The average match rate in online dating is a measly 0.6% for men.
This basically means:
A small number of guys get the majority of matches. While the rest keep swiping till their fingers bleed, with no matches on Bumble in sight.
But here’s the good news:
Small changes to your profile can make a big difference.
Ignore them, and you’ll be stuck with the average guys getting average results.
Do them right, and you’ll find yourself in the small group of men who get tons of matches daily.
Ready to discover how?
Why do you have no matches on Bumble?
Common reasons why you get no matches on Bumble can be your profile, the algorithm, or specific settings within the app. All of these can be fixed if you currently get no matches on Bumble. So before you delete Bumble, check your profile pictures, bio description, and specific settings first to get more matches.
Also, one thing before we dive into the practical tips:
Most guys make the mistake of taking a low match rate very personally. But you’re not your profile.
A woman judges you solely based on the information you present in your profile. In other words, she isn’t saying no to you. She is saying no to the way you present yourself online.
But the following 11 tips can turn her no into a yes:
11 Tips to stop having no matches on Bumble
Here are 11 tips to fix the no matches on Bumble problem:
1. Make it a no-brainer for her to start talking to you
I know it.
You know it.
What you really want aren’t matches. It’s dating attractive women. That’s why it’s important to set up your Bumble profile for success before you get more matches.
Because, like every major breakthrough, it all starts with the right preparation. If you currently have no matches on Bumble (or only get a few), it’s important to make it as simple as possible for women to initiate the conversation.
If not, all the tips that follow will help you get more matches, but not necessarily more dates.
Because guess what: women aren’t natural-born texting queens.
Just like many men, they struggle to find the right words.
So let’s use a neat little bio hack that makes it easy for women to start an interesting conversation.
Example:
Aside from being a world-class rhyme, what’s easier than just texting ‘Hi’?
Women will often even thank you for it.
Or, you can add a question like this in your Bumble bio:
“I talk from personal experience when I say coming up with the first message is hard. If you feel me, how about answering this question instead:
Mario Kart or fancy dinner for the first date?”
You’ll be surprised how many women will start a conversation by answering your question.
With that out of the way, let’s now take a look at how to actually get more matches.
– Backed by behavioral science…
Send it, see how women respond, and use this conversation starter anytime you want:
2. Trash your bad photos
Are you using any of these photos on your profile?
I’m talking about selfies, pictures of you drinking beer, low-quality pics, or images where you show off.
These won’t get you far unless you look like a GQ model. Now, I’m not saying you should only have professionally taken pictures of yourself. That won’t work either, because it suggests a try-hard attitude.
Instead, have both: professional pictures and regular ones taken with your smartphone. More specifically, use a high-quality headshot as your main image and a professional full-body one as your second picture.
The rest should consist of regular photos taken by friends. This will help make your profile look authentic, as well as show more than one side of your personality, which women love to see.
3. Reinstall Bumble
Sometimes, the easiest solution is the best.
Bumble doesn’t give you a penalty if you delete and reinstall the app. In fact, it will automatically reshuffle you. So you have an opportunity to get all the matches you previously missed out on. It’s like getting a second chance.
This means that no matter what you do, it’s always a great idea to reinstall the app.
4. Spark her curiosity with the right profile picture
Straight up: your first picture is the most crucial one.
You only have a split second to make a great first impression.
In practice, this means no cap, no sunglasses, no printed shirts, no drunk friends and no Yu-Gi-Oh card collection in the background. Just your handsome face. With a smile and twinkling eyes.
You want to look like a kind and confident man without any distractions around you. A headshot with a blurry background is perfect for that.
5. Become boyfriend material
This tip is golden if you have no matches on Bumble.
Once you have a great headshot, you should try adding 3-5 more pictures that show your personality and desirable character traits. This means your hobbies, social circle, and sense of humor, just to name a few.
Think about it.
The right pictures tell more than a thousand words. You could write about all these personal strengths and details in your bio, but it would never be as effective as simply showing them.
Ask a friend to help you out. Then, let him take as many pictures of you as he can, preferably while you’re doing some kind of activity.
The key here is to make it look as natural as possible.
Make jokes and goof around to get shots with a genuine smile, and you’ll already have much better pictures than most guys will ever have.
6. Hiring a professional photographer
As already mentioned, you don’t need a full library of professionally taken pictures.
A high-quality headshot and full body picture are more than enough to get tons of matches on Bumble, Tinder, Hinge, and all the other dating apps.
These two pictures are absolutely key and should be as good as possible. Hence, hiring a photographer to help you get these can be one of your best investments for the coming years.
But be aware. Just because someone labels themselves as a ‘professional photographer’ doesn’t mean they know how to take great pictures for online dating. More often than not, you need to give them a detailed explanation and examples of what you want.
In my newsletter, I occasionally share examples and profile breakdowns of private clients. Some of them even significantly boosted their results without hiring a photographer at all.
Because sometimes, all it takes is a few little tweaks to your existing pictures. If you want to see some more before-and-after examples, you can subscribe to my data-driven newsletter here.
7. Use editing tools to improve your pictures
Want a simple way to enhance your pictures without needing a PhD in Photoshop?
Then this app might be perfect for you.
FaceApp can magically add a smile to your face, improve the lighting, blur your background, and much more.
You should give it a try if you don’t want to invest in a photographer yet. You can install it for free, but some features might need an active subscription.
But just between us, they also offer a 3-day trial of their ‘pro’ version. Take advantage of that and thank me later.
The app is available for the AppStore and PlayStore.
Just search for ‘FaceApp’, and you should find it immediately.
8. Get female feedback on sites like Photofeeler
Judging your own pictures is hard.
Even worse, women and men often interpret photos way differently. And your friends might give you biased feedback to not hurt your feelings.
But there’s a solution. If you want unbiased feedback for your pictures, a site like photofeeler.com is perfect to get your images rated by a bunch of women.
Here’s how it works:
You upload a picture, and women rate it based on different criteria: how smart you look, how attractive, and so on. To get more women to rate your photos, you need to earn credits. And to get credits, you need to rate images of women.
Now, you can also pay money for the premium version. There, you can upload multiple pictures to get feedback almost instantly.
The choice is yours.
9. Adjust your filters to get more matches
Did you know?
Bumble sets a default age range and location distance when you install the app.
This can be a limiting factor for you to get more matches. Now, this might sound counterintuitive… but to improve your chances of getting more exposure and matches, you should take the following two steps:
- Decrease your search radius to around 15 miles (25 km)
- Set the age range from 5 years below and 5 years above your age
The reason for that lies in the Bumble algorithm. Bumbles’ biggest assets are their female members. To keep them happy, they want to make sure they have a great experience.
In other words, they want women to feel like they could find their prince charming.
By taking the two steps above, you signal the algorithm that you’re looking for something serious and aren’t just here to smash.
Here’s how to change your Bumble settings:
Open the Bumble app. In the upper right corner, you’ll see a settings icon. Click that icon and scroll down a bit. You’ll find the age and distance settings:
Once set, start swiping occasionally throughout the day, and you should notice more matches soon.
10. Swipe during prime times
I wrote a full article on the best times to boost on Tinder.
The same principles apply here if you want to make the most out of every single swipe on Bumble.
In essence, you want to be active within the app when most other users are online too.
This way, you’ll be exposed to a much greater number of profiles and hence, have a greater chance of getting more matches.
The best times to swipe are between 8 pm and 10 pm.
11. Stop swiping like a madman
I remember the early days of dating apps, where you could just swipe right on every profile while watching a movie.
And the next day, I could just check who I matched with and go from there.
Unfortunately, this luxury is no more.
If you blindly swipe right, the algorithm will punish you.
So stop doing it immediately. And after a few days, you should notice a difference in matches.
If not, make sure to follow all the other tips above.
Happy matching.
Your Efficient Dating Advisor,
Herman The German
