A Necessary Website Icon
Icons stand out
Have you noticed the nice little symbol up at the top of a tab or by the URL input field. Some companies have designed logos around this area being displayed others have just taken their first initial and made it synonymous with their brand. It is hard to see a blue F and not think of Facebook, there website icon. Face book has put that little blue website icon all over the place. It is also one of the most stolen marks I have ever seen. For instance you can create an F on your website to link to your Facebook account and they do not seem to mind, because you are just driving traffic there way. The browsers were actually ahead of us on this one. They were the first naturally to tell us the size of the icons and how to do them, by having their own.
My point is that it is time that you get one or update one you have to match existing branding initiatives by developing a website icon.
If you have not done this for your website icon here is your little push to get it done. Benefits for you and your users include.
- Website is easily referenced when looking at multiple tabs
- If you have subdomains, pages users will quickly associate the icon with correct website
- For chat applications each post is clearly identified as coming from your company
- For feedback on blogs users can browse through and quickly select your posts to gauge relevance for them
- Twitter or Facebook uses the pic or icon as who posted and it is identifiable when the post is coming from your account
The technical side of things it can save your website a lot of bandwidth by having an icon. Most browsers will continually check to see if you have an icon and if you don’t a 404 error page is returned. If it is cached this would avoid the checking for it thus a lot of less hits on the site. Some techs will just put in the e from internet explorer to avoid the unnecessary strain on the site. They should be bugging their web team for an icon.
Users are going to see this a lot more than any letterhead or business card you have this is something that should be taken with more care than your printed collateral. For a lot of business now and moving forward this is the first time a lot of customers will notice you even before any phone call. Making an identifiable mark that matches your brand is critical to set your company apart and establish a place in the users memory.
Furthermore you can use it in all of your social tools. Icons can be used for websites such as:
- Posterous
- Tumblr
- Blogs
- Chat Programs
- Other Company Websites
If you have you icon made or after you get it made. Make sure you put it in an accessible place for the appropriate people in your company to use.
As always please contact us at Cirv for any advice regarding an icon or having us help you get one.
Building a better web,
Brandon Roach