Ever notice how many larger companies have their logo or a similar icon show up next to their URL in your browser. That icon is called a Favicon. It’s just another way of branding all interactions that customers have with your company. Little details like this may not be a big detail to most people and prevent someone from buying from you. However, having lots of little details like this in place give you a very professional appearance and reassure potential customers.
So how do you get that favicon on your small business website or blog? Well if you’re a “do-it-yourself” business owner here’s a little tip for you.
- If your logo is similar to ours, you won’t want to use the whole thing. It won’t be legible once you shrink it to 1/2 a centimeter. Instead use an icon from your logo, the first letter of your company name or perhaps a symbol that can represent your company, products or services. Warning: Do not use a photo or symbol with many colors, the detail will be lost when shrunk. Two colors are best.
- Once you have your image shrink it down to 16 pixels x 16 pixels using a program like Photoshop or a service that resizes images online like shrinkpictures.com. With this service you can’t select an exact size, so you may need to play with the percentages. Save your image as a gif, jpg, png, and bmp.
- Next you will need to convert your image to an .ico format using an easy converting tool at DynamicDrive.com
- Finally save your file to your site via your FTP and save it in the httpdocs directory (or folder). If you have a blog, follow this path to find the right folder httpdocs/public_html/wp-content/themes/(the theme you are currently using) and drop the favicon.ico into your current theme’s folder.
