What Is a Favicon? The Ultimate Guide for Website Designers
A tiny icon-shaped graphic can make big difference in your website’s branding. But, most designers and developers forget this graphic asset. It’s favicon.
Now, you might be asking what is a favicon? It’s a vital design element of your website that sets your brand apart from the crowd.
Read on this in-depth discussion on favicon as we shed some light on its definition, importance, and everything else you need to know.
What Is a Favicon?
The word favicon came from an amalgamation of two words: “favorites” and ‘icons”. Favorites directly refer to the web browser’s bookmarks section. On the other hand, an icon or logo is a graphic asset that brands a business, blog, online magazine, or eCommerce space.
It is usually a 16 x 16-pixel icon. However, it can also be a smaller version of your website or company logo. Design it according to your website’s color palette combination, fonts, images, and other artistic preferences.
Furthermore, craft it wisely since it works as a visual identifier for your web page when an internet user opens many tabs on the web browser and no longer sees the website name.
The Positioning of a Favicon
Master website designers consider favicons as a crucial website asset because you can find the icon in strategic places. Usually, your website favicon will show up here:
- On the left side of the web browser’s tabs
- Web browser’s history menu
- On the drop-down menu of the web browser’s bookmarks section
- Apps of the toolbar
- Browser’s history
- Search box
- Search bar suggestions
- On search results
SEO Importance of Favicons
Favicons are an indirect tool to influence your website’s search engine results page (SERP) ranking. It’s also a low-cost website asset that you can effortlessly add to any old or new website. Here’s how favicons boost your website’s search engine optimization (SEO) effort:
- Favicon increases your website’s chance to get bookmarked on the Google Chrome web browser and thus increases website revisit probability.
- User-friendly websites have better SEO ranking possibilities, and favicon increases user-friendliness.
- SEO is all about marketing and branding, and favicon delivers this without ambiguity.
Favicon’s Specifications
Most successful websites either use a small version of their brand logo as favicons or utilize vector images. Here are the specs for modern favicons:
Favicon Image Size/Resolution
- For all-purpose use in any web browser, 16 x 16 pixels favicons are popular
- 24 x 24 pixels favicons are good for Internet Explorer pinned pages
- 57 x 57 pixels is the standard size for the iOS home screen
- Google TV platforms prefer the 96 x 96 pixels favicons
- Opera Speed Dial requires 195 x 195 pixels images
- Apple touch favicons should be 180 x 180 pixels
Favicon Image File Type
The first choice must be the ICO file type from Microsoft Windows. You can also choose PNG, JPEG, SVG, and APNG files for favicons.
What Is a Favicon: Final Words
Favicon is one of the most important assets for your website since it helps brand your online space. The above discussion should’ve supplied you with enough reason to create and insert a favicon into your website.
Now that you’ve gone through this article, you should’ve found an answer to your question, “what is a favicon?” Connect with your website developer now to add this tiny but mighty icon if your website doesn’t have it.
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