Small Business Websites

A favicon is short for ‘favorites icon.’ It is a small image displayed to the left of the web address when someone visits your site. For example, in the images below, you can see that Fluid Elements Web Design has a favicon of a leaf and Google has it’s famous G.

Favicons are an excellent way to help brand your business. Whenever someone bookmarks your site to their list of favorites, it will stand out, apart from the others. This makes it easy to find, identify and creates a branding in the mind of your customers, thus encouraging repeat visits to your website. Repeat visits mean more sales and that is your ultimate goal.

A favicon is like a mini logo that also serves as a visual shortcut or visual cue, allowing customers to quickly and easily click on the image they recognize without having to read all the text next to it. And that is exactly what branding is all about. People instantly recognize your ‘brand’, logo or favicon and know who you are. This begins building trust and credibility in the mind of your customers and they feel more comfortable buying from you or hiring your services.

Which in the list of bookmarks below catches your eye and makes you want to click?

As you can see above, without a favicon, you get just a default image of a piece of paper in Firefox or the ‘e’ logo in Microsoft’s Explorer browser.

When creating a favicon, your entire logo will likely not fit because the image is so small (16 x 16 pixels). A good favicon is clear and legible. You may choose just the first letter of your company name or a small image that reflects your business (like a cluster of grapes for a winery, or a hand weight for an exercise gym). Putting a favicon on your website is very simple, but something your webmaster must do. It requires converting the image to a favicon.ico file, inputting some HTML code and uploading it all to the server.

Open your bookmarks or favorites list right now. As you can see, many sites are not taking advantage of the power of a favicon, so be sure to mention to whomever designs your site that you want one and think about what it will look like. A smart marketer uses every available tool to his advantage. Now you’re a smart marketer too. Make your site memorable and easily identifiable from the start.

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