How to Create a Favicon For Your Web Site
By Kalena Jordan
Ever see those little custom icons next to a web site
listing in your favorites folder or on your browser
address bar? Have you ever wondered how to create
one for your own site? Well I'm going to teach you in
this article.
The icons are called "favicons", a contraction of the
phrase "favorite icons". To see an example, go to Search
Engine College and bookmark the site (or add to
your "favorites" list). Now close your browser window
and open a new one. Click on your bookmarked sites or
favorites list and find the site you just bookmarked.
See the tiny mortarboard graphic next to the listing?
That's a favicon. It makes the site stand out from all
the others in your favorites list. If you click on that
site, the favicon will even load next to the URL in your
browser address bar from now on.
Cool huh? Like to create a favicon for your own site?
It's easier than you think. Here's what you do:
1) Choose an image or symbol that you would like to
use to represent your web site. This could be a tiny
version of your logo, a graphic or perhaps a stylized
version of your company initials. A famous example of
this is the "Y!" favicon used by Yahoo! A favicon is
meant to reflect the look and feel of a web site or a
company logo. Remember it needs to be simple and
clear enough to have visual impact when converted to
16 x 16 pixels.
2) Take a high quality version of your chosen image
in .JPG or .GIF format and if it isn't already, convert
your image to the 256 color Web Safe Palette or the
Windows 16 color format (the fewer colors the better).
3) Using your favorite graphics package or image
manipulation software, reduce the image down to 16
pixels wide by 16 pixels high, being careful to preserve
the image resolution. This is the tricky bit, because you
might find your chosen image looks fantastic at the
original size and downright silly at 16 x 16 pixels!
Keep experimenting until you are happy with the
finished icon. If you can't seem to make it work or
you're short on time, you can use a free icon converter
like Image Icon
Converter to convert your
graphic to an icon or use an icon editor such as ImageAuthor to
build your icon from scratch.
4) You're nearly done! Now, take your completed icon
and save it as "favicon.ico". This is the default icon
name that web browsers like Internet Explorer and
Netscape look for. If you want to be really clever, you
can even create a customized icon for each page on
your site - instructions for this can be found at Favicon.com.
5) Take your .ico file and copy it into the the root
directory of your web site (the main directory that
contains all your HTML pages). Now every time a visitor
bookmarks your site, your icon is copied into their
cache file and displays whenever that visitor returns.
6) To test your finished favicon, get a friend or
colleague to bookmark your site and then open a new
browser window. You can bookmark your own site but
you generally only get one attempt at this so it's best
to save it for when you are sure you're happy with your
finished favicon. Alternatively, dump your cache and
open a new browser window between tries. If you did it
correctly, you should see your shiny new favicon
appear in your favorites list next to your site listing and
also next to your URL in the address field of your
browser.
That's it, you're done! You now have an eye-catching
icon representing your web site in the favorites list of
all your visitors.
A professional impact for very little effort.
The above article may be re-published as long as
the content remains unchanged and the following
paragraph is included at the end of the article,
including the URL link:
As well as running her own SEO business, Kalena
Jordan manages and tutors at Search
Engine College, an online training institution
offering instructor-led short courses and downloadable
self-study courses in Search Engine Optimization and
Search Engine Marketing subjects.
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Dear Reader,
Well here we are at the end of another year once
again. What a blur this year has been!
You might have noticed a few changes to the
newsletter, noticeably the masthead and format? Well
my new focus heading into 2005 is educating
webmasters about search engine marketing and site
promotion and I wanted the Search Light to
reflect that.
Rather than reporting on news stories from the search
industry as I've done in the past, I want this
newsletter to discuss real site promotion issues faced
by webmasters every day. I'll still post links to
important industry news from time to time, but most of
the newsletter will be about covering YOUR questions
and making reference to forum threads where these
issues have been discussed by others in the same
situation.
Got a burning question about search engine marketing
or site promotion in general? I want to hear from you.
Email me via the link at the bottom of this newsletter
and I'll try to post your question and my answer in our
next issue.
This month's article was written for those of you trying
to promote your sites. It is a mini tutorial about how to
create a Favicon for your web site. Not sure what that
is? Then read on!
Enjoy this issue and remember to visit Search
Engine College to check out our fun online courses
in various search engine marketing subjects. There's
something for everyone, no matter what your
knowledge level! Have a wonderful, safe and happy
festive season and I'll be in touch again in the New
Year.
Till next time - wishing you high rankings...
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| FAQ1: Multiple Domains | | | Hi Kalena
I've recently taken over the web site marketing for our
company and I just found out we are promoting 4
different domains via search engines. I read somewhere
that this is a bad thing and that you can get banned
from engines. Is that true? Thanks for any light you
can shed.
Lucy
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Hi Lucy
Thanks for your question. The answer is yes and,
well... no. Yes it can be a bad thing to promote multiple
domains via search engines, but it depends on whether
each individual domain contains identical or unique
content.
Having a look at the domains listed in your email, it
seems that each contains links to the exact same
content. I understand the use of the different domains
for marketing and advertising purposes, but what you
should be doing is hosting all these extra domains on
the same IP address so they resolve to a single site.
Most site hosting firms offer this under the
term "Parked Domains", meaning when you type in
those domains in a browser, they automatically resolve
to your main domain.
Parking the domains on the same IP will prevent the
search engines from indexing multiple sites and
penalizing you for trying to sp@m them using duplicate
content. Forget the idea of your site being banned from
search engines though. This is highly unlikely and only
happens in extremely blatant cases of search engine
abuse. | | |
| FAQ2: Google Keyword Sandbox | | |  Hello
I keep reading about the people using the Google
Keyword Sandbox for to research good keywords to
target in Google, but I can't find the site. Can you help?
Rishi
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Hi Rishi
You'll find the Keyword Sandbox here. It's simply a tool to
help Google AdWords advertisers pinpoint the best
keywords to target with their ads. People use it even if
they aren't Adwords advertisers because it has very
useful data on the popularity of various keyword
searches in Google. | | |
| Exclusive Discount Offer for SEC | | |  As a valued subscriber of The Search Light, we
are pleased to provide you with an exclusive discount
coupon for redemption towards the course/s of your
choice at Search Engine College.
The coupon will give you a 15% discount on
your next purchase at Search Engine College and is
valid until 31st December 2004.
CLICK HERE to receive your coupon! | | |
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