I would say is - 'Go, Go, Go'