What is a Favicon and why do I need one?

Favicons are the little thing you see on your Location bar (History/Address bar) when you visit a web site. For example, if you view a site through Internet Explorer, you see an “e” superimposed over a white piece of paper. The icon also shows up when you save the link in your Favorites folder.

There are many purposes for creating your own unique Favicon. For starters it makes your site more memorable and gives your customers a picture to identify your company with, much like a mini logo. Also it helps your site stand out and be more prominent in the list of hundreds of Favorite links. You want your customers to find your site quickly and easily; always seeing it when they open their Favorites folder. The more a customer sees and thinks of your site, the great your odds of converting a sale from them.

How do I create a Favicon?

You may download a freeware icon maker from the Internet at places like download.com or go to the dynamicdrive.com and use their free Favicon creator. Just make sure that whatever you do, make the icons dimension 16 X 16 pixels and in 8bit color for the best results.

Once you have the icon created insert into the HTML file above the <body> and below the <title> tags:

Then upload the image to your root directory. It’s that simple! If you’re not comfortable doing this on your own or do not understand our instructions, I welcome you to contactme and I will try to assist you!

Test your favicon file. In some cases your favicon may not appear when you test it. If you have this problem, following these steps:

Delete all current favorites to your Website.
Clear your History and Cache files.
Clear your Recycle Bin.
Restart (reboot) your PC.
Bookmark your site. Your Favicon should appear.

If you are not very artistic or wish to download a favicon, you can visit the sites below and download these icons for free:

Cool Archive and select from 4000 icons in 125 categories, this icon archive is one of the biggest and most complete collection on the net. These icons are available in both .ico (for your Website favicon) and .gif formats for your Webpage.

Leo’s Icon Archive. The Icon Archive is a collection of icon sets of over 7000 high quality icons in gif and ico format.

Pay attention to any readme files before using any free icons or graphics files. Some may have Copyright Disclaimers prohibiting the use for specific kinds of web sites or for anything other than personal use.