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(first published in 2001, last updated December 2007) Just about everyone who uses a web browser also makes use of their "Favorites" or "Bookmarks" function. I'm not sure what your Favorites list looks like, but mine contain hundreds of entries. It can be quite difficult to find what I'm looking for. Also, on many occasions when I come across a site of interest, I forget to add it to my Favorites - and I guess I'm not the only one.
Getting people to your site for their first visit is one challenge -
getting them to remember your site and return is another. This tutorial
will show you how to encourage people to bookmark your site and also how
to create a Favorites icon that will stand out from the rest of their
bookmarks.
How to create a Favorites iconIf you have ever visited sites such as Yahoo and added them as a favorite, you would have noticed that the icon is very different to other bookmarks in your list. This is a very simple feature to implement. Special Note: Some hosting services don't support Favorites icons. I discovered this when we moved from one server to another. If this should occur to you, contact your web host and ask them to enable .ico support. If they don't/won't/can't; there is a workaround you can use below. Creating your own Favorites icon.Method 1:
Then, use an image viewer such as Irfan View (freeware) that has the capability of converting image files to the .ico format. After opening the gif file in Irfan View, save it as favicon.ico in the root directory of your web and publish to your server. Then test it out by adding your site to your Favorites. It should work regardless of the page you are on. You may also want to add a tag your pages that directs browsers to the favicon file (see below) Done! Method 2 Use a dedicated icon editor program. If you need an icon editor, you can download a great freeware program called IconEdit 32 here. IconEdit32 allows you to create, import, edit, and save 16X16, 32X32, and 48X48 icons in 2, 16, or 256 colors.
Then publish the file to your server.. that's all there is to it. Test it out by going to your site and adding it to your Bookmarks/Favorites. The file size is very small, so it won't annoy your visitors. Specifying favicon.ico locationIn the unlikely event that your hosting service doesn't support .ico files; you can use this workaround - just put a copy of the favicon on a different server - perhaps the free space that you usually get with a standard ISP account. Then, add the following tag between the <head> and </head> files of your pages: <link rel="shortcut icon" HREF="http://www.domain.com/favicon.ico"> ... with domain.com point to the alternate location of the Favorites icon file. This can also be handy in situations where browsers have problems automatically locating the file on your own server, by pointing them to it. Animated favorites iconMany sites now use favorites icons - so in order to stand out a little more, consider using animation. Unfortunately, Internet Explorer doesn't support animated favorites icons, but Firefox and Safari do. Depending on the topic of your site, Firefox usage could be anywhere from 15% to 50% of your visitors, so it's definitely worth the extra effort; particularly given that not many other sites seem to take advantage of this feature. I use an animated icon for Taming the Beast.net that you should be able to see if you bookmark the site in Firefox; but in case you can't/don't see it, here's how the icon looks:
Ok, so it likely won't be winning any graphic design awards, but it does the job :). To make an animated icon, you can either a) use the gif animation features of your graphics software package, remembering to stick with the 16x16 pixel size and 16 colors. After the animation is created, use Irfan View to convert to .ico format if your package doesn't support the conversion. b) if your graphics software package doesn't have animation features, create separate images in gif format which will be the frames for your animation. Then run them through a free gif animation service such as Gif Ninja, and then convert to .ico format using your graphics package or Irfanview Creating a bookmarking scriptNow you have your very own Favorites icon, you'll also want to encourage people to add you to their bookmarks. Even though adding a site to a bookmarks/favorites list is a very simple task, people need to be prompted at times - and the best way to get them to add you is to make it as *easy* as possible for them to do so by creating "bookmark me now" type links place strategically throughout your content. Here's
a simple cross-browser compatible script you can use:
Example:
This script should work well in most Netscape and Internet Explorer browsers from version 4 onwards, plus also Firefox. Special note: you'll need to publish the script up to your server to see
it in action, it more than likely won't work previewing it on your computer. These strategies really do work and definitely worthwhile using as part of your overall web marketing arsenal.
Michael Bloch Click here to view article index
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