At any given time in the 24-hour interval, I have about twenty tabs open in Chrome. What helps me keep rails of which tabs are which are the little icons shown below.

Favicons displayed in browser tabs

I know my Google Docs are the tabs with the blue notepad. My Trello board is the tab with a mini Trello board. The HubSpot blogs I'yard referencing are the tabs with sprockets, and so on.

These icons are known equally favicons. Non simply can they help heave your visibility in a browser total of open tabs — they can also help strengthen your brand's identity.

Permit'due south take a closer look at what favicons are below. Then we'll look at how you tin can make one with a favicon generator and add together it to your site using HTML.

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What is a favicon?

A favicon is a browser icon that represents a make or website. Most often seen next to a web page's championship in browser tabs, favicons tin can also be constitute in address bars, bookmark lists, search results pages, toolbars, browser history, and other places across the web.

Google has one of the most recognized favicons. You can see the multi-colored G in the address bar of my browser beneath.

You can likewise see the favicons for Gmail, Google Sheets, HubSpot'due south Wiki, Hemingway Editor, and more in my bookmarks list.

Favicons displayed in bookmarks list

Favicons even appear in mobile search results on Google now. Yous tin can come across the results for my concluding search — "how often should succulents be watered" — below.

favicons displayed in mobile search results

Why exercise favicons affair?

Favicons not only impact user experience and make awareness — they tin likewise make your website look more than professional.

Notice in the mobile SERP that the websites for Joy Usa Garden and Easy to Grow Bulbs have flower icons, merely the site for The Succulent Source has a gray globe. That doesn't make much sense for a website about succulents, does information technology? That'southward because the globe is the default favicon Google Chrome sets for websites that don't take a custom favicon.

If I'm chop-chop scanning the page of results, I'll probably decide to explore Joy Usa Garden and Piece of cake to Grow Bulbs over The Succulent Source for a few reasons. Not simply practice they appear first in the SERP, but likewise their favicons, URLs, folio titles, and meta descriptions all betoken to them being websites dedicated to everything plants and having an answer to my question.

Now motion-picture show these 3 websites in browser tabs on a desktop. It'd be much easier to retrieve the custom favicons of Joy Us Garden and Easy to Grow Bulbs than the default favicon of The Delicious Source. In a sea of open tabs, I'm more likely to click back to the tabs with custom favicons and spend more time on those sites.

Finally, let's say I click on each of these sites. When visiting Joy Us Garden and Easy to Grow Bulbs, I immediately notice that the custom favicons are based on the website's logos. The latter's colorful logo is shown below. You lot'll recognize the tulip as their favicon.

Easy to grow bulbs' website logo, which inspired its favicon

This helps to strengthen their brand identity and brand their site more memorable. When visiting The Succulent Source, on the other paw, I'll be seeing their logo for the commencement fourth dimension. They could improve their brand consistency past matching their logo and favicon.

Below are some of the nigh common sizes for favicons and their unique purposes.

  • 16x16: The size of browser favicons.
  • 32x32: The size of taskbar shortcut icons.
  • 96x96: The size of desktop shortcut icons.
  • 180x180: The size of Apple touch icons.
  • 300x300: The size required by Squarespace.
  • 512x512:The size required by WordPress.

Now that we understand what a favicon is, its purpose, and its different sizing, permit'due south take a look at how to brand one.

How to Make a Favicon

You want to make your favicon recognizable and consequent with your brand identity. So instead of starting from scratch, you should base it on your company logo.

If y'all don't have a logo, so start there. You tin rent a designer to create one for you, or you tin utilize tools like Logo Crisp to blueprint a high-quality logo for a fraction of the cost.

Once you're happy with your logo, y'all can start making your favicon. Unfortunately, information technology's not as simple as compressing your logo into a 16x16 square and calling it a day. Your logo might accept text, for example, which won't be legible when shrunken down.

That's why you desire to take the most recognizable part of your logo and make it your favicon. Piece of cake to Grow Bulbs did exactly that past taking the tulip from their logo and making it their favicon.

To brand changes similar these, you might need to utilise icon editing software like IconEdit2. With most icon editing software, you tin can add multiple sizes to a single icon file. Once y'all're satisfied with your favicon image and sizes, yous can relieve the file in PNG or JPG format and then upload information technology to a favicon generator.

However, for smaller changes similar cropping an epitome, you can consummate the unabridged procedure using a favicon generator. Let'south have a closer await at these online tools below.

Favicon Generators

Below are some of the best favicon generators on the spider web. With these tools, you but upload your favicon image and information technology will catechumen the image into proper favicon formats and make it available to download. This procedure will but take a few minutes.

The standard formats for favicons are ICO and PNG. ICO is compatible with all browsers, including Internet Explorer. PNG is some other common format. The only disadvantage is that Internet Explorer will not support a PNG file. Ideally, the generator you choose will permit you lot to download your favicon in both formats.

Favikon

Creating your favicon in Favikon is easy. You only upload an image, crop it, and and so download the resulting icon in an ICO or PNG format. Below I've uploaded the llama icon from The Noun Projection.

llama icon uploaded in favikon, a popular favicon generator

The downside is that Favikon just supports i size: 16x16 pixels. For more size options, check out the tools below.

Favicon.io

With Favicon.io, you can generate a favicon from scratch or from an image, logo, or emoji. You can preview information technology in iii unlike sizes before downloading.

llama icon uploaded in favicon.io, a popular favicon generator

Yous can download the result in ICO and PNG formats and in multiple sizes. The options are listed below:

  • android-chrome-192x192.png
  • android-chrome-512x512.png
  • apple-touch-icon.png
  • favicon-16x16.png
  • favicon-32x32.png
  • Favicon.ico

Favicon.ico & App Icon Generator

With this free tool, you can upload a PNG or JPG paradigm and convert it to ICO and PNG formats in even more sizes.

llama icon uploaded in favicon.ico & app icon generator, a popular favicon generatorThe download options are listed below:

  • apple-icon-57x57.png
  • apple-icon-60x60.png
  • apple-icon-72x72.pnf
  • apple-icon-76x76.png
  • apple-icon-114x114.png
  • apple-icon-120x120.png
  • apple-icon-144x144.png
  • apple-icon-152x152.png
  • apple-icon-180x180.png
  • android-icon-192x192.png
  • favicon-32x32.png
  • favicon-96x96.png
  • favicon-16x16.png

Once yous've generated your favicon in your desired format, yous'll salvage it in the root directory of your site. You tin can then link to the file in HTML to implement the favicon on your site.

Before nosotros walk through that process below, information technology'southward important to annotation this applies to site owners who built their site from scratch or with a development framework like Bootstrap CSS. If you used a website builder or CMS, like WordPress or WordPress alternatives, so the process will vary slightly.

How to Add a Favicon in HTML

Once you lot've created your favicon, you take to tell browsers and other spider web apps where to find it. To do and so, you have to add together a line of lawmaking in the <head> department of your HTML file.

Let's say you lot saved your PNG file as "favicon.ico." Then you'd add together the post-obit code snippet anywhere betwixt your <head></head> tags:

                                                                

   <link rel="icon"  type="image/png" href="/favicon.png">

Delight note: Your favicon does not have to be placed in the root directory of your site — information technology just unremarkably is. If you saved information technology in another location, just make sure the href attribute is accurate. So if you saved it to a subfolder named "images" then you'd type in <href="images/favicon.png">.

Now let'due south say you created multiple favicon sizes. Yous can load them all on your site by adding a line of code for each size to the <head> section of your HTML file. If you created a 16x16, 32x32, 48x48, and 180x180 version, for example, then you'd add the following snippet of lawmaking:

                                                                

   <link rel="icon" type="image/png" sizes="16x16" href="/favicon-16x16.png">

<link rel="icon" blazon="epitome/png" sizes="32x32" href="/favicon-32x32.png">

<link rel="icon" type="image/png"  sizes="48x48" href="/favicon-48x48.png">

<link rel="apple-touch-icon" sizes="180x180" href="/apple-touch on-icon.png">

Creating Your Favicon

Favicons are an important chemical element of web pattern. They can improve the company experience, strengthen your brand identity, and make your site seem more apparent. Don't brand the error of overlooking them — particularly when they're easy to create and add to your site. Y'all just need a free favicon generator and some familiarity with HTML.

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Originally published May 22, 2022 7:00:00 AM, updated May 22 2020