Have you ever considered using emojis in website design? For many of us, the answer has been no, never. Certainly they’re too casual for proper design, right? Maybe not.

Emojis do a certain job better than words can: they convey emotion and non-verbal cues. This effortless ability can represent a true value in situations where copywriters can often struggle to properly convey tone and intent with written text.

Making the Case For Emojis 💬

In an era where digital communication is becoming increasingly dominant, businesses (and their websites) simply cannot afford miscommunications.

Vik Verma, CEO of unified communications platform company 8x8 Vik Verma explains in an interview with Forbes how emojis have become useful in professional settings: 

“Plain and simple, emojis help employees communicate more effectively with each other. They can indicate tone that might otherwise be misconstrued and can boost credibility. What’s really important is getting your message across as clearly as possible, and if emojis can help with that, then go right ahead."

Are Emojis Right for Your Site? 👀

If emojis are commonplace and even used professionally in business communications, are they right in website design? It depends.

Emojis can certainly be viewed as informal. If the personality of your brand is NOT informal, use of emojis may not send the right message to site visitors. However, for sites where playfulness, whimsey or culture-rich branding is in play, emojis can be fair game.

And as you’ll find later in this article, emojis can also be useful in more fundamental ways such as SEO, meta tags, and drawing the focus of shoppers.

Let’s look at some use cases for emojis in website design…

Examples

✨ Headlines

Adding an emoji to a headline can convey a gesture that is instantly recognized as friendly, familiar and human.

📄 Page Navigation

Combining emojis with site navigation can reinforce the purpose and direction of a nav item. Consider using emojis in your site nav to highlight certain levels of navigation in multi-level page structures or to add clarity to pages that may feel vague in the context of your site structure.

👑 Bullet Points

It seems so obvious when you see it in practice! Using emojis in place of bullets help visitors clearly understand the purpose of a list item at a glance. Try it in tables as well!.

📖 Page Titles

Browsing the web with multiple tabs open is simply a way of life these days. Draw attention to your tab effortlessly with an emoji that relates to your site’s subject.

🏷 Page Meta Tags

Browsing the web with multiple tabs open is simply a way of life these days. Draw attention to your tab effortlessly with an emoji that relates to your site’s subject.

How to Use Emojis in Blinki 🖥

Mac

Press Command + Control + Space, then select your emoji.

Windows

Press Windows logo key + . (period), then select your emoji.

Online Resources

Visit an online library such as emoji.muan.co, then select your emoji.

Notes

• In this article, we referenced adding emojis to text editors in the Blinki builder. But keep in mind that emojis can be added to most any place text can be entered – such as page titles or page meta fields.
• The size of an emoji is determined by the font size used in the text editor.