A favicon is a custom icon that sits next to your web site title in a persons favourite's menu when they have bookmarked your site, it is an easy way to create an 'eye drawing image' to ensure that people always see you link in their favourite's and should hopefully encourgae them to check out that 'great site that they haven't visited yet today!'
This is a quick guide that will provide instructions on how to create one for your site, it really is very easy and will help to create a extra tool to maintain your site in the customers mind.
All it takes is four easy steps...
1) Choose an image that you would like to use to represent your web site. Most people use a small version of their logo but you can use any image that you want. I would advise however that you choose an image that is reflective of your web sites theme and an image that will still remain recognisable when the size is dropped to 16 x 16 pixels.
2) Take your chosen image, which should be as high a quality as you can get, in .JPG or .GIF format and convert your image to the 256 color Web Safe Palette or the Windows 16 color format. This can very easily be done in most graphics packages and as a guideline I would say that the less colours you use the better so as to maintain image clarity and professionalism.
3) Using your graphics package, reduce the image down to 16 x 16 pixels, at this point you need to ensure that you preserve the image resolution. This is a key factor as a larger image that has been reduced can loose all clarity and just become a tacky blob, is this how you want your web site remembered? The key here is to keep perservering until you are happy with the finished icon and it is a great advertisement for the professionalism, and the theme, of your web site.
4) Once you are happy with your completed icon you need to save it as "Favicon.ico". This is the default name that web browsers, such as Internet Explorer, look for. This file then needs to be copied to the root directory of your web site and then whenever a customer bookmarks your site your image is cached and will display when they use their favourites menu.
This can very easily be tested by clearing your cache and re-bookmarking your site and 'hey presto' your new shiny, professional and eye drawing favicon will appear next to your site title and will also appear in the address bar of your browser.
This is just another simple trick that aims to get you 'thinking outside the box' when it comes to developing your website presence and reminding your customers to come and re-visit your web site.
Mike - Forum Webmaster at
Online Auction Trader - a community forum dedicated to developing you a sustainable, profitable and long term online income.
