By no means a new topic I recently ran into multiple bloggers and webmasters who have not heard of or use favicons. Favicons, going by the Wikipedia definition are: “A favicon (short for favorites icon), also known as a website icon, shortcut icon, url icon, or bookmark icon is a 16×16 pixel square icon associated with a particular website or webpage.” Just as I show my Firefox bar pointed at my site above you can see the SC logo as your favicon. It’s a very easy way to help your blog stand out in the eyes of your readers.
Reasons Why Favicons Are Useful:
Bookmarks: When someone bookmarks your site your favicon will appear before your site’s name in their bookmark bar. This helps your reader with both the visual recognition of your blog without having to read the names as well as enable it to stand out from other bookmarks if they do not have favicons.
Tabbed Browsers: As browers are advancing into having tabs many users will have multiple websites open at once. Your favicon should show before your name in these tabs as well allowing users to more easily pick your site out from the open tabs that they may have.
RSS Readers: MANY RSS readers are starting to use the same method as above to help you keep your feeds organized visually. It’s all about standing out.
Favicons and Branding:
My favorite topic to research ties into this as well- Favicons Are Part Of Branding! “Branding” your blog with a favicon helps it stick out using all of the above methods. As your readers become more associated with your blog they will look for that icon in any of the above they use to read your comment. You can even take it a step further. As many use graphics in their signatures it is easy enough to add your favicon before a link to your website within your signature itself.
Using favicons is an easy way to increase identifying that favicon with your website and by extension yourself. In fact many of the favicons that stick out in people’s mind are based off of the site’s logo itself. It is increasing the visibility of your brand and even while in a small way is something that shouldn’t be overlooked.
How To Add A Favicon To Your Website:
Now that you know how Favicons can be useful it’s time to add one to your site. I’m not going to go into all of the methods on making favicons: online converters, online creators, or the multiple places to get favicons for free online. I’ll of course let you check the last sentence for a few ideas on where to get started 
Once you do have your favicon decided upon though it’s pretty straight forward!
In the HEAD section of your website you just need to add a simple snipet of code:
<link rel="icon" type="image/png" href="/path/favicon.ico"/>
With the path edited to point to the path of your favicon.ico and, your set! Quick, straight forward, and simple!
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