The majority of people that frequent the online dating sites throughout the Internet are not as stupid as you may think. These sites are full of photo personals of genuine people looking to meet other genuine people. They can figure out rather quickly which of those photo personals are the real thing and which are placed by relatives of deposed royalty in Africa just waiting for your help in return for a few million bucks!

The Internet is full of places where the photo classifieds can be the best door opener for new and exciting relationships, or they can be a complete waste of time. The choice is yours and if you decide to use the photo personals in hopes of finding genuine people, there are some things you need to know.

One of the first things you need to do is make sure the photo you are using is a recent one. Nothing screams desperate more than posting a picture of you 10 years ago along with one that is relatively new, with hopes that someone will want you for what you were not who you are now. Your physical characteristics are going to change and using an old picture is like trying to sell a used car by showing someone a new showroom model. It’s a lie, it is false advertising and rarely yields positive results.

When taking pictures for your photo personals profile try and make them as realistic as possible. Natural lighting as opposed to some staged glamorous or sexy shots in a studio seem to have better results. This does not however mean that you should rule out and sexy shots or be a bit provocative, just use one such picture with several that depict you in normal clothes doing normal things. In other words, just be you.

Your physical characteristics are going to be on display to the members and you will undoubtedly get some idiots picking you apart, so it’s always best to take a lot of pictures and just use the ones that you are happiest with and everyone else be damned. Solo pictures are best as you want people to focus on you and not ask you who the other person in the picture is and how they can get in touch with them. Remember that the photo personals are genuine people looking to meet other real people and date so accuracy and honesty are key.

The most popular dating websites have taken online photo matchmaking to such a high level that many people who use them have bought small digital cameras just for the ability to constantly change their profile pictures on these websites and on other types of the photo classifieds. It’s actually a good investment if you want to change pictures often to give potential matches constant updates. It also comes in handy when you meet someone you really like and decide to get a bit…ummm…. Frisky!