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How to Create a Favicon for Your Web Site
By Kalena Jordan  (c) December, 2004

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 SearchEngineCollege.com 
(http://www.searchenginecollege.com/) 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 
(http://www.popularshareware.com/Image-Icon-Converter-download-11313.html) 
to convert your graphic to an icon or use an icon editor such as 
ImageAuthor (http://imageauthor.com/) 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 (http://www.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.

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Article by Kalena Jordan, one of the first search engine 
optimization experts in Australia, who is well known and 
respected in the industry, particularly in the U.S. As well as 
running her own SEO business, Kalena manages Search Engine 
College (http://www.searchenginecollege.com/), an online 
training institution offering instructor-led short courses and 
downloadable self-study courses in Search Engine Optimization 
and Search Engine Marketing subjects. 

Copyright © 2004 by Kalena Jordan. All rights reserved under 
U.S. and international law. 
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