FavIcons make blogs look a little more professional

I’ve always been a fan of doing little things that somehow subconsciously make your blog prettier. It turns out that making yourself a custom FavIcon is one of those little things.

If you’re too lazy to click on the Wikipedia link, a FavIcon (short for “Favorites Icon”) is the little pixelated icon that shows up next to a link in your favorites menu, or on your tabs in Firefox.

To me, this little icon says “Hi! I’m professional.” It says that you, or someone you pay, (or theoretically it could be someone you blackmail), knows enough and cares enough to make a little visual button for people to easily spot your site in a list.

Many sites and web hosts provide default FavIcons, which is great, because it means you don’t end up with the little blank page that most browsers stick in there if nothing is found, but I think it’s worth the extra effort to put your own icon up.

There are a few web tools that help you convert the file you need to put one up, and I know that you don’t always need to have your own hosting to do it (TypePad lets you customize your FavIcon). If you’ve got a logo lying around, and you’re using a default FavIcon, go fix it!