Unicode is a coding standard that includes a set of different characters from all languages of the world. You can also display various icons using it. We regularly meet with them on social networks and messengers in the form of emoticons and icons. Special characters Unicode and HTML are also called emojis, although they can mean not only emotions, but also just individual words and phrases.
In addition to social networks, such badges are used when designing Title and Description. And that is what we will talk about in the article.
Content:
- Using special characters in a meta tag
- Table of special characters and emojis for snippets
- Conclusions
Use of special characters in meta tags
Special characters do not directly affect the SEO movement. They are not counted in search engine ranking algorithms. But their presence in Description (less often in Title) allows you to attract the attention of users and increase CTR clickability. That is, only indirectly, but has an impact on the position of the site in extradition.
For icons in the stench to benefit, you must adhere to simple but important rules:
- Use special characters to the extent. A large number of icons scares users away. In addition, the search engine may find Description irrelevant and pull in a more suitable text.
- Insert emojis according to page theme. Special characters have conditional values. Some of them are unambiguous and understandable for everyone, some may have several meanings, some of them are not obvious to everyone. Whatever icon you use, it is important that it is directly related to what is written in the meta tag. For example, it is logical to insert an airplane into the description of the travel site, and for the online shoe store - a shoe.
- Make sure the icon is displayed correctly in the issue. Not all emojis and other Unicode icons can be used in snippets. For example, in Yandex, special characters are usually not displayed. Google is more loyal to the presence of badges in the issue, but here often instead of the special symbol specified in the settings, you can see a question mark or an empty square.
To find out which icons and emotions are displayed on Google, you can:
- search for emoji options in Description manually in the results of the release of Google;
- copy special characters for description from special tables of Unicode, paste them into the search bar and check how they will be displayed;
- use the Saney.ru service. It does not give a 100 % guarantee, but often helps to cope with the task.
Table of special characters and emojis for snippets
In the table of special characters for Title and Description, we broke down by topic for your convenience.
Smiley, gestures, emotions
Wardrobe items
Weather and natural phenomena
Plants and animals
Checkers and crosses
Geometric shapes
Arrows
Figures
Various items, transport, telephones, letters
Conclusions
Emoji and Unicode badges will help highlight the snippets and attract the attention of the target audience. But using them makes sense only if you make a logical selection in advance and check the correct display in the search output.
In the process, special characters are most often used in the description. To do this, the corresponding code must be inserted into the Description page settings.
How do you feel about using emojis in snippets?