As a website owner, you have a lot of elements to deal with in your website that sometimes you overlook the small, intricate details that can make a big impact on your online presence. One of these elements is favicon, a tiny detail that can boost your website’s visibility and user trust. Without this small element, your website might look incomplete, and users might struggle to search for your site among their browser tabs.
Discover how to make a favicon that will help you enhance your website design, improve your SEO, and make your brand stand out in the highly competitive online marketplace.
What Is a Favicon?
A favicon, short for “favorite icon,” is a small icon that represents your website or web page displayed in the browser tab, bookmark list, and address bar when your website is being opened. Its size is commonly 16×16 pixels, but browsers, operating systems, and devices may require different sizes to display it optimally.
Here are some of the common favicon sizes:
- 16×16 pixels: standard size for most browsers.
- 32×32 pixels: used for higher-resolution displays and taskbar icons.
- 48×48 pixels: used by some browsers like Chrome.
- 96×96 pixels: used for desktop shortcuts and higher-resolution devices.
- 180×180 pixels: used for Apple devices like iPhones and iPads.
Providing multiple icon sizes allows browsers and devices to select the most appropriate one for the specific display. This ensures that your favicon will always look clear and sharp, regardless of the device used or screen resolution.
Why Are Favicons Important?
Most of the time, favicons are overlooked. However, you need to remember that these little elements play a big role in enhancing your website’s overall user experience and brand recognition. Here’s why they are significant:
User Experience
Favicons helps users easily identify and navigate back to your site. A recognizable favicon helps users quickly find your site in their bookmarks, or among multiple opened tabs. It ensures a seamless browsing experience which helps enhance user satisfaction.
Brand Consistency and Recognition
Favicons serves as your visual identifier online. It helps your customers easily recognize your website among multiple open tabs or bookmarks. This consistency strengthens your brand identity and establishes trustworthiness.
An example of this is the well-recognized favicons like Google and Amazon, which instantly convey authority and trust.
Professionalism
A well-designed favicon also adds a touch of professionalism to your website, making it appear more polished and credible online. It gives your website a complete look, as visitors often associate the presence of a favicon with a credible and well-maintained website. Favicons also demonstrates your attention to detail and commitment to providing a quality user experience.
SEO Benefits
While it’s not a direct ranking factor, favicons can indirectly contribute to SEO since they enhance your website’s overall appearance and user experience, which search engines consider. The better your site’s design and UX are, the more your viewers stay and explore. This tells search engines that your site is relevant so that it will rank your website higher on the results page.
How To Make a Favicon: A Step-by-step Guide
Creating a favicon isn’t too complicated. Here’s a breakdown of how you can ensure your favicon serves its purpose effectively.
Step 1: Design Your Favicon
Are you worried about designing your favicon? No need to worry. Here are three factors you want to keep an eye on in designing your favicon:
- Simplicity: A great favicon doesn’t need to be grand and too stylish. For it to be identified easily, you can go for a minimalist and easily identifiable favicon. Choose simple shapes, your logo, or a single letter that represents your brand. Complex designs can reduce clarity when it’s scaled down, and users might not be able to identify your favicon easily.
- File formats: Use icon file format (ICO) for full compatibility with all browsers or portable network graphics (PNG) for a sharper and more modern design. For a detailed description:
- ICO files can contain multiple images of different sizes which allows favicons to be scaled appropriately for various screen resolutions. It is also often used on Windows desktops, in the Start menu, and in the file explorer. This can be used as a favicon but is often less preferred than PNG due to its complexity.
- PNG, on the other hand, supports transparency, which allows images with transparent backgrounds – something that is ideal for favicons. PNG offers good image quality at various compression levels.
- Tools: To easily create your favicon, you can utilize free tools such as Favicon.io or Canva. These platforms help you create or upload a design, customize colors, and instantly download your favicon.
Step 2: Size and Optimize Your Favicon
Now that you have an idea of how to design your favicon let’s proceed to the specific size so you can optimize your favicon:
- Ideal dimensions: As mentioned, there are various standard sizes for favicons. You can create your favicon in multiple sizes so you can accommodate different devices and browsers. To be sure, you can make favicons in 16×16, 32×32, and 48×48 pixels so you can ensure that it displays correctly.
- Compression: Compressing your favicon reduces its file size which makes it load faster for your website. Fast loading times lead to an enhanced user experience which can positively impact your website’s search engine rankings. To help you compress your favicon without compromising its quality, you can use tools TinyPNG or Squoosh for free.
- Mobile optimization: Around 95.8% of internet users nowadays use mobile phones to access the Internet, which means it would be best to optimize your favicon for mobile browsers. This ensures your favicon is clear and legible on smaller mobile screens. You can also optimize your favicon for high-resolution retina displays to provide a sharp and crisp visual experience.
Step 3: Add Favicon to Your Website
Now that your favicon is ready and optimized, it’s now ready to be added to your website. Here are the simple steps to guide you in adding your favicon to your website:
- Manual method (HTML): You can add your favicon using a manual method (HTML). Don’t worry; while the manual method involves editing hypertext markup language (HTML) code, it’s a relatively simple task. Here’s a breakdown of what you need to do:
- Find the <head> section. This is located at the top of your HTML file.
- Copy and paste the provided code snippet into the <head> section.
- Replace the path by updating the <href> attribute with the correct path to your favicon file.
If you’re unsure about editing HTML code directly, you can use a code editor like Visual Studio Code to make it easier to edit HTML files. You can also consult your web hosting provider so they can assist you in adding a favicon to your website.
- For CMS platforms: Most CMS platforms make it easy to upload your favicon. Log in to your account and go to Appearance > Customize > Site Identity. From there, you can upload your favicon image under the “Site Icon” section.
Troubleshooting Common Favicon Issues
You already have uploaded your favicon, but you might encounter issues when you’re testing it. Don’t panic! Listed below are some troubleshooting tips should favicon issues arise after you upload it:
Favicon not Showing
If your favicon doesn’t appear immediately, clear your cache, check the file format, and inspect the code. Sometimes, your browser caches old files, which makes it have slow load times.
Once you clear your browser’s cache, it will refresh the page and display the updated favicon. If clearing the browser doesn’t help, double-check the file format of your favicon. Ensure that it is saved in a compatible format (.io or .png), and that the file path in your HTML code is correct.
Cross-browser Compatibility
To ensure that your favicon displays correctly in major browsers like Chrome, Firefox, and Safari, perform a series of tests across multiple platforms. Make sure to use standard file formats, and if you run into trouble with a specific browser, look for browser-specific solutions.
For example, if your favicon isn’t displaying in Internet explorer, you might need to use a specific HTML tag or provide a different file format for this browser. These solutions can vary depending on the browser and specific problem you’re facing.
Mobile Display Problems
Remember to provide multiple sizes for your favicons, and make their design simple and clear, especially for smaller screens. To ensure it runs smoothly, test your website across different mobile devices to check if your favicon displays correctly.
Advanced Favicon Tips
You’ve gotten all the basics down at this point, but to go above the rest, here are some useful and helpful favicon tips to remember:
Design Favicons for Dark Mode and Light Mode
Aside from making sure to create multiple sizes for favicons, don’t forget to design a favicon that will work well in both light and dark mode. Don’t forget to test your favicon in different themes and modes to ensure its optimal visibility.
Implement Dynamic Favicons
Dynamic favicons are a clever way to incorporate interactivity to your website. This enables you to display real-time information like unread notifications or live scores. Applying this will significantly enhance user engagement and provide a more exciting web experience.
Optimize Favicons for SEO Best Practices
Adding a descriptively named favicon file, “brandname-favicon.ico,” helps search engines associate your favicon with your site’s branding. To add, designing your favicon based on your logo will strengthen brand recognition, build trust, and enhance your website’s credibility to in both search engines and internet users.
Level up Your Website With a Customized Favicon
Favicons may be a small detail for your website, but they play a significant role that can contribute to your user experience, brand consistency, professionalism, and SEO.
With this guide, you can create a favicon that will improve your website’s design and also build trust among your customers and potential clients.
