SEO
14 Top Reasons Why Google Isn’t Indexing Your Site
Google won’t index your site? You’re not alone. There are many potential issues that may prevent Google from indexing web pages, and this article covers 14 of them.
Whether you want to know what to do if your site is not mobile-friendly or you’re facing complex indexing issues, we’ve got the information that you need.
Learn how to fix these common problems so that Google can start indexing your pages again.
1. You Don’t Have A Domain Name
The first reason why Google won’t index your site is that you don’t have a domain name. This could be because you’re using the wrong URL for the content, or it’s not set up correctly on WordPress.
If this is happening to you, there are some easy fixes.
Check whether or not your web address starts with “https://XXX.XXX…” which means that someone might be typing in an IP address instead of a domain name and getting redirected to your website.
Advertisement
Continue Reading Below
Also, your IP address redirection may not be configured correctly.
One way to fix this issue is by adding 301 redirects from WWW versions of pages back onto their respective domains. If people get directed here when they try searching for something like [yoursitehere], we want them to land on your physical domain name.
It’s important to ensure that you have a domain name. This is non-negotiable if you want to rank and be competitive on Google.
2. Your Site Is Not Mobile-Friendly
A mobile-friendly website is critical to getting your site indexed by Google since it introduced Mobile-First indexing.
No matter how great the content on your website is, if it’s not optimized for viewing on a smartphone or tablet, you’re going to lose rankings and traffic.
Mobile optimization doesn’t have to be difficult – simply adding responsive design principles like fluid grids and CSS Media Queries can go a long way towards making sure that users will find what they need without experiencing any navigation problems.
Advertisement
Continue Reading Below
The first thing I recommend doing with this issue is running your site through Google’s Mobile-Friendly Testing Tool.
If you don’t get a “passed reading,” you have some work to do to make your site mobile-friendly.
3. You’re Using A Coding Language In A Way That’s Too Complex for Google
Google won’t index your site if you’re using a coding language in a complex way. It doesn’t matter what the language is – it could be old or even updated, like JavaScript – as long as the settings are incorrect and cause crawling and indexing issues.
If this is a problem for you, I recommend running through Google’s Mobile-Friendly Testing Tool to see how mobile-friendly your site really is (and make any fixes that might need to be made).
If your website isn’t passable on their standards yet, they offer plenty of resources with guidelines about all manner of design quirks that can come up while designing a responsive webpage.
4. Your Site Loads Slowly
Slow-loading sites make Google less likely to want them featured in the top results of their index. If your site takes a long time to load, it may be due to many different factors.
It could even be that you have too much content on the page for a user’s browser to handle or if you’re using an old-fashioned server with limited resources.
Solutions:
- Use Google Page Speed Insights – This is one of my favorite tools I’ve found in recent years and helps me identify what sections of the website need urgent attention when improving its speed. The tool analyzes your webpage against five performance best practices (that are crucial for having faster loading sites), such as minimizing connections, reducing payload size, leveraging browser caching, etc., and will give you suggestions about how you can improve each aspect of your site.
- Use a tool like webpagetest.org – This tool will let you know if your website is loading at a fast enough pace. It will also allow you to see, in detail, the specific elements on your site that are causing you issues. Their waterfall can help you identify significant page speed issues before they cause serious problems.
- Use Google’s Page Speed insights again – See where you can make improvements to load times on the site. For example, it might be worth exploring a new hosting plan with more resources (pure dedicated servers are far better than shared ones) or using a CDN service that will serve static content from its cache in multiple locations around the world.
Ideally, make sure your page speed numbers hit 70 or more. As close to 100 as possible is ideal.
If you have any questions whatsoever regarding page speed, you may want to check out SEJ’s ebook on Core Web Vitals.
5. Your Site Has Minimal Well-Written Content
Well-written content is critical for succeeding on Google. If you have minimal content that doesn’t at least meet your competition’s levels, then you may have significant issues even breaking the top 50.
Advertisement
Continue Reading Below
In our experience, content that’s less than 1,000 words does not do as well as content that is more than 1,000 words.
Are we a content writing company? No, we are not. Is word count a ranking factor? Also no.
But, when you’re judging what to do in the context of the competition, making sure your content is well-written is key to success.
The content on your site needs to be good and informative. It needs to answer questions, provide information, or have a point of view that’s different enough from other sites in the same niche as yours.
If it doesn’t meet those standards, Google will likely find another site with better quality content that does.
If you’re wondering why your website isn’t ranking highly in Google search results for some keywords despite following through SEO best practices like adding relevant keywords throughout the text (Hint: Your Content), then one culprit may be thin pages where there really should be more than just 100 words per page!
Advertisement
Continue Reading Below
Thin pages can cause indexing issues because they don’t contain much unique content and don’t meet minimum quality levels compared to your competition.
6. Your Site Isn’t User-friendly And Engaging To Visitors
Having a user-friendly and engaging site is crucial to good SEO. Google will rank your site higher in search results if it’s easy for visitors to find what they’re looking for and navigate around the website without feeling frustrated or aggravated.
Google doesn’t want users spending too much time on a page that either takes forever to load, has confusing navigation, or is just plain hard to use because there are too many distractions (like ads above the fold).
If you only have one product listed per category instead of several, then this could be why your content isn’t ranking well with Google! It’s important not only to target keywords within each post but also to make sure that all related posts link back to other relevant articles/pages on the topic.
Advertisement
Continue Reading Below
Do people like sharing your blog? Are readers being wowed by your content? If not, then this could be why Google has stopped indexing your site.
If someone links directly to one specific product page instead of using relative keywords like “buy,” “purchase” etc., then there might be something wrong with the way other pages link back to that particular product.
Make sure all products listed on category pages also exist within each respective sub-category so users can easily make purchases without having to navigate complex linking hierarchies.
7. You Have A Redirect Loop
Redirect loops are another common problem that prevents indexing. These are typically caused by a common typo and can be fixed with the following steps:
Find the page that is causing the redirect loop. If you are using WordPress, find HTML source of one of your posts on this page or in an .htaccess file and look for “Redirect 301” to see which page it’s trying to direct traffic from. It’s also worth it to repair any 302 redirects and make sure they are set to 301.
Advertisement
Continue Reading Below
Use “find” in Windows Explorer (or Command + F if Mac) to search through all files containing “redirect” until you locate where the problem lies.
Fix any typos so there isn’t a duplicate URL address pointing back at itself then use redirection code like below:
Status codes such as 404s don’t always show up in Google Search Console. Using an external crawler like Screaming Frog, you can find the status codes for 404s and other errors.
If all looks good, use Google Search Console on-site to crawl the site again and resubmit it to indexing. Wait a week or so before checking back in with Google Search Console if there are any new warnings popping up that need attention.
Google doesn’t have time to update their indexes every day, but they do try every few hours which means sometimes your content may not show up right away even though you know it’s been updated. Be patient! It should be indexed soon enough.
Advertisement
Continue Reading Below
8. You’re Using Plugins That Block Googlebot from Crawling Your Site
One example of such a plugin is a robots.txt plugin. If you set your robots.txt file through this plugin to noindex your site, Googlebot will not be able to crawl it.
Set up a robots.txt file and do the following:
When you create this, set it as public so that crawlers can access it without restrictions.
Make sure your robots.txt file does not have the following lines:
User-agent: * Disallow: /
The forward slash means that the robots.txt file is blocking all pages from the root folder of the site. You want to make sure that your robots.txt file looks more like this:
User-agent: * Disallow:
With the disallow line being blank, this is telling crawlers that they can all crawl and index every page on your site without restriction (assuming you don’t have specific pages marked as being noindexed.
9. Your Site Uses JavaScript To Render Content
Using JavaScript by itself is not always a complex issue that causes indexing problems. There isn’t one single rule that says JS is the only thing that causes problems. You have to look at the individual site and diagnose issues to determine if this is a problem.
Advertisement
Continue Reading Below
Where JS comes into play as an issue is when the JS prevents crawling by doing shady things – techniques that may be akin to cloaking.
If you have rendered HTML vs. raw HTML, and you have a link in the raw HTML that isn’t in the rendered HTML, Google may not crawl or index that link. Defining your rendered HTML vs. raw HTML issues is crucial because of these types of mistakes.
If you’re into hiding your JS and CSS files, don’t do it. Google has mentioned that they want to see all of your JS and CSS files when they crawl.
Google wants you to keep all JS and CSS crawlable. If you have any of those files blocked, you may want to unblock them and allow for full crawling to give Google the view of your site that they need.
10. You Did Not Add All Domain Properties To Google Search Console
If you have more than one variation of your domain, especially in a situation where you have migrated from http:// to https://, you must have all of your domain variations added and verified in Google Search Console.
Advertisement
Continue Reading Below
It’s important to make sure that you’re not missing any of your domain variations when adding them to GSC.
Add them to GSC, and make sure that you verify your ownership of all domain properties to ensure that you are tracking the right ones.
For new sites that are just starting out, this is likely to not be an issue.
11. Your Meta Tags Are Set To Noindex, Nofollow
Sometimes, through sheer bad luck, meta tags are set to noindex, nofollow. For example, your site may have a link or page that was indexed by Google’s crawler and then deleted before the change to noindex, nofollow was set up correctly in your website’s backend.
As a result, that page may not have been re-indexed and if you’re using a plugin to block Google from crawling your site then that page may never be indexed again.
The solution is simple: change any meta tags with the words noindex,nofollow on them so they read index,follow instead.
Advertisement
Continue Reading Below
If you have thousands of pages like this, however, you may have an uphill battle ahead of you. This is one of those times where you must grit your teeth and move forward with the grind.
In the end, your site’s performance will thank you.
12. You’re Not Using A Sitemap
You need to use a sitemap!
A sitemap is a list of all the pages on your site, and it’s also one way for Google to find out what content you have. This tool will help ensure that every page gets crawled and indexed by Google Search Console.
If you don’t have a sitemap, Google is flying blind unless all of your pages are currently indexed and receiving traffic.
It’s important to note, however, that HTML Sitemaps are deprecated in Google Search Console. The preferred format for sitemaps nowadays are XML Sitemaps.
You want to use your sitemap to tell Google what the important pages of your site are, and you want to submit it regularly for crawling and indexing.
Advertisement
Continue Reading Below
13. You’ve Been Penalized By Google In The Past And Haven’t Cleaned Up Your Act Yet
Google has repeatedly stated that penalties can follow you.
If you’ve had a penalty before and have not cleaned up your act, then Google won’t index your site.
The answer to this question is pretty straightforward: if it’s penalized by Google, they may not be able to do anything about it because penalties follow you around like an uninvited friend who drags their feet on the carpet as they walk through each room of your house.
If you’re wondering why would you still exclude some information from your website since you’re already in trouble with search engines?
The thing is that even though there are ways out of being penalized, many people don’t know how or can no longer make those changes for whatever reason (maybe they sold their company). Some also think that just removing pages and slapping the old content onto a new site will work just as well (it doesn’t).
Advertisement
Continue Reading Below
If you are penalized, the safest route is cleaning up your act from before entirely. You must have all-new content, and re-build the domain from the ground up, or do a complete content overhaul. Google explains that they expect you to take just as long getting out of a penalty as it did for you to get into one.
14. Your Technical SEO Is Terrible
Make no mistake: purchasing technical SEO from Fiverr.com is like purchasing a Lamborghini from a dollar store: you’re likely to get a counterfeit item rather than the real thing.
Doing technical SEO correctly is worth it: Google and your users will love you.
Let’s take a look at some common problems and solutions, and where technical SEO can help you.
Problem: Your site is not hitting Core Web Vitals numbers
Solution: Technical SEO will help you identify the issues with your Core Web Vitals and provide you with a path to correcting these issues. Don’t just put your faith in a strategic audit – this won’t always help you in these areas. You need a full technical SEO audit to unearth some of these issues, because they can range from the downright simple to the incredibly complex.
Advertisement
Continue Reading Below
Problem: Your site is has crawling and indexing issues
Solution: They can be incredibly complex and requires a seasoned technical SEO in order to uncover them and repair them. You must identify them if you’re finding that you are having zero traction or not getting any performance from your site.
Also, make sure that you haven’t accidentally ticked the “discourage search engines from indexing your website” box in WordPress.
Problem: Your site’s robots.txt file is somehow inadvertently blocking crawlers from critical files
Solution: Again, Technical SEO is here to rescue you from the abyss. Some sites are in so deep that you may not see a way out other than deleting the site and starting over. The nuclear option is not always the best option. This is where an experienced technical SEO professional is worth their weight in gold.
Identifying Website Indexing Issues Are A Challenge, But Well Worth Solving
Content, technical SEO, and links are all important to maintaining your site’s performance trajectory. But if your site has indexing issues, the other SEO elements will only get you so far.
Advertisement
Continue Reading Below
Be sure to tick off all the boxes and make sure you really are getting your site out there in the most correct manner.
And don’t forget to optimize every page of your website for relevant keywords! Making sure your technical SEO is up to par is worth it as well because the better Google can crawl, index, and rank your site, the better your results will be.
Google (and your website’s traffic) will thank you.
More Resources:
Featured image: Shutterstock/Sammby
SEO
OpenAI Expected to Integrate Real-Time Data In ChatGPT
Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, dispelled rumors that a new search engine would be announced on Monday, May 13. Recent deals have raised the expectation that OpenAI will announce the integration of real-time content from English, Spanish, and French publications into ChatGPT, complete with links to the original sources.
OpenAI Search Is Not Happening
Many competing search engines have tried and failed to challenge Google as the leading search engine. A new wave of hybrid generative AI search engines is currently trying to knock Google from the top spot with arguably very little success.
Sam Altman is on record saying that creating a search engine to compete against Google is not a viable approach. He suggested that technological disruption was the way to replace Google by changing the search paradigm altogether. The speculation that Altman is going to announce a me-too search engine on Monday never made sense given his recent history of dismissing the concept as a non-starter.
So perhaps it’s not a surprise that he recently ended the speculation by explicitly saying that he will not be announcing a search engine on Monday.
He tweeted:
“not gpt-5, not a search engine, but we’ve been hard at work on some new stuff we think people will love! feels like magic to me.”
“New Stuff” May Be Iterative Improvement
It’s quite likely that what’s going to be announced is iterative which means it improves ChatGPT but not replaces it. This fits into how Altman recently expressed his approach with ChatGPT.
He remarked:
“And it does kind of suck to ship a product that you’re embarrassed about, but it’s much better than the alternative. And in this case in particular, where I think we really owe it to society to deploy iteratively.
There could totally be things in the future that would change where we think iterative deployment isn’t such a good strategy, but it does feel like the current best approach that we have and I think we’ve gained a lot from from doing this and… hopefully the larger world has gained something too.”
Improving ChatGPT iteratively is Sam Altman’s preference and recent clues point to what those changes may be.
Recent Deals Contain Clues
OpenAI has been making deals with news media and User Generated Content publishers since December 2023. Mainstream media has reported these deals as being about licensing content for training large language models. But they overlooked a a key detail that we reported on last month which is that these deals give OpenAI access to real-time information that they stated will be used to give attribution to that real-time data in the form of links.
That means that ChatGPT users will gain the ability to access real-time news and to use that information creatively within ChatGPT.
Dotdash Meredith Deal
Dotdash Meredith (DDM) is the publisher of big brand publications such as Better Homes & Gardens, FOOD & WINE, InStyle, Investopedia, and People magazine. The deal that was announced goes way beyond using the content as training data. The deal is explicitly about surfacing the Dotdash Meredith content itself in ChatGPT.
The announcement stated:
“As part of the agreement, OpenAI will display content and links attributed to DDM in relevant ChatGPT responses. …This deal is a testament to the great work OpenAI is doing on both fronts to partner with creators and publishers and ensure a healthy Internet for the future.
Over 200 million Americans each month trust our content to help them make decisions, solve problems, find inspiration, and live fuller lives. This partnership delivers the best, most relevant content right to the heart of ChatGPT.”
A statement from OpenAI gives credibility to the speculation that OpenAI intends to directly show licensed third-party content as part of ChatGPT answers.
OpenAI explained:
“We’re thrilled to partner with Dotdash Meredith to bring its trusted brands to ChatGPT and to explore new approaches in advancing the publishing and marketing industries.”
Something that DDM also gets out of this deal is that OpenAI will enhance DDM’s in-house ad targeting in order show more tightly focused contextual advertising.
Le Monde And Prisa Media Deals
In March 2024 OpenAI announced a deal with two global media companies, Le Monde and Prisa Media. Le Monde is a French news publication and Prisa Media is a Spanish language multimedia company. The interesting aspects of these two deals is that it gives OpenAI access to real-time data in French and Spanish.
Prisa Media is a global Spanish language media company based in Madrid, Spain that is comprised of magazines, newspapers, podcasts, radio stations, and television networks. It’s reach extends from Spain to America. American media companies include publications in the United States, Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Mexico, and Panama. That is a massive amount of real-time information in addition to a massive audience of millions.
OpenAI explicitly announced that the purpose of this deal was to bring this content directly to ChatGPT users.
The announcement explained:
“We are continually making improvements to ChatGPT and are supporting the essential role of the news industry in delivering real-time, authoritative information to users. …Our partnerships will enable ChatGPT users to engage with Le Monde and Prisa Media’s high-quality content on recent events in ChatGPT, and their content will also contribute to the training of our models.”
That deal is not just about training data. It’s about bringing current events data to ChatGPT users.
The announcement elaborated in more detail:
“…our goal is to enable ChatGPT users around the world to connect with the news in new ways that are interactive and insightful.”
As noted in our April 30th article that revealed that OpenAI will show links in ChatGPT, OpenAI intends to show third party content with links to that content.
OpenAI commented on the purpose of the Le Monde and Prisa Media partnership:
“Over the coming months, ChatGPT users will be able to interact with relevant news content from these publishers through select summaries with attribution and enhanced links to the original articles, giving users the ability to access additional information or related articles from their news sites.”
There are additional deals with other groups like The Financial Times which also stress that this deal will result in a new ChatGPT feature that will allow users to interact with real-time news and current events .
OpenAI’s Monday May 13 Announcement
There are many clues that the announcement on Monday will be that ChatGPT users will gain the ability to interact with content about current events. This fits into the terms of recent deals with news media organizations. There may be other features announced as well but this part is something that there are many clues pointing to.
Watch Altman’s interview at Stanford University
Featured Image by Shutterstock/photosince
SEO
Google’s Strategies For Dealing With Content Decay
In the latest episode of the Search Off The Record podcast, Google Search Relations team members John Mueller and Lizzi Sassman did a deep dive into dealing with “content decay” on websites.
Outdated content is a natural issue all sites face over time, and Google has outlined strategies beyond just deleting old pages.
While removing stale content is sometimes necessary, Google recommends taking an intentional, format-specific approach to tackling content decay.
Archiving vs. Transitional Guides
Google advises against immediately removing content that becomes obsolete, like materials referencing discontinued products or services.
Removing content too soon could confuse readers and lead to a poor experience, Sassman explains:
“So, if I’m trying to find out like what happened, I almost need that first thing to know. Like, “What happened to you?” And, otherwise, it feels almost like an error. Like, “Did I click a wrong link or they redirect to the wrong thing?””
Sassman says you can avoid confusion by providing transitional “explainer” pages during deprecation periods.
A temporary transition guide informs readers of the outdated content while steering them toward updated resources.
Sassman continues:
“That could be like an intermediary step where maybe you don’t do that forever, but you do it during the transition period where, for like six months, you have them go funnel them to the explanation, and then after that, all right, call it a day. Like enough people know about it. Enough time has passed. We can just redirect right to the thing and people aren’t as confused anymore.”
When To Update Vs. When To Write New Content
For reference guides and content that provide authoritative overviews, Google suggests updating information to maintain accuracy and relevance.
However, for archival purposes, major updates may warrant creating a new piece instead of editing the original.
Sassman explains:
“I still want to retain the original piece of content as it was, in case we need to look back or refer to it, and to change it or rehabilitate it into a new thing would almost be worth republishing as a new blog post if we had that much additional things to say about it.”
Remove Potentially Harmful Content
Google recommends removing pages in cases where the outdated information is potentially harmful.
Sassman says she arrived at this conclusion when deciding what to do with a guide involving obsolete structured data:
“I think something that we deleted recently was the “How to Structure Data” documentation page, which I thought we should just get rid of it… it almost felt like that’s going to be more confusing to leave it up for a period of time.
And actually it would be negative if people are still adding markup, thinking they’re going to get something. So what we ended up doing was just delete the page and redirect to the changelog entry so that, if people clicked “How To Structure Data” still, if there was a link somewhere, they could still find out what happened to that feature.”
Internal Auditing Processes
To keep your content current, Google advises implementing a system for auditing aging content and flagging it for review.
Sassman says she sets automated alerts for pages that haven’t been checked in set periods:
“Oh, so we have a little robot to come and remind us, “Hey, you should come investigate this documentation page. It’s been x amount of time. Please come and look at it again to make sure that all of your links are still up to date, that it’s still fresh.””
Context Is Key
Google’s tips for dealing with content decay center around understanding the context of outdated materials.
You want to prevent visitors from stumbling across obsolete pages without clarity.
Additional Google-recommended tactics include:
- Prominent banners or notices clarifying a page’s dated nature
- Listing original publish dates
- Providing inline annotations explaining how older references or screenshots may be obsolete
How This Can Help You
Following Google’s recommendations for tackling content decay can benefit you in several ways:
- Improved user experience: By providing clear explanations, transition guides, and redirects, you can ensure that visitors don’t encounter confusing or broken pages.
- Maintained trust and credibility: Removing potentially harmful or inaccurate content and keeping your information up-to-date demonstrates your commitment to providing reliable and trustworthy resources.
- Better SEO: Regularly auditing and updating your pages can benefit your website’s search rankings and visibility.
- Archival purposes: By creating new content instead of editing older pieces, you can maintain a historical record of your website’s evolution.
- Streamlined content management: Implementing internal auditing processes makes it easier to identify and address outdated or problematic pages.
By proactively tackling content decay, you can keep your website a valuable resource, improve SEO, and maintain an organized content library.
Listen to the full episode of Google’s podcast below:
Featured Image: Stokkete/Shutterstock
SEO
25 Snapchat Statistics & Facts For 2024
Snapchat, known for its ephemeral content, innovative augmented reality (AR) features, and fiercely loyal user base, is a vital player in the social media landscape.
While it sometimes flies under the radar – as other platforms like TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram tend to dominate the cultural conversation – Snapchat is an incredibly powerful marketing tool that holds a unique place in the hearts and minds of its users.
In this article, we’ll explore what you need to know about Snapchat, with insights that shed light on what audiences think of the app and where its strengths lie.
From user growth trends to advertising effectiveness, let’s look at the state of Snapchat right now.
What Is Snapchat?
Snapchat is a social media app that allows users to share photos and videos with friends and followers online.
Unlike other social platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok – where much of the content is stored permanently – Snapchat prioritizes ephemeral content only.
Once viewed, Snapchat content disappears, which adds a layer of spontaneity and privacy to digital interactions.
Snapchat leverages the power of augmented reality to entertain its audience by creating interactive and immersive experiences through features like AR lenses.
Users can also explore a variety of stickers, drawing tools, and emojis to add a personal touch to everything they post.
What started as a small collection of tools in 2011 has now expanded to a massive library of innovative features, such as a personalized 3D Snap Map, gesture recognition, audio recommendations for lenses, generative AI capabilities, and much more.
Creating an account on Snapchat is easy. Simply download the app on Google Play or the App Store. Install it on your device, and you’re ready!
25 Surprising Facts You Didn’t Know About Snapchat
Let’s dive in!
1. Snapchat Has 406 Million Daily Active Users
That number, released by the company in October 2023, represents an increase of 43 million year-over-year – a 12% increase.
Here’s a chart from Statista showing Snapchat’s user growth from 2014 to 2023:
And with 750 million monthly active users (MAUs), Snapchat is the fifth-biggest social media network in the world.
2. Users 18-24 Years Old Account For The Biggest Chunk Of Snapchat’s Audience
According to Snapchat’s own advertising data, the platform has 243.5 million users aged 18 to 24 – representing 38.6% of its total ad audience.
The second largest group of users are between the ages of 25 and 34, followed by 13-17-year-olds – proving that Snapchat is reaching young people around the world.
On the flip side, the platform isn’t huge with older users; people aged 50 and over account for only 3.8% of Snapchat’s total ad audience.
As a marketer, you can take a hint on what your campaign should focus on if you use Snapchat. As Snapchat’s own report puts it:
“From its inception, Snapchat has inherently created a frictionless space where Gen Z creatives can experiment with their identities, yet not have to feel like they’re ‘on brand’ in communicating to their close friend groups.”
3. Snapchat Reaches 90% Of The 13 To 24-Year-Old Population
It also reaches 75% of people between the ages of 13 and 34 in over 25 countries, according to Snapchat’s estimates.
In the US, 59% of American teenagers (between the ages of 13 and 17) report using Snapchat. This number amounts to roughly six in 10 US teens.
4. Snapchat Users Open The App Nearly 40 Times A Day
According to the company, this means people interact with their social circles on Snapchat more than any other social network.
In the US, about half of teenagers (51%) report using Snapchat at least once a day – making it slightly more popular than Instagram, but not quite as popular as YouTube or TikTok.
5. Taco Bell Paid $75,000 For 24 Hours Of The Taco Filter/Ad
To boost sales, Taco Bell launched the taco filter on Snapchat. Here’s what it looked like.
Today only: turn yourself into a taco using our @Snapchat lens. Because Cinco de Mayo. pic.twitter.com/P4KwLdFNFZ
— Taco Bell (@tacobell) May 5, 2016
The filter is humorous, relevant, and unique. Users adored it, and it got 224 million views.
That’s great, considering Taco Bell paid $75,000 for the ad – which actually proved to be a great investment for the exposure the brand received.
6. More Than Half (50.6%) Of Snapchat Users Are Female
In contrast, 48.7% of the platform’s global users are male.
While there is not a huge discrepancy between the demographics here, it’s helpful information for any marketers looking to put together Snapchat campaigns.
7. Snapchat Is The No. 1 App People Use To Share What They Bought
Is your brand looking to reach young social media users around the world? Snapchat could be the perfect platform for you.
People are 45% more likely to recommend brands to friends on Snapchat compared to other platforms.
They’re also 2X more likely to post about a gift after receiving it – making Snapchat a powerful tool for influencer marketing and brand partnerships.
8. Snapchat Pioneered Vertical Video Ads
Once a novelty in the social media industry, vertical video ads have become one of the most popular ways to advertise on social media and reach global audiences.
What are vertical video ads? It’s self-explanatory: They’re ads that can be viewed with your phone held vertically. The ad format is optimized for how we use our mobile devices and designed to create a non-disruptive experience for users.
You’ve definitely seen countless video ads by now, but did you know Snapchat pioneered them?
9. You Can Follow Rock Star Business Experts On Snapchat
Who knew Snapchat could be a powerful business tool? Here are the top three experts you should follow right now:
10. More Than 250 Million Snapchatters Engage With AR Every Day, On Average
Snapchat was the first social media app to really prioritize the development of AR features, and it’s paid off.
Over 70% of users engage with AR on the first day that they download the app – and, to date, there have been more than 3 million lenses launched on Snapchat.
11. People Are 34% More Likely To Purchase Products They See Advertised On Snapchat
When compared to watching the same ad on other social media platform, Snapchat proves to be an effective way to reach and convert.
12. Snapchat Is The King Of Ephemeral Content Marketing
Ephemeral content marketing uses video, photos, and media that are only accessible for a limited time.
Here are three reasons it works:
- It creates a sense of urgency.
- It appeals to buyers who don’t want to feel “sold.”
- It’s more personalized than traditional sales funnel marketing.
Guess who’s one of the kings of ephemeral content marketing? That’s right: Snapchat.
Consider that if it weren’t for Snapchat, Instagram Stories would likely not exist right now.
13. More Than 5 Million People Subscribe To Snapchat+
Snapchat+ is the platform’s paid subscription service that gives users access to exclusive and pre-release features on the platform.
Subscribers also receive a range of other perks, including options to customize their app experience and the ability to see how many times their content has been rewatched.
The fact that so many millions of users are willing to pay for special access and features to Snapchat should be a sign to brands and marketers everywhere that the platform has a strong pull with its audience.
Beyond that, the fact that Snapchat+ drew 5 million subscribers within just a year or so of launching is impressive on its own.
14. Snapchat Reaches Nearly Half Of US Smartphone Users
According to Statista, approximately 309 million American adults use smartphones today.
Snapchat’s ability to reach such a considerable portion of US smartphone users is notable.
15. Snapchat Users Spend An Average Of 19 Minutes Per Day On The App
That’s 19 minutes brands can use to connect with people, grow brand awareness, and convey their message.
16. Snapchat’s Original Name Was Picaboo
In fact, Snapchat did run as Picaboo for about a year.
17. Snapchat Was Created After 34 Failures
Snapchat creators Evan Spiegel, Bobby Murphy, and Frank Reginald Brown worked on the Snapchat project while they were studying at Stanford University.
After 34 failures, they finally developed the app as we know it today.
18. Snapchat’s Creators Had A Major Falling-Out Before The App Was Released
Frank Reginald Brown was ousted from the Snapchat project by his friends.
Although no one knows the real story, Brown claims Spiegel and Murphy changed the server passwords and ceased communication with him a month before Snapchat was launched.
19. Snapchat Downloads Doubled After The Launch Of The Toddler & Gender Swap Filters
Users downloaded Snapchat 41.5 million times in a month after the release of these filters!
20. Mark Zuckerberg Tried To Buy Snapchat
Snapchat’s owners refused to sell Snapchat to Zuckerberg (even though the offer went as high as $3 billion!).
21. Snapchat’s Mascot Is Called Ghostface Chillah
The mascot was inspired by Ghostface Killah of the Wu-Tang Clan – and when you consider that the app was once called “Picaboo,” the ghost logo makes more sense.
Apparently, Snapchat co-founder and CEO Evan Spiegel has said that he developed the mascot himself and chose a ghost based on the ephemeral nature of Snapchat content.
22. Facebook And Instagram Borrowed Ephemeral Content From Snapchat
As we mentioned above, we have Snapchat to thank for Facebook and Instagram Stories, which have since become integral to the social media experience.
Snapchat also pioneered the use of AR filters, which were adopted by Instagram and paved the way for the filters that dominate the world of TikTok today.
23. 75% Of Gen Z And Millennials Say Snapchat Is The No. 1 Platform For Sharing Real-Life Experiences
Social media is all about authentic moments and human connection – and social media marketing is no different.
With such a large number of young people preferring Snapchat over other platforms for sharing their life experiences, marketers should follow suit.
Find ways to share behind-the-scenes moments with your team and company, and emphasize the humans behind the brand.
24. Snapchat Users Have Over $4.4 Trillion In Global Spending Power
That’s nothing to sneeze at.
25. In 2022, Snapchat Generated $4.6 Billion In Revenue
It is currently valued at over $20 billion.
Looking Ahead With Snapchat
Snapchat’s ephemeral content, intimacy, and spontaneity are strong points for everyday users, content creators, and businesses alike.
Marketers should keep a keen eye on emerging trends within the platform, such as new AR advancements and evolving user demographics.
Those looking to reach younger audiences or show an authentic, human side of their brand should consider wading into the waters of Snapchat.
By harnessing the power of ephemeral content and engaging features, brands can effectively use Snapchat to grow their brand awareness, engage with audiences on a more personal level, and stay relevant in the fast-paced world of digital marketing.
More resources:
Featured Image: Trismegist san/Shutterstock
-
MARKETING7 days ago
The key to correcting the C-suite trust deficit
-
MARKETING6 days ago
A Recap of Everything Marketers & Advertisers Need to Know
-
MARKETING4 days ago
How To Protect Your People and Brand
-
PPC4 days ago
How the TikTok Algorithm Works in 2024 (+9 Ways to Go Viral)
-
SEARCHENGINES5 days ago
Google Started Enforcing The Site Reputation Abuse Policy
-
SEO7 days ago
128 Top SEO Tools That Are 100% Free
-
SEO5 days ago
Blog Post Checklist: Check All Prior to Hitting “Publish”
-
SEO3 days ago
How to Use Keywords for SEO: The Complete Beginner’s Guide
You must be logged in to post a comment Login