I have to admit that one of my biggest pet peeves when visiting a website is seeing a default favicon image in the top title of the page, whether it be from your website hosting company or the theme logo. If you don’t know what a favicon is check out this screenshot:
I don’t really know why that bothers me so much. Perhaps it’s because I feel it is in an important piece of keeping consistent branding on your site. If you want to see it done right (in my humble opinion) then visit Secret Hideout’s portfolio online and see the kind of work they accomplish. Streamlined, consistent and unified, just right.
Most of the time it is fairly easy to change out your favicon image. You can even just changeout the favicon.ico file in the file directory of your site through FTP.
Did that last sentence just sound Greek to you? If so read on – there are other ways.
Most modern WordPress themes include an area to upload your favicon image into the admin theme option settings. If not, there are free plugins that can help. The All in one Favicon is my favorite because you can upload a frontend, backend and an iPhone icon. Yes that is right if someone chooses to save your website shortcut to their iPhone you can control the icon that appears. Here is how you save a website to your iPhone. (a little tangent for amoment)
Go to the website you like in Safari
Click the Go To button on the bottom of the screen
Then select Add to Home Screen.
Here is what my logo looks like on my iPhone
Some tips for creating your favicons:
Sizing:
Website favicon = 16×16 pixels
iPhone favicon = 57X57 pixels
File format:
Website icon usually is saved as .ico (ex. favicon.ico) and can be uploaded directly into your file directory through FTP or in the admin area of WordPress using the plugin mentioned above or through theme settings
All in One Favicon plugin also allows a .png (which is nice if you want a transparent background) and even an animated .gif – yes that is right you can make your logo move (but please don’t overdo it with the movement – you could scare people away)
iPhone logo can be a .png, .jpg, or.gif
How to create this tiny favicon?
Carefully! Remember that this image can be very difficult to see because of its small size so you want to crop your logo carefully. Most of the time you do not want to include words in your favicon image because it will be unreadable (a couple letters is fine). Crop the most recognizable part of your logo. Here are some good examples:
Or Google “favicon generator” and you will find several options, but it is probably best that you crop your logo into a square before using one of these generators.
Let me know if you have any questions or need some help creating your own favicon!
Ann Marie,
One of my biggest pet peeves when visiting a website is having giant SOCIAL MEDIA LINK ICONS BLOCKING MY VIEW, and CHASING ME WHERE EVER I GO.
The icons block off the content, appear all the time, you can’t get away from them, and they even get in the way when you are trying to leave a comment as I am doing right now.
They are completely redundant (these irritating icons are blocking my view, and you have another set right in the title of the blog if I want to use them.)
You have a great site with lots of great content. But I have to expand the page to full screen, or your social media links BLOCK my seeing YOUR CONTENT.
Try viewing your site at 1/2 screen (windows key & left arrow) and you will see what I mean. I always have 5 to 10 windows open, and almost never work in full screen.
I just checked out this blog post on my tablet and the social media icons are not there. (We are running Win 10 with IE 11 at Print and Post. Come down and see what I am experiencing if you like.
Keep up the good work, and thanks for asking for feedback
Thanks for stopping by Bob. I understand about the social links being right in your face on a site. I don’t like that either. That is why the social icons are lightly colored and I was very careful not to put them in the way I the header. I think what you found was the menu was dropping down in the header when the screen was shrunk. I didn’t optimize for the screen size you mention because it is rarely used. However I thank you for calling my attention to that detail I missed. Try again – should be fixed. Most people do not realize all the minute details that go into making sure certain features, especially header info, work on all sizes of devices. That is why it is very important to create sites in responsive themes these days – however small tweaks (surgery) still needs to be made and that is when special CSS media coding comes in.
Ann Marie,
One of my biggest pet peeves when visiting a website is having giant SOCIAL MEDIA LINK ICONS BLOCKING MY VIEW, and CHASING ME WHERE EVER I GO.
The icons block off the content, appear all the time, you can’t get away from them, and they even get in the way when you are trying to leave a comment as I am doing right now.
They are completely redundant (these irritating icons are blocking my view, and you have another set right in the title of the blog if I want to use them.)
You have a great site with lots of great content. But I have to expand the page to full screen, or your social media links BLOCK my seeing YOUR CONTENT.
Try viewing your site at 1/2 screen (windows key & left arrow) and you will see what I mean. I always have 5 to 10 windows open, and almost never work in full screen.
I just checked out this blog post on my tablet and the social media icons are not there. (We are running Win 10 with IE 11 at Print and Post. Come down and see what I am experiencing if you like.
Keep up the good work, and thanks for asking for feedback
Bob Hambly 203 907 5017
Thanks for stopping by Bob. I understand about the social links being right in your face on a site. I don’t like that either. That is why the social icons are lightly colored and I was very careful not to put them in the way I the header. I think what you found was the menu was dropping down in the header when the screen was shrunk. I didn’t optimize for the screen size you mention because it is rarely used. However I thank you for calling my attention to that detail I missed. Try again – should be fixed. Most people do not realize all the minute details that go into making sure certain features, especially header info, work on all sizes of devices. That is why it is very important to create sites in responsive themes these days – however small tweaks (surgery) still needs to be made and that is when special CSS media coding comes in.