Emojis impacting your website’s performance is kind of a crazy concept to even be considering in our modern age of technical SEO strategery. Not long ago, adding an emoji to your web content would have made you the laughing stock of the SEO world.
But now in 2022, you’ll find your fair share of smileys, dogs, and pizza slices when making a run-of-the-mill Google search. But what are these business owners doing? Is there a method to their madness? And most importantly…
…Do Emojis Impact SEO Ranking? 🤔
Well, the short answer is, no (all that buildup for nothing). In an interview with Google’s John Mueller, he confirms that there’s no problem with having emojis in your title tags and meta descriptions, but there is no significant SEO ranking benefit either. He goes on to say that Google will even hide some title tag and meta description emojis if they disrupt organic search results or seem misleading.
Nevertheless, you’ll see that there are still a number of businesses that include an emoji next to their title tag. That’s because, while emojis do not officially impact your search engine rankings, there are still a few benefits to including them on your website.
There Are Search Results for Emojis 💯
If you’ve ever tried entering an emoji into Google for a search, you’ll see that there are thousands of results that relate to the emoji. Some of the top results may be related to the emoji itself, but after that, you’ll find businesses, services, and information related to your emoji’s theme. Searching for a hamburger emoji will include a few hamburger restaurants and recipes — some of which do use emojis and some that don’t. Similarly, searching for a beach emoji will show you places to book a trip (next to a beach).
If you want your business or webpage to show up in the search results for a related emoji, try adding that emoji to your title tag for a test run. On the flip side, some “text only” searches will occasionally yield results that feature similarly themed emojis. By creating a webpage with one or two relevant emojis, you can potentially increase the number of keywords your page ranks for.
Emojis May Improve Clickthrough Rate 📈
If you use relevant emojis in your title tag or meta description, you may ultimately increase organic search engagement for that page. A fun little image does wonders when trying to make your page stand out in the SERPs. Creating engaging content for users to read is an easy way to improve user experience. UX and SEO have always been mutually beneficial to one another, so make sure to consider your audience.
Try adding a Christmas tree or a Jack-o’-lantern into the title tag of your holiday-themed blog to see if it impacts the number of clicks it generates. Afterward, you can even compare engagement levels between your emoji’d pages and non-emoji’d pages.
When You Should NOT Use Emojis 🚫
Emojis aren’t always the best choice, so sometimes you’ll need to exercise restraint. Since most emojis are fun and goofy in nature, you should not use them for serious and consequential topics. For starters, hospitals, banks, and law firms should probably avoid emojis almost entirely, outside of a lighthearted blog article or two. You don’t want to appear incompetent to your potential clients.
It’s safe to say that emojis sacrifice professionalism in exchange for a more casual and accessible demeanor. Depending on the type of business you’re running, emoji use will fluctuate. Know your target audience!
Even though emojis will not ❌ impact your position on the search engine results page, they can still potentially improve your clickthrough rate 🖱️. Adding emojis to your title tags and meta descriptions is a clickthrough strategy with very little technical drawback 🧑💻. The important part is anticipating how your audience 👪 will react. Try looking 👀 for strategic opportunities to use emojis — when the audience and tone of the content are right — to help you get more engagement from your audience 🎉.
