Should you add emojis in the meta title and meta description?

What are emojis?

Emojis can be considered to be symbols available on multiple platforms and devices signifying some emotion or thought. These remain universally recognized and can be accessed on both Windows and Apple devices. They remain inbuilt with the keypad of both mobile and laptop devices and are easily accessible for everyone. Using them in the metadata of a page is a new thing to try on. The emojis in SEO are going to be really useful in gathering users’ attention via SERP (Search Engine Result Pages) snippets. A majority of digital marketers use them to increase the click rate.

Using emojis in the meta description and do emojis affect CTR is still a debatable topic. Some think that emojis are doing good in metadata as in normal usage and are a trendy practice to adopt. While others are still not sure if these can harm the search results. However, it has been tried and proven by famous digital marketers and the result showed no damage to the search engine results normally. It was even compared on multiple similar strength websites to see the impact.

The emoji meta description is not as easy as they seem. You need to have a thorough knowledge and must know the proper process to do so. It’s not as simple as copy-pasting the emojis in page titles and descriptions. In case you’re also trying the same and becoming a little annoyed with no knowledge, this article is going to be really helpful.

How to add emojis to the metadata of a page?

It usually depends on the CMS of your website as they allow the option to edit and upgrade your website/web page’s metadata. WordPress is one of the advanced and easiest ways to add emojis in the metadata. However, if someone is creating a flat coding-based website or using any other CMS, the process is not too typical to add emojis in the metadata.

When it comes to adding emojis in SEO, even WordPress has no out-of-the-box solution to generate SEO titles and descriptions. You’re going to need a plugin to achieve the same. There are a lot of plugins available in WordPress that allow the user to modify the SEO metadata and description page-by-page basis. However, the plugins are also not allowed to copy/paste an emoji in the code. When we enter them in a text field, the emoji is straightly converted into the text field after saving. The emojis are not supported by WordPress plugins and they can distort or error as well. While trying emojis in WordPress metadata plugins, you can even see some error messages with no clue what has gone wrong.

Hence, the right way to use emojis in SEO is to write the code of emojis rather than adding them directly. Once you’ve added the code of emoji, visualize them from the Yoast SEO plugin and verify the preview. But, the question is how can you write the code for the emoji. Well, there is nothing to worry about as you can find numerous websites offering the codes for all emojis. It’s just copying and pasting work for a web developer to make sure emojis are added properly in the metadata. Visit the website and find the emoji you’re looking for. Copy the code available for the same and paste it into the SEO meta title and description. If you’re coding from scratch, it becomes more simple to integrate these codes in web page title/description tags.

Why add emojis in SEO metadata?

Let’s compare the metadata of a webpage with regular text and the other one a bit more colorful and attractive in SERP. In the modern-day digital world, what would look better and attract more customers? We all use emojis in day-to-day life while sharing messages. That’s what makes emoji meta description a catchy thing to implement in your web pages. The users are going to focus straightly on your SERP results preview as it will be more interesting as compared to others. Here are major benefits of adding emojis in common SEO practice:

1. Do emojis affect CTR? – This query is a lot common these days and the answer is yes. Once your website CTR improves with attractive metadata, Google is going to consider your website audience favorite and that could improve the website score as well as ranking. Hence, in a way, emoji in SEO is going to be really helpful in the long run.

2. Let’s say there are two websites coming above yours in SERP. Having emojis in metadata is going to present your web page differently and the user is going to consider your website colorful and updated. It is one way to convince the users that the website is fully updated and has everything they’re looking for. It can be highly beneficial to the marketing of your website irrespective of the ranking numbers. Hence, with emoji, you can look forward to grabbing more engagement from both users and Google.

Is using emojis in SEO good for every website?

It is again a debatable topic as for some websites it can work and not for others. While some find adding emojis in metadata beneficial, others also find the emojis to be disoriented images on the website. If the user’s device doesn’t support the emoji display, it is going to look distorted to them. It will be either a rectangle available in the metadata of your website and doesn’t look good at all.

There is one more problem with emoji meta descriptions. Yoast SEO plugin in WordPress is not going to show the emoji every time. The users might face some problems in viewing the emoji on their specific devices. In this case, also, the emoji will be presented as a mere rectangle to everyone. Adding emoji in meta titles takes up the characters as well. You will find much fewer characters left to add the text in meta title and there could be the problem of adding keywords as well.

Reasons to use emoji meta title for better SEO practices

1. Enhanced Click-Through-Rate (CTR)

Emojis are popular attention grabbers and that too is going to be helpful on the page where maximum text is available. The vibrant emoji in SEO is going to offer a higher CTR as compared to those websites that are not using them in meta titles and descriptions. The website is going to be highlighted in the SERP results in a sea of search results for your targeted results.

2. More relevancy

The emoji meta title also plays a singular contribution to the SEO ranking as they become a keyword as well. However, Google found the emoji addition for gaining ranking as spammy, but the results are going to be omitted as well. The best way to ensure the maximum from emoji is to recognize and use them appropriately with moderation.

3. Social Presence

The search engines bring results from social media in a similar manner as private websites. When we post a web page on social media, it automatically fetches the meta title and descriptions. The emojis in SEO metadata can be simply used to gain attention on social media channels as well.

4. Increased Trust

The audience is a lot more familiar with emojis these days. A lot of customers prefer to use them while messaging and that’s what makes emoji meta description a favorable choice. Since people understand the emojis better, the same impacts the search engine result as well. The emojis create a sense of engagement and trust in the audience.

5. Local SEO Promotion

The emoji meta title serves the local SEO and presence of the business. The businesses can make the best use of creating a local engagement. It generates a high level of trust and relevancy and helps you target a specific area audience with better engagement. Having emoji in the meta title allows the users to search in a more handy way. Searching emojis makes the businesses reach more accessible on the internet. For example, if you search “burger(emoji) near me” on Google it shows local restaurants serving burgers. Google is aware of the emoji and understands what you want to search for.

6. Better User Experience

The emoji meta title is highly beneficial in winning users’ attention in search results. Emojis and emoticons are the key factors providing strength to the textual message. These are helpful in building emotions, recognition, and information-boosting communication standards. Using emojis in SEO is going to be really great for getting quick user attention and increasing the traffic on the website.

Conclusion

Hence, we can conclude that the emojis in SEO are interactive, advanced, and fun-filled practices. We all love emojis and hence can gain the users’ attention by adding some of the relevant ones in the metadata of the website. These can make the content more interactive and bring more and more audience.

While we can’t say that using emojis is always going to work for you. Also, there is no definite answer to the question – do emojis affect CTR? Yet, with common practices and general approaches, it is easier to conclude that emojis in meta titles and descriptions are worthy to gain the right level of engagement. Also, the popularity of emojis also matters. While some of them can make the maximum impact, there are others who fail to do so. But, placing them in metadata is one such effective way to gain quick improvisations and stand out in the market. You can also use Google Trends to track the popularity of emoji. All you need to do is to enter the emoji as the search term and check the popularity.

It will give you an insight into the people’s preferences and what they are searching for. Also, make sure to check if they can really be an advantage for you. To do so, first, try it on some of the web pages and analyze the results after some time. Keep monitoring the analytic growth to be sure if they are actually making any difference.