Do you believe in love at first sight on a dating site?

How do you fall in love with words on a screen?

You don't know it's genuine and not an attempt just to be different.

Make sure you have professional looking photos on your profile
Have a profile that's polarising that stands out from the crowd that will get an emotional reaction.
Use a good opener and follow it up with good online game.
Be preapared to lose her.
Be prepared that the reality of her will be different to the online. With this applying to all the profiles you haven't fallen in love with.
Be prepared that she may have received 100 messages from other guys that feel the same way as you and that you may not even get a reply from her.
Don't send her money if she asks for it, or drops hints that it would help her.

Love at first sight is a thing. It happens.

2 approaches you could take.
1 go really over the top on how much you love her, in a taking the mickey out of yourself, self parodying kind of way
2 be very understated about the strength of your feelings until you've slept with her a few times

... And if you saw a woman, going about your every day life, with whom you fell in love with at first sight, would you go up to her and break the ice? And if you did, how good a job do you think you'd do?
Getting the skills to attract women you are attracted to is more important than whether any one particular woman loves you back.

Yeah points taken. She did initiate contact but whatever. I'm best off being philosophical about the whole issue, even if this is a rarity.

Honestly had something like this with my girlfriend. Funnily enough, I didn't actually get a response on the first dating site we matched on. I had no problem getting dates with other girls, so if a girl didn't reply I didn't usually dwell on it, but she stayed on my mind. She was very much the girl next door, classically pretty, her bio felt real, and she was in the same field as me (life science). I'm very eccentric and dress like a punk so figured I just wasn't her type when I didn't get a reply. A month later I matched with her again on another dating site and after staring at her profile for a few mins decided to make a second attempt and surprisingly she accepted my invite to go for a pint. Fast forward a year (it is our anniversary next week) and we now live together and are in the process of buying our first house.

So, in a way, yes I suppose. Love might be too strong a word for it but I knew when I came across her profile that I just wanted to meet this woman. And halfway through our first date I knew she was the woman I wanted to be with. It took a little longer for her to be certain, but she's now just as committed as I am. Romance and lust are still as strong now as it was at the start - usually by this point I've lost interest if I'm being completely honest. I used to live for the thrill of the chase. Not anymore.

Oh, and the reason she didn't respond to my message on the first dating app? She'd uninstalled it and never saw it.

tl;dr - I felt this way with one specific girl on an app and a year later we are buying a house together. Go with your gut and see how it goes. I just asked my now girlfriend if she would like to meet at [pub near the location in her profile pic] for a drink with me and get to know each other in real life. That was literally the very first message - I didn't even say hi first. It worked out.

Well, start with a hello.
Introduce yourself.
Engage in conversation with her. Build on the conversation.
Ask her lots of questions about herself. Make sure she asks you stuff too. That's how you'll know if she's interested. As in does she just reply or is she engaging with you too?
Good luck mate. I'll be expecting updates on this thread, lol.

couldn't be arsed waiting for someone who wasn't going to speak all night. Just don't know why people initiate chats then go silent when you reply. And no I didn't say anything weird just responded briefly to her intro in the normal way.