If A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words,
Then Favicon Is Where It's At!
Recently, many of you using
Internet Explorer 5.0 (and higher) may have noticed a new trend sweeping the Web.
It's the latest craze in name and logo recognition, and while it's certainly not
going to make you millions of dollars, it's probably worth taking note of.
What am I talking about?
Favicon!
Favicon stands for "Favorite
Icon" and is a customized icon image that you can use to ensure that your web
site stands out from the crowd. They appear as customized icons in a number
of places, chiefly in the bookmarked addresses under "Favorites" and in the location
bar, in place of the generic Internet Explorer logo (i.e. the page with the "e"
on it).
How does it work?
It's simple! Every time
someone bookmarks you web site, your customized icon will be displayed in their
Favorites folder in place of the generic Internet Explorer logo. You see, Internet
Explorer 5.X has been specially programmed to automatically seek out the Favicon
file whenever it is asked to bookmark a page. It is a function that cannot
be turned off and is completely transparent to the browser. Therefore, if you
do not have a Favicon file for your web site, your server logs will register the
"favicon.ico not found" error each time that someone using an Internet
Explorer 5.X browser bookmarks you.
The beauty of this is that
your site becomes much more noticeable among the other bookmarks… a feature that
may help you to draw more repeat visitors. Unfortunately, right now only
Internet Explorer 5.X supports Favicons. Neither Netscape users nor Mac users
(You Mac users always seem to get the short end of the stick, don’t you ?!) have
access to this funky feature. However, don't be too quick to dismiss the usefulness
of this tool. Almost a quarter of all surfers are currently using Internet Explorer
5.X… a fairly significant percentage!
So where will your icon
appear? There are six possibilities:
The Favorites directory
of the visitor's browser. Here your icon is sure to catch a few eyes among the
list of generic Internet Explorer icons.
The Favorites directory
located off the Windows start button.
In the location bar.
Imagine how professional this will look! Every little bit counts, right?
On the desktop.
If the visitor bookmarks the site, holds down the control key, right clicks on
the bookmark, then drags it to the desktop, the icon will be copied there as a
shortcut.
On the taskbar.
Again, if the visitor bookmarks the site, holds down the control key, right clicks
on the bookmark and drags it to the task bar, the icon will be copied there.
On the links bar.
As with the desktop and taskbar, if the visitor bookmarks the site, holds down
the control key, right clicks on the bookmark and drags it to the Links Toolbar,
it copies the icon and title there.
Creating your own Favicon
is a pretty easy process. First, you'll need to design your icon. Because the
recommended image size is 16X16 pixels, you should keep the detail to a minimum
and use only a few colors.
You'll need to make a file
called "favicon.ico" in authentic icon format. It is important to note that an
icon file is not a bitmap, and a bitmap file cannot be renamed with an .ico extension.
It just won't work. However, you can use a Bitmap to Icon converter called "Bitmap
to Icon" (original, huh?!). It's freeware, so it won't cost you a cent and you'll
be able to convert any bitmaps that you currently have. To check it out, go to:
http://www.clickfire.com/viewpoints/articles/favicons.php
At Favicon.com they provide
a FREE Online Icon Generator that you can use to design your icons. They
also have an advanced shareware program called "Icon-Forge Favicon.com Edition"
which allows you to import images and add effects. You can download both of these
programs at http://www.favicon.com
Some other software options
for creating your icon are:
Microangelo - a
shareware program that allows you to create icons right to the screen or to create
a 16X16 in Photoshop, save it as a .gif, open it in Microangelo, and then save
it as an icon. Your trial version of Microangelo can be obtained at http://www.impactsoft.com
Iccedit by Great Owl
Software - a shareware program that is dedicated to icon creation. This fully
featured icon design program allows you to create top notch icons. They offer
a 21 day free trial. Check it out at http://www.greatowl.com
After you've created your
icon and named it correctly (favicon.ico), you have a few choices:
You can place a copy of
your icon in the root directory of your site where most of your pages likely reside.
If you have a large site
with multiple directories, you can place a copy of your icon in each directory.
You can place your Favicon
anywhere you like by including a LINK TAG within the "HEAD" section of your HTML
pages that looks like this:
You should
then be able to reach your icon by going to:
http://www.yourdomainname.com/favicon.ico
It's probably best to place
a copy of your icon in each directory that contains pages as well as in your root
directory because Internet Explorer 5.X will first look for the Favicon in the
current directory of the page the visitor is bookmarking. This way, it's guaranteed
that Internet Explorer 5.X will grab the icon.
So, as you can see, Favicon
is a pretty great tool. While Mac Users and loyal Netscape fans cannot view the
customized icons, the significant number of Internet Explorer 5.X users make it
worth the bit of extra effort. Favicons can not only help you gain name and logo
recognition, they exude a kind of professionalism that will highlight your site
among the generic Internet Explorer icons. While this technique isn't likely to
cause a sudden sweeping wave of traffic to your site, it may very well help you
draw a few more repeat visitors… giving you another opportunity to make your sale!
Considering how little effort this takes, it may be well worth your time!
And for those of you who
would like to update your browser to Internet Explorer 5.01, go to:
Then check out a few Favicons
for yourself by bookmarking us, here at the Internet Marketing Center (http://marketingtips.com),
Yahoo! (http://www.yahoo.com),
or MSN (http://www.msn.com).
Once you've done this, take a look at the location bar and the favorites menu
in your browser to see exactly how big a difference a customized icon can make!
