There’s a tiny detail on your website that you may never have thought about.
But once you notice it, you’ll probably start seeing it everywhere.
It’s called a favicon.
A favicon is the small icon that appears next to the name of a website in your browser tab.
Open Canva and you’ll see the Canva icon.
Open Google, ChatGPT or Claude and you’ll see their own small, recognisable brand icon.
Now open your own website.
What do you see?
If you see a little version of your own branding, lovely. You can probably stop reading.
But if you see a Squarespace, Wix or WordPress icon, or something else that clearly isn’t yours, it’s worth spending five minutes fixing it.
Why I started noticing favicons
I recently went through more than 100 applications for The Limelight Collective.
That meant looking at a lot of websites belonging to psychologists, coaches and other wellbeing professionals.
And I noticed something surprising.
A large percentage of them didn’t have their own branded favicon.
Squarespace was probably the one I saw most often.
These weren’t necessarily bad websites either. Some looked professional in every other respect.
But that little default icon made them feel slightly unfinished.
For me, it changed the impression of the website more than you might expect from something so small.
It made me wonder what had happened behind the scenes.
Had the website been rushed?
Had it been outsourced to someone relatively junior?
Had the developer simply missed it?
Or had the business owner built the website themselves and never realised there was anything to change?
That last one is probably more common than people realise.
Because even if you notice that little icon and think, “That doesn’t look like mine,” there’s another problem.
If you don’t know it’s called a favicon, what do you search for to find out how to fix it?
That alone probably explains why so many are left untouched.
Does a favicon really matter?
Nobody is going to land on your website, spot a Squarespace favicon and immediately decide not to work with you.
It’s much more subtle than that.
I think these little details are often subconscious.
When a website has been thoughtfully put together, a branded favicon is simply one of those finishing touches that helps everything feel complete.
Most people probably won’t consciously notice whether you have one or not.
But if you’ve already taken the time to create a beautifully considered website, it seems a shame not to finish this tiny detail too.
Especially when it can take less than five minutes to fix.
What makes a good favicon?
This is one of those areas where simpler is usually better.
A favicon is tiny.
So taking your full logo, especially if it contains several words or lots of detail, and shrinking it down often doesn’t work particularly well.
The detail simply disappears.
My preference is to use:
- a simple icon from your existing branding
- your brand colours
- a bold, uncomplicated shape
- a transparent background where possible
If your branding doesn’t contain an obvious icon, that’s absolutely fine.
You could use an initial, a simple symbol or another small element that feels recognisably yours.
It doesn’t need to communicate your entire brand.
It just needs to look like it belongs to your business rather than your website provider.
Some of the best favicons are incredibly simple.
Canva, Google, ChatGPT and Claude are all good examples.
Claude is probably one of my favourites.
They work because they’re easy to recognise even at a very small size.
And familiarity matters too.
The more often someone has your website open, the more familiar that little icon becomes.
It starts to act as another small visual cue that helps people recognise your brand.
How to create your own favicon
You really don’t need to make this complicated.
If you don’t already have a suitable icon within your branding, Canva is perfectly good for this.
Create a 512 × 512 pixel square canvas in Canva and keep the design simple.
You might use:
- one letter from your business name
- a simple icon from your brand
- a bold shape
- a stripped-back version of part of your logo
Use your existing brand colours and avoid anything too intricate.
Then download it as a PNG, ideally with a transparent background.
From there, find the favicon or site icon setting inside your website platform and upload it.
If somebody manages your website for you, just send them the image and ask them to add it as your favicon.
That’s it.
For most businesses, this is a very small job.
One last check
Once you’ve changed it, open your website again and look at the browser tab.
Does it now look unmistakably yours?
That’s really the point.
You’ve spent time building your business, shaping your brand and creating a website that represents your work.
A favicon is a very small part of that, but it helps give the whole thing that final professional finish.
And if you check yours and get stuck, get in touch.
If it’s something simple, we’ll happily point you in the right direction.
And if it turns out to need a little more help, we have graphic design and website specialists on team LIME who can help with that too.
