I notice more and more when I visit websites and blogs that there is no Favicon. I also notice that the big-gun websites always have a Favicon and for good reason. A Favicon is the ideal venue to website branding and website promotion.

What is a favicon? A favicon is short for “favorites icon”, also known as a page icon that is associated with a particular website or blog. A favicon is a customized icon for your site and it appears next to your website name by the url in the address bar, title tab, and next to the website name in bookmarks.

FAVICONS IN BROWSERS and TITLE BARS:

FAVICONS IN BOOKMARKS:

WEBSITE PROMOTION AND BRANDING with FAVICONS:

A Favicon makes your site stand out. If you look at the screenshot of my bookmarks, it is easy to identify those websites that have a favicon (circled in red). When I search through my bookmarks, I don’t even read the site name, I can easily click on what I need by memory through the respective Favicon and that is ideal for website promotion.

Conversely the sites marked with the black X do not have a favicon and so those sites are not easily identifiable because only a generic little white page icon shows up that blends into the background and no custom image is associated for those sites.

Overall humans are very visual, company images or logos are an essential part of any marketing campaign. The same goes for Internet Marketing, where logos are used to brand a website and for website promotion.

Just like a logo, a favicon helps your website’s brandability and promotion by associating a specific image with your website. But, while the logo is only visible on your site, a Favicon takes it further because the favicon shows up in the address bar, in the title bar and most importantly in bookmarks.

Also, if you comment on blogs and participate in forums, as you should be for traffic and link building, then you can use your Favicon as your Avatar and/or Gravatar, this will further help in site branding and website promotion by giving a large amount of exposure to your websites through an image.

I strongly recommend you get favicons for all your sites and blogs, if you have a logo then the Favicon should be your logo. If you do not have a logo then the favicon could be anything you want, but it’s best to create something that matches your site theme.

You can easily create a free and customized Favicon at:

Favicon Generator and Gallery – Create your Own Image using a Paint Program and turn it into a Favicon with this free online tool, complete instructions provided. (This is the one I used for the Favicon on this blog).

Favicon from Pics - Create Favicons from your picture files, such as jpegs. This Favicon creator has options for scrolling marquee and animation of the Favicon.

Favicon.ru – Create Favicons from picture files, such as jpegs.

Now go and get your Favicon!!