Ever notice that little website logo in the upper left corner of your browser customized to fit the page you are on? That little logo is the site’s “icon image.” If you look in the upper left hand corner on the firefox page tab OR Internet explorer page tab, there is a customized red & black “AP” logo to represent www.AndrewPavelski.com. Website logos, or “icon images” are very valuable to let site visitors know that you are serious about your company. If you don’t already have one, I highly recommend that you create one and upload it onto your website! It is very easy!

Why create a website icon?

  • To give your site a unique flash of brilliance

When you create a good website icon, it can definitely give your site a higher quality, authentic look. It gives your site a unique flash of brilliance. A minor change to your site such as getting a higher quality icon can definitely make someone to decide to return to your website. If you think you are serious about blogging, you best be getting a catchy, fitting icon. If you do not yet have a unique website icon, I suggest downloading the program IcoFx, which I have nicely provided the link for!

  • To distinguish your site from others

Yes, content distinguishes 2 sites from one another, but so does the icon. It can make a huge difference. Notice that all “.blogspot” blogs have the same little orange blogspot icon on their sites. They are all the same and when bookmarked, they all have the little orange blogspot icon making it impossible to quickly distinguish one blogspot from the next without reading the title phrase.

  • To improve your site’s overall appearance

By creating your site’s unique icon and uploading it, your site will have a much more professional looking appearance.

  • To distinguish your site from the “crowd” when bookmarked

When your website is bookmarked, the site icon is easily distinguished from the rest of the sites on the bookmarks list.

  • To eliminate your host’s icon

The hostmonster.com hosting icon of “HM” kept appearing on all of my sites. It doesn’t necessarily look bad, but it is unfitting for the appearance of my website. Also, it was quite a pain in the rump to figure out how to upload my new icon through hostmonster. I figured out that the icon needed to be the dimensions 15 X 15, instead of 16 X 16 like most other sites…

How to create and update your logo:

  • Create an image 16X16 pixels in size with “IcoFX,” (15 X 15 if you have hostmonster as your host). The logo is extremely tiny and you can’t really make it too intricate…
  • Save the image as “favicon.ico”
  • Upload it to your site through the control panel’s “File Manager.” When asked if you want to replace “favicon.ico” click yes. This will replace the host’s icon with your own. After your newly created icon is uploaded, it may take a few minutes before you actually see it on your website. You don’t need to upload one to every directory of your site, just load it into your root directory and the web browser which supports “favicon” images will recognize it.

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