Get Your Favicon On! The Best Thing About the Tiny Icons in Address Bars

Favicons might be small, but the key to cohesive branding for any business is in the details. These little icons are used by many major brands across the world, and they could be helpful in ingraining your brand into your consumers’ minds, completing your website and tying your online presence together.

What is a Favicon?
The word “favicon” is derived from the words “favorite” and “icon.” And that’s exactly what they are: your business’ favorite icon.

A favicon is a small, square image (usually 16×16 pixels) used by web browsers to show a graphic representation of the website you’re visiting. It’s a little tiny icon that displays in several places during your Internet session, most commonly next to a page’s title on a browser tab and in the address bar to the left of the URL, as well as in the bookmarking area. Some browsers also show them when you create a shortcut link for a website in your desktop. You’ve likely seen them before, but you may not have known what they were called or how they got there.

A favicon contributes to the credibility and professionalism of your brand, as well as highlighting your acute attention to detail. It completes a website and increases the overall experience and impression a user has with it. Even if the favicon’s existence isn’t immediately recognized by a visitor, it still leaves an overall impression of your website and, in turn, your business.

It may sound crazy now, but back in the dinosaur age of the Internet favicons were used as a way to estimate web traffic. Marketers would simply count the number of visitors who bookmarked the page. Now we use them for numerous reasons that benefit businesses and user experiences.

One of the most important purposes of a favicon is to make your website more user-friendly. We’re all guilty of letting our page tabs pile up until we have 15 pages open. Well, when your favicon shows up in the tab next to your page title, it makes it much easier for a user to recognize it and navigate back to your web page.

Don’t be like the thousands of websites with a blank white square as their icon. Let your favicon shine through, stand out and represent your brand. If branding is a challenge for your business, follow our simple advice on better online branding.

Your business is more than a logo. Elevate your online branding with the experts.
Appleton Creative is an award-winning advertising agency, providing Orlando web design services and marketing strategies for local, national and international clients. Our full-service capabilities incorporate print, web, social media and video production – all in-house. At Appleton, we want to learn about your business, empower your marketing team and be your creative resource. Your marketing goals are worth a conversation: contact us at 407-246-0092 or info@appletoncreative.com.

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