Smartphones have literally changed our world of communication. With all the chat options and acronyms, GIFs, emojis, etc. our sense of language has changed a lot and is evolving day by day.

If you think about emojis, well they are nothing but small images mostly similar to icons which are known for their capability to convey meanings in a graphical way.

Technically, it’s nothing but Unicode art which is definitely more than just facial expressions.

Should you have Emoji on a WordPress site?

Although using emoji definitely gives us fun and allows us to express our mind in a different way, but do you really need to have emoji on your WordPress and use them as well?

Well, let’s see the benefits that you can get and the consequences you have to go through and then you can decide whether to use emoji or not.

Advantages

• Emojis help in quick communication. Certainly helps in shortening the text and can be helpful in expressing your thoughts in a graphical manner as well.
• Emojis are certainly appealing to the millennial or if you would like to call them as the young generation.
• Irrespective of the fact that your user base is of young age or not, emoji is a well-known language throughout the globe and should be available on your site for the benefit of your users.
• Having a visual component right beside your text can be engaging.
• Using the right emoji can make your content really interesting.

Consequences

• In case your targeted user group does not include young audiences using emojis might backfire.
• It might isolate your content as your emojis might target a specific part of your audience.
• Since emojis and smileys are not optimized images, they might cause serious performance issue if used on WordPress sites.
• Certain emojis do not display in same format on every device which might cause confusion or problem amongst your users.
• The all new Gutenberg editor on WordPress does not support any of the emoji plugins, so having them on your website won’t make any difference.

So, as you can understand that there are benefits of having emojis on your website and there are problems that you might have to deal with as well.

It is totally up to you to decide whether you want to use emojis or not.

How you can add Emoji to any WordPress site?

In our daily communication, we get to face emojis everyday, but when it comes adding them to your WordPress website, you are not going to get it in a box.

You have to know where you can get them and how you can use them.

There are technically several ways in which you can add emojis to your WordPress website.

Copy – Paste

In this method, you will have to find the right emoji that you want for you website.

Once you choose one, copy it from the source, and paste it on your website or where you want to put it.

There are multiple options available online from where you can easily choose the emojis that you wish to use on your website.

Code it if you can

As you learned earlier, emojis are nothing but Unicode ats. So, it’s obvious that you can code them in.

/**
 * Disable the emoji's
 */
function disable_emojis() {
 remove_action( 'wp_head', 'print_emoji_detection_script', 7 );
 remove_action( 'admin_print_scripts', 'print_emoji_detection_script' );
 remove_action( 'wp_print_styles', 'print_emoji_styles' );
 remove_action( 'admin_print_styles', 'print_emoji_styles' ); 
 remove_filter( 'the_content_feed', 'wp_staticize_emoji' );
 remove_filter( 'comment_text_rss', 'wp_staticize_emoji' ); 
 remove_filter( 'wp_mail', 'wp_staticize_emoji_for_email' );
 add_filter( 'tiny_mce_plugins', 'disable_emojis_tinymce' );
 add_filter( 'wp_resource_hints', 'disable_emojis_remove_dns_prefetch', 10, 2 );
}
add_action( 'init', 'disable_emojis' );

/**
 * Filter function used to remove the tinymce emoji plugin.
 * 
 * @param array $plugins 
 * @return array Difference betwen the two arrays
 */
function disable_emojis_tinymce( $plugins ) {
 if ( is_array( $plugins ) ) {
 return array_diff( $plugins, array( 'wpemoji' ) );
 } else {
 return array();
 }
}

/**
 * Remove emoji CDN hostname from DNS prefetching hints.
 *
 * @param array $urls URLs to print for resource hints.
 * @param string $relation_type The relation type the URLs are printed for.
 * @return array Difference betwen the two arrays.
 */
function disable_emojis_remove_dns_prefetch( $urls, $relation_type ) {
 if ( 'dns-prefetch' == $relation_type ) {
 /** This filter is documented in wp-includes/formatting.php */
 $emoji_svg_url = apply_filters( 'emoji_svg_url', 'https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/2/svg/' );

$urls = array_diff( $urls, array( $emoji_svg_url ) );
 }

return $urls;
}

As a WordPress developer, whatever code editor you are using, it’s possible to find a way out to add emojis from that editor to your html pages.

Uploading Emoji

In this method, you will have to find out websites where you can get your desired emojis as formattable and resizable graphics.

This will allow you to save those emoji files and upload them as images on your WordPress.

Once done, you can easily use them as and when you want.

There are plenty of websites where you can find emojis in this kind of graphical format and they are available for download as well.

Other than these, you can even add emoji plugins to your WordPress.

This will give you easy access to every single emoji you wish to add and you won’t have to go through a long procedure every time.

Using Plugin

With plugins installed on your WordPress you will be able to add emojis on your post and pages any time you need.

Most importantly, you won’t have to worry about finding a new emoji either.

Here is a list of emoji plugins that you can choose to use according to your need.

A. Native Emoji

With this plugin installed on your WordPress, it becomes really easy to work with the emojis.

In case your only goal is to use emoji on your post, page, or comments, then this plugin is the one that you need.

Setting up this plugin is really easy. All you need to do is enable the emoji
support on your WordPress.

Once done, you will have to choose another option that will keep the emoji dialogue box open even after you choose one emoji from the panel.

Although this emoji plugin does work with the comments, but remember that it will only work with the classic editor.

B. Rate My Post

This is another cool and worthy plugin available on WordPress.

If you are a developer and your client loves to post lots of content, then this rating emoji plugin is the best for him or her.

Setting up this emoji plugin is really easy; all the symbols are easy to recognize and the rating system is basic enough to be user friendly.

Not only does this plugin allow your users to put ratings but also asks for feedback in case of negative rating and comes with social media sharing suggestion as well.

C. Wise Chat Pro

This is a chat plugin for WordPress which is suitable for social networking.

The free version comes with a standard set of emojis which the users can choose to use while chatting with each other.

But if you want to use the pro version of this plugin, well, you can expect a really wonderful experience.

Once you get the pro version, you will be able to upload your customized set of emojis to your website.

This will ensure that your users will be able to use new and fresh emojis everyday.

If you can add customized emojis which will promote your brand, it will make network promotions easy for you.