Does using emojis in meta-titles and meta-descriptions improve page rankings on Google? According to Google, emojis do not affect search engine visibility, but they can improve click-through rates because they stand out from the usual, boring meta-titles.
Adding an emoji to a title might look like this on Google. Below are two examples where I added a rose emoji and a flower emoji to the meta-title of two pages on my blog Slow Flower Garden. I noticed that the emojis did not appear at first, neither on mobile nor desktop, but after some time, they started appearing on mobile devices in Finland. Using emojis in titles and descriptions is not very common in Finland yet, in my opinion. I have not tested which title gets more clicks or if rankings improve, but it would be interesting to test this on a few pages with consistently high searches and on the front page.
Do emojis help with SEO?
Google says that using emojis in page titles and meta-descriptions is allowed, but it does not help with SEO and emojis may not always be displayed in search results, even if they are added to the meta-title and description. Google does not show emojis if they are disruptive or make the search result description misleading. However, using emojis in meta-data is allowed (Southern, M. G. 2022). Sometimes they can also be seen in Google search results, more often perhaps on English-language sites than on Finnish ones.
Can emojis improve click-through rates?
Anything visible in your search result snippet can affect search engine optimization performance either positively or negatively. Semrush tested whether using emojis in meta-descriptions affects SEO. The test results showed that the relevance of the emoji had a significant impact on the click-through rate. If a cocktail emoji was used on a cocktail page, the click-through rate was 11% better than without the emoji. If emoji-like “special character” notes were used in meta-descriptions of a music page, the click-through rate was 3% better than without these notes. Using the cocktail emoji in the titles of cocktail recipe pages or music notes in the meta-descriptions of a music store is relevant. A regular yellow smiling emoji on e-commerce pages, where it was not at all relevant to the page, did not affect the click-through rate. The emoji might have made the result stand out from other search results, but it did not encourage users to click on the search result more than usual. (Leemans, K. 2022)
Summary
Using emojis in meta-titles or descriptions can improve click-through rates if the emoji is relevant, but according to Google, using emojis in meta-titles and descriptions does not affect rankings on Google. Using emojis can be considered when the goal is to stand out from competitors and attract users to click on your search result. It is also important to ensure that the emojis are relevant and do not appear too distracting or unprofessional. Sometimes Google does not display the emoji, but it is more likely to appear in the mobile view than on the desktop view. As with all SEO – it is good to test different strategies and see what works for your site. I intend to test more flower emojis in meta-titles on my flower blog Slow Flower Garden.
Sources
Leemans, K. (2022, September 22). SEO Split Test Result: Will Adding Emojis to the Meta Description Help or Hurt Your SEO? Semrush Blog. https://www.semrush.com/blog/seo-test-result-will-adding-emojis-to-meta-description-help-or-hurt-your-seo/
Southern, M. G. (2022, February 1). Google Says Emojis Won’t Hurt Or Help SEO. Search Engine Journal. Retrieved May 7, 2023, from https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-says-emojis-wont-hurt-or-help-seo/436079/