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Photos first, one app, and expect the first two weeks to be quiet. Most people quit in week three, right before their profile changes start working.
Do the steps below in order. Each one is small, and together they decide whether your first month teaches you something or just discourages you.
Fixed the profile and still nothing? Sometimes it is the pool, not the photos - the same profile does different numbers on different apps. See which app suits you
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This is the whole thing, and doing it after you have already made a profile means launching with whatever was on your phone. You want six: a clear face shot, a full body, one doing something you do, one social, and two for variety. Outdoors, good light, someone else holding the camera.
Examples that work are you laughing at a table with friends where you are easy to pick out, you cooking or hiking or playing music, and a clear chest-up shot in daylight. Skip sunglasses in the first photo, a group shot as the lead, and anything heavily filtered.
Four half-finished profiles perform worse than one good one, and you cannot tell what is working when everything varies at once. Pick by what you want and where you live. Hinge and Bumble present themselves as relationship-focused, while Tinder has a very large and more mixed user base. Whichever you choose, stay with it for at least a month before deciding it does not work.
Not a list of adjectives. One or two specific things and one hook someone could reply to without inventing a reason.
Something like 'Learning to cook one new dish a week - currently stuck on dumplings. Recommendations welcome.' That is specific, a little open, and easy to reply to. Avoid opening with what you do not want, and avoid a list of travel destinations - both are common, and neither gives a stranger an easy first message.
Keep conversations on the app until you have met at least once, meet somewhere public, and tell a friend where you are going. Be wary of anyone who quickly asks to move to another messaging app, avoids a video call or meeting, or brings up money.
None of this needs to feel paranoid. It is simply the normal way people do this now, and it lets you relax on the date itself.
Low match rates are normal, silence is not personal, and the median conversation goes nowhere. Judge it on whether things improve after you change something, not on the first week.
Make one change at a time, give it about a week, and keep a short note of what you changed. That turns a vague, discouraging month into a set of small experiments, and it is the difference between quitting in week three and actually getting better at it.