Think Press has decided that those of us who run WordPress might be a bit lazy in certain aspects. Which aspect in general? The ability to add a favicon to our sites of course! Recently I wrote about Favicons and why I felt they were useful to have for branding and recognition on your site and how easy they were to use. So what happens if you don’t want to take the time to search for any of the free favicon creators online? Install a simple plugin to do the job for you!

The Favicon Generator Plugin allows you to either select a favicon from a precompiled list of generic icons already included with this plugin (which helps your blog stand out however doesn’t help branding) or let you create your own based off of an image you have available to upload. The laziness doesn’t just stop there. This plugin will also take your chosen favicon and both put it in your root directory as well as add the code to show it on your site into the html for you. Honestly aside from the time taken to install a plugin this is the quickest way to get a favicon on your site if you don’t want to manually edit the code or create and upload a favicon.ico yourself. Truly a lazy man’s plugin! (Also see: great for people who aren’t overly familiar with code or image manipulation.) Lazy jokes aside I really think this is a useful plugin for anyone unfamiliar with the code end of blogs who wants to add a favicon.

To download your copy today just head over to WordPress Favicon site on wordpress.org today! If you don’t know html like the back of your hands this is a great way to allow you to add a little bit of extra branding to your site to help stand out.

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!