How to Easily Add Emojis to Your SEO Title in WordPress

Do you want your website to stand out in Google search results?

Adding emojis to your SEO titles is a simple way to grab attention and get more clicks. At WPBeginner, we use them to make our headlines pop against the plain white background of search pages.

In this guide, I will show you how to easily add emojis to your SEO title in WordPress.

How to Add Emojis to Your SEO Title in WordPress

Why Add Emojis to Your SEO Titles?

Emojis are small digital icons used to communicate emotions, objects, activities, and other concepts. They can either replace text or enhance the message, giving it more meaning.

On a page filled with words, colorful and bright emojis help your page stand out.

By using emojis, you draw attention to your page and make your brand seem more human, attracting your target audience and boosting click-through rates.

While increasing your CTR isn’t guaranteed to help you rank better on Google, getting more traffic to your website is always a good thing.

That’s not the only reason. Search engines also support search queries with emojis. Try typing ‘🍕recipe’ into Google’s search bar.

You’ll find search results containing the ‘🍕’ emoji because Google recognizes the emoji in the search query and looks for pages that match that specific content.

How to Use Emojis in Your SEO Titles

Emojis can negatively impact your click-through rates and SEO if they are seen as misleading or spammy.

Before you start embedding emojis all over your titles, there are some ground rules to follow:

Consider your audience: Emojis work better for some niches than others. For example, including emojis on a recipe page for the best cocktails to make in the summer might be appropriate. However, adding a heart or syringe to a page related to health care may hurt your brand’s reputation.
Don’t use emojis to replace words: No matter how clear or descriptive your emojis are, they should never replace words because users are forced to interpret the meaning of the emoji instead of being told.
Use clear emojis: Avoid ambiguous emojis that people can misinterpret. Instead, stick to simple ones that are widely known to all audiences.
Use emojis that work on both light and dark backgrounds: Don’t use light emojis on a light background. For example, a yellow hand emoji works better on light backgrounds than a white hand emoji. This is especially important for SEO titles since Google’s default results background is plain white.

Now that you know how to use emojis responsibly, you are ready to begin using them on your web pages.

Here is the step-by-step guide on how to do it.

How to Add Emojis to Your SEO Titles

Adding emojis to your titles is incredibly easy once you have a good plugin. Without it, you might have to leave your post editor to find and copy emojis from another website, which breaks your workflow.

The first step to adding emojis to your SEO titles is using the free All in One SEO plugin.

AIOSEO offers on-page analysis so you can optimize your blogs to rank higher in search results. You can also use the built-in emoji picker to add emojis to your SEO titles.

AIOSEO also comes with an SEO checklist tool, a link assistant, and many other features that can help you optimize your website and boost your rankings.

Over the past couple of years, we’ve been using this plugin to improve our site’s SEO, and we’ve since seen a noticeable increase in both our rankings and traffic. To learn more about our experience, see our AIOSEO review.

Start by installing the AIOSEO plugin. For more details, you can follow our step-by-step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Once that’s done, you are ready to edit your blog posts and pages and add emojis to your SEO title.

Edit Your SEO Title

Optimizing your metadata is super simple with the AIOSEO plugin. In the left-hand menu of the WordPress admin dashboard, select Posts.

You can also do this for pages on your WordPress blog, but for this tutorial, we are just going to edit a post as an example.

Find the blog post you’d like to update. Then click the ‘Edit’ link. If you have both the Block and Classic editors enabled, then either will work.

Simply scroll down the WordPress content editor until you get to the ‘AIOSEO Settings’ tab.

From there, you can edit the post title field.

Choose Your Emoji and Add It

Now, you are ready to add your emoji to your metadata. To do that, scroll down a little further below the AIOSEO Settings.

Under Post Title, click on the emoji icon next to the tags in each field.

It’ll open up a window with a selection of emojis for you to choose from.

Browse through and insert emojis of your choice, or just use the search bar to find what you are looking for.

Lastly, make sure to hit ‘Update/Publish.’

After that, the emoji will appear in the SEO title and be displayed in search results.

Now, select your emoji of choice, and that’s it! Congratulations, you’ve just added emojis to your SEO title!

Frequently Asked Questions About Using Emojis in WordPress

Now that you know how to add emojis to your SEO titles, you may have a few more questions about how to effectively use emoticons to enhance your WordPress website.

How Do You Add Emojis to HTML Titles?

In the past, you needed special codes to add emojis to HTML. However, modern websites use character encoding that allows you to simply copy and paste the emoji directly inside the title tag. That said, using an SEO plugin is still the safest and easiest method for WordPress users.

Do Emojis Affect SEO?

Google says you can use emojis in your SEO pages, including titles, but it won’t help or harm your search rankings in any way. However, emojis indirectly help your SEO efforts by improving click-through rates.

Emojis can humanize your brand, and if users spend more time on your site or interact with your content, these signals could boost your search ranking position.

Do Emojis Go Before or After Your Title?

Using emojis before the title can give a bad user experience, especially for anyone using a screen reader. The software will read the emoji’s text description aloud (like ‘Pizza Slice’) before your actual headline, which can distract users from your main topic.

How do I add emojis to my WordPress blog?

For Windows, you can press the Windows + . (Period) shortcut keys on your keyboard. For Mac, you can simply go to the menu bar at the top of the screen and click Edit » Emoji & Symbols.