5 Tips to Designing a Website Favicon

It was recently introduced by Google that organic search engine results will have the website’s favicon on display to the left of the result for mobile, adding the first visual touch of a website to Google search. This means, for the first time ever, not only do website owner’s have to think about the content of their articles as to the information displayed on Google search, regardless of position, they will also have to think about visuals, such as their website’s favicon, and how that will impact the click through rate. For this reason, here are some tips to helping you design an effective favicon, that will both show off your logo and appear visually stimulating in mobile Google search, to increase the click through rate of your organic results.

1. Always try to use your logo as a favicon – your logo should be one of the most recognizable ways to differentiate you from competition. Therefore, this should always be used first (within reason, which is made clear below).
2. Use your logo if it is of a simple image/logo – favicons are very small in size. Therefore, it is very easy for definition to be lost when downsizing your logo to a favicon. This is where you have to ask yourself a question whether enough definition will be kept when downsizing your logo to favicon size, to keep your logo as the favicon.
3. Use a section of your logo if it is a word – favicons are square in format, which means for worded logos, they will simply not work. You can either choose to have a completely different logo, or a section of your logo as the favicon. Examples could include the first letter in the same color and font as your logo for your favicon, or the symbol at the start of the logo (take Amazon and the ‘a’ as a good example).
4. Don’t change your favicon many times, if at all – once you have chosen your favicon, you should leave it! Changing logos makes it difficult for web users to recognize yourself and your brand into the future, which will now affect the click through rate of organic results.
5. Use the space wisely – It is the first ever time that you can customize every organic result that appears in Google with an image, of whatever color, shape or text you choose. With this, it is important to utilize the space that Google has now provided for you. Go right to the edges of the favicon box, whilst using bright colors to help yourself stand out in Google search. A great example of this is with Genius, that use the yellow background to make the favicon much more noticeable.