How to Easily Add Emojis to Your SEO Title in WordPress

Emojis can make your search result more noticeable and give searchers another reason to pause and look.

The tricky part is knowing when Google will keep it and whether using emojis is actually worth it. In this guide, we’ll show you how to add emojis to WordPress SEO titles, along with what you need to know about how Google handles them.

Here’s everything we’ll cover in this guide:

How to Add Emojis to Your SEO Titles

Emojis can help you make your SEO titles stand out in Google search results, and when done right, it increases the likelihood of your articles get clicked.

Aside from showing emojis in the meta tags, Google also supports emoji search queries directly. You can try typing ‘🍕recipe’ into the search bar and you’ll find results containing the ‘🍕’ emoji.

The easiest way to add an emoji to your SEO title is with the free AIOSEO plugin. It comes with an emoji picker directly in the Post Title and Meta Description fields. Yoast SEO keeps its emoji picker in the Premium plan. 

We use AIOSEO on WPBeginner, and it includes plenty of other SEO tools. For this guide, though, we’ll just use its emoji picker. For more details on getting the plugin installed, see our guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation, go to ‘Posts’ (or ‘Pages’) in your WordPress dashboard, find the post you want to update, and click ‘Edit.’ Alternatively, you can click Posts » Add Post to create a new article

Scroll down the content editor until you reach the ‘AIOSEO Settings’ tab.

Above the ‘Post Title’ field, click the emoji icon to browse available emojis.

You can also use the search box to find a specific one.

Once you’ve found the emoji you want, make sure it’s positioned the way you want in the title, and then click ‘Save’ or ‘Publish’ to update the changes in the article.

That’s it.

You’ve successfully added an emoji to your SEO title.

How to Add Emojis to Your SEO Title Without Switching Plugins

If you’re already using another SEO plugin, such as Yoast SEO or Rank Math, you can add an emoji directly to your SEO title field using your computer’s built-in emoji picker.

On Windows, press ‘Windows + . (period)’ to open the built-in emoji picker. On Mac, press ‘Cmd + Ctrl + Space,’ or go to Edit » Emoji & Symbols from the menu bar.

Click an emoji to insert it into your SEO title. You can also use the search box to find a specific emoji.

Will Google Actually Show Your Emoji? (Reality Check)

Google removed emojis from search snippets entirely in 2015, citing abuse from webmasters stuffing them into titles for attention. Google brought emojis back in 2017, but only where relevant, useful and fun.

In other words, adding an emoji to your SEO title doesn’t guarantee that Google will show it in search results. Google decides whether to display it based on the query and context.

Best Practices for Using Emojis in SEO Titles

Emojis in your title don’t affect your search rankings, but they can bring the user’s attention to your search listing on Google. For best results, run through these ground rules to pick an emoji that earns the click:

• Don’t use emojis to replace words: No matter how clear an emoji seems to you, it forces readers to interpret meaning instead of just reading it. Use it as a visual accent, not a substitute.
• Use clear, unambiguous emojis: Stick to ones that are widely recognized. Anything that could be read two ways works against you.
• Pick emojis that read on both light and dark backgrounds: Google’s results follow the searcher’s device theme, so a pale emoji can vanish on a light page and a dark one can vanish on a dark page. This is especially relevant for SEO titles, since that’s the space competing for attention.
• Mind your character budget: If the emoji pushes your primary keyword past that cutoff, Google is more likely to truncate or rewrite the title.

Frequently Asked Questions About Using Emojis in WordPress

Here are some of the frequently asked questions about using emojis in SEO titles.

Do Emojis Go Before or After Your Title?

Putting an emoji before your title can hurt the experience for anyone using a screen reader. The software reads the emoji’s text description aloud (like “Pizza Slice”) before your actual headline, which can distract from your main topic. Place emojis after the core title text instead.

Why Isn’t My Emoji Showing in Google?

Google filters emojis it considers irrelevant or spammy for a given query, and it doesn’t display them consistently even when they’re relevant. This is the same selective filtering covered in the reality check section above. It’s normal, and it’s not something a plugin setting can force.

Why Won’t My Post Save With an Emoji in the Title?

This usually means your database is on an older character set that can’t store 4-byte Unicode characters, which is what emojis are. WordPress has used the utf8mb4 character set by default since version 4.2, but sites migrated from older installs sometimes get left on the older utf8 setting.

Our beginner’s guide to WordPress database management can walk you through updating it.

We hope you found this tutorial helpful. You might also want to check out our ultimate WordPress SEO guide for beginners or see our pick of the must have WordPress plugins for business websites.

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