BlissLogs

Help!  I lost your blog!  That’s not something any blogger wants to hear about their blog. There are many things that can be done to make your blog stand out, but none of them are as overlooked as creating a personalized favicon.

What is a favicon?

If you are reading this post by visiting the blog, you can see my favicon up in the address bar. It is the small image of an infinity ring that appears to the left of the blogs URL. If your reading this from my feed, you can visit BlissLogs now to see what I’m talking about. I chose this image to be my favicon for a couple reasons. First, my wedding ring is an infinity ring that looks very similar to this favicon. Second, my tattoo is the infinity symbol on my right calf. Third, and this one gets involved so pay attention. My favorite word is Bliss, hence the domain BlissLogs; a good band/musical group that uses the word bliss often is PM Dawn; PM Dawn even had an album called “The Bliss Album”; the symbol they use on many of their CD’s and their website is the infinity symbol.

Why do I need a personalized favicon?

This one is easy, it gives your site something to make it stand out from the crowd. When I first started this blog, I left the default HostMonster (aff) favicon on my site. A co-worker of mine had a bookmark of this site on his pc desktop and the icon was the boring default Internet Explorer icon. That just made this shortcut blend into the desktop and get lost among all the other icons. That doesn’t sound too ideal when you want to make your blog memorable and stand out from the rest.

How do I get a favicon?

Your first step is to find an image that best represents your site or your personality. Once you have a digital image that you want to use, visit a favicon generator site. There are many to choose from, but basically all you need to do is point to your full size image and upload it to their site. They will then generate a new file, favicon.ico.

How do I add it to my site?

First, you need to determine where your site is pointing to to find the favicon.ico file. I have noticed some themes look into a theme-specific directory, while some just look to the root directory of your site. There are many ways to get this info, but I have found it very easy to just visit my site, right click on the page and choose view source. I then search for “favicon.ico” and make note the file directory. Now all that is left is to replace the old file with the new one you created on the favicon generator site. I usually use FTP to upload my files to the site. I want you to realize now, you may not see the new favicon display immediately. I’ve noticed many browsers cache this image and it could take days to display correctly.

Summary

I hope I’ve given you reason enough to change your default favicon image because by doing so, your blog will be more memorable and stand out from the crowd of mundane sites. Don’t let your sites shortcut get lost on someones desktop like mine did before I change my favicon. If you have any questions regarding this process, feel free to either comment here (I will respond to all comments) or fill out my contact me form.