Are you ready for the busiest day of the year in the online dating world? How’s your dating profile looking? Ready to kickstart your love life? If you need help creating a written profile that will maximise your impact, I hope you’ve checked out my partner-in-crime Rebecca Perkins, she’ll get your profile firing on all cylinders.

And how are your dating profile photos? Not sure? Well, you’re in the right place. I’ve been credited with kickstarting a new genre of photography, dating photography, and dating sites for Filipino singles am the world’s leading expert on all things dating photo related. Hey Saturday has been running for almost four years and worked with well over 1,000 clients now so we know what works well and what doesn’t work so well, plus we keep our eye on all the latest research. Here are our top tips for women’s dating profile photos to create maximum impact online and attract tonnes more dates.

Smiling flirting is where it’s at

Yes, no surprises here, men like photos of women smiling and looking flirty. Why? Well apart from the obvious reasons, that it makes women look fun and attractive, some previous research has shown that happiness is often associated with low dominance and femininity, which is apparently why men are most attracted to women displaying happiness. Goodbye feminism! Just to add to that, make sure that if you’re doing that flirty thing, that you’re looking into the lens now away. A jealousy thing perhaps?

Include a recent full body shot

Men are pretty visual when it comes to online dating and like to see what’s what, just as they would if they met you in a bar so remember to include one full length body shot. A recent one so that it isn’t misleading.

Use colour to stand out

Sean Rad, CEO of Tinder, has recently announced that colour is a great way of making your dating photos stand out online. This is something that Hey Saturday has been embracing since we launched in early 2013. Just one look at our portfolio and you’ll see how we go out of our way to ensure we bring colour into the photos as much as possible. If you love wearing bright colours, then wear them in your photos. Red is particularly good for dating photos as men LOVE red when it comes to matters of the heart – after all it represents passion, love and danger. If you’re more into neutral colours, then find something colourful that you can include somewhere in the background.

Do something interesting

It’s really important to create dating profile photos that tell people a little bit about you and your lifestyle. Clothes, hair and make-up all help with this but including photos where you’re doing something you love or are visiting somewhere you love helps people build up a picture of who you are and your interests and passions. Make your photos work hard for your dating profile, that way you won’t need to rely on the written profile quite so much.

Be the main thing in the shot

So if you’re using dating photos of yourself with pets, children, friends or booze, then please go and delete them now. Photos of you on your own have a much higher click-through rate than those where you’re sharing the limelight. It’s particularly important to lose the photos of you with your friends because you’re creating potential reasons for people to skip over your profile. They might check out your friends and not like the look of them, or even worse, they might like the look of your best friend more and decide not to bother with you. Be the most important thing in the shot.

Include lots of medium shots

The types of photos that receive the most interest are medium shots like the girl in the photo directly below. The reason for this, according to eHarmony’s matching team, is that you can actually get a good sense of the person’s body type and see them in some context with their surroundings.

I hope you’ve found these tips for creating and choosing winning dating profile pictures really useful. If you follow these guidelines you should start attracting a lot more and better quality dates. I would recommend using 4-6 photos to build your ideal profile and change your photos every couple of months to keep it fresh.

One last thing. What about the selfie, I hear you ask? Guys actually quite like a selfie on your profile as there’s something about them that creates a certain amount of intimacy, they feel they’re sharing a moment with you and are more likely to imagine that you’ll be receptive to their messages. They also quite like it if you’re showing a bit of flesh, for obvious reasons. My advice though, is that if you’re serious about looking for love online, rather than some quick hook-ups, avoid using photos with too much flesh showing and perhaps avoid selfies altogether if you’re over 30.