Google says emojis don't hurt SEO. But should you use them in your content?
Posted: Sat Dec 07, 2024 10:19 am
Antonio Tinoco
Feb 8, 22 | 3 min read
google emoji seo
Reading time: 3 minutes
Attention all SEO professionals: John Mueller has struck again.
This time, our favorite Google search advocate offered some wise words about the presence of emojis in web page titles, meta descriptions, and content itself.
He said if you want to use them, go ahead. Emojis won't hurt or help your SEO strategies .
Mueller revealed this update during the Google Search Central SEO office-hours hangout on January 28. And while it's certainly relevant information, one question lingered in my head.
You can include emojis on your pages, but should you really?
Below I will comment on two points that you should consider:
1: Using emojis can be a waste of time
Yes, they're cute and fun. But since emojis list of tunisia consumer email won't do anything to help you rank higher in the SERPs, what's the point of using them?
As an SEO professional, you don't want to spend valuable hours optimizing pages for things that won't bring positive results.
Plus, SERPs are always changing. If Google simply decides to stop showing emojis in searches, all your great work with them can be replaced with weird code information or the classic blank square □.
On top of all that, Google's algorithm is already rewriting a significant amount of page titles simply because it thinks it can create better titles than you.
This means your precious emoji in your caption may disappear or become something else, according to Mueller:
“We don’t show all of these [emojis] in search results, especially if we think they disrupt the search experience in terms of, it looks misleading maybe, or that kind of thing. But you can definitely keep them there, they don’t cause any problems.”
I don't think you have any significant advantage by putting them there, because at most we're trying to figure out what the equivalent of that emoji is and maybe use that word as well, associated with the page.”
2: Emojis in titles can increase your click-through rate
Let's say you're using emojis in titles and meta descriptions and they're not misleading or spammy at all.
Do you have the opportunity to improve your click-through rate ( CTR ) by driving more traffic to your pages?
Some SEO experts believe so, although there is no clear data to support this.
What we do know is that almost all online consumers like to use emojis when communicating. In fact, 36% of millennials believe that emojis express their thoughts and feelings better than words.
So, depending on your business, it may be a good idea to include emojis to increase your page's visibility in the SERPs and attract readers' attention.
For example, if you own a pizza place and want to appear on the radar of someone searching for “
near me,” then you can write versions of your title using the pizza emoji.
It's all about having a hypothesis and testing it.
SplitSignal , for example, conducted an experiment to investigate the impact of a drink emoji (
) in the title of a recipe page. The result was a higher CTR and an 11.3% increase in organic traffic.
Conclusion
So what are we left with?
Emojis can make your business more friendly and approachable , even if they don't directly contribute to the success of your SEO strategies.
As we mentioned, it's impossible to be 100% sure that your emojis will appear in search results, but if they do, they can have a positive influence on your CTR and traffic.
It really depends on your business, your market and who you are trying to reach.
In this regard, here is a tip to better understand your audience: check out our interactive generator and build your buyer persona to know every aspect of your ideal customers!
Feb 8, 22 | 3 min read
google emoji seo
Reading time: 3 minutes
Attention all SEO professionals: John Mueller has struck again.
This time, our favorite Google search advocate offered some wise words about the presence of emojis in web page titles, meta descriptions, and content itself.
He said if you want to use them, go ahead. Emojis won't hurt or help your SEO strategies .
Mueller revealed this update during the Google Search Central SEO office-hours hangout on January 28. And while it's certainly relevant information, one question lingered in my head.
You can include emojis on your pages, but should you really?
Below I will comment on two points that you should consider:
1: Using emojis can be a waste of time
Yes, they're cute and fun. But since emojis list of tunisia consumer email won't do anything to help you rank higher in the SERPs, what's the point of using them?
As an SEO professional, you don't want to spend valuable hours optimizing pages for things that won't bring positive results.
Plus, SERPs are always changing. If Google simply decides to stop showing emojis in searches, all your great work with them can be replaced with weird code information or the classic blank square □.
On top of all that, Google's algorithm is already rewriting a significant amount of page titles simply because it thinks it can create better titles than you.
This means your precious emoji in your caption may disappear or become something else, according to Mueller:
“We don’t show all of these [emojis] in search results, especially if we think they disrupt the search experience in terms of, it looks misleading maybe, or that kind of thing. But you can definitely keep them there, they don’t cause any problems.”
I don't think you have any significant advantage by putting them there, because at most we're trying to figure out what the equivalent of that emoji is and maybe use that word as well, associated with the page.”
2: Emojis in titles can increase your click-through rate
Let's say you're using emojis in titles and meta descriptions and they're not misleading or spammy at all.
Do you have the opportunity to improve your click-through rate ( CTR ) by driving more traffic to your pages?
Some SEO experts believe so, although there is no clear data to support this.
What we do know is that almost all online consumers like to use emojis when communicating. In fact, 36% of millennials believe that emojis express their thoughts and feelings better than words.
So, depending on your business, it may be a good idea to include emojis to increase your page's visibility in the SERPs and attract readers' attention.
For example, if you own a pizza place and want to appear on the radar of someone searching for “
near me,” then you can write versions of your title using the pizza emoji.It's all about having a hypothesis and testing it.
SplitSignal , for example, conducted an experiment to investigate the impact of a drink emoji (
) in the title of a recipe page. The result was a higher CTR and an 11.3% increase in organic traffic.Conclusion
So what are we left with?
Emojis can make your business more friendly and approachable , even if they don't directly contribute to the success of your SEO strategies.
As we mentioned, it's impossible to be 100% sure that your emojis will appear in search results, but if they do, they can have a positive influence on your CTR and traffic.
It really depends on your business, your market and who you are trying to reach.
In this regard, here is a tip to better understand your audience: check out our interactive generator and build your buyer persona to know every aspect of your ideal customers!