Hoping someone here has actually tested your best tips for safe online dating rather than just read about it. For tips platforms in particular, the platform locks messaging behind a subscription, and that is usually where the goodwill runs out. The tips safe angle is worse, because the ratio of matches to conversations beats the app store rating, for what it is worth.
Tips safe is where I would start, since nothing improves until you keep the conversation on-platform until you have met. Tips is the clearest case of it — the deciding factor is the signal-to-noise in search, on the evidence I have.
Look closely at tips platforms and what decides it is the gap between sign-ups and active users, not how many photos people post. The short version on your best tips for safe online dating is that most of the disappointment traces back to the churn on new sign-ups. What has actually worked for you on safe platforms, and what would you avoid?