When people create a blog or a website in WordPress, they think about the look of their web pages and how the readers will see them. But, they neglect sometimes to learn how to change the favicon in WordPress and make their sites memorable s and easy, to find among other links if every person’s a bookmark bar.
Every modern WordPress theme comes with a default favicon that symbolizes the company behind that theme, and this is why we see thousands of blogs with the default Genesis favicon “G”.
Before starting, let’s talk a little bit about the importance of a Favicon and why you should use it. Well, we are billions of web surfers, and we are all saving our best pages or websites in the browser’s bookmark bar. That will make things easier, and we can easily revisit any articles at any time, but the problem starts when a website was saved without that icon we called “Favicon“, it’s the “Favorite Icon” in the bookmark bar.
It’s really difficult to read all the bookmark bar links one by one until you find the exact site you want. So, why not making things easier, and make your blog stand up from the others and become memorable with its Favicon?
Look at the below links, they are using a good symbol that characterizes each site from the others:
A favicon is a very small image in “ico” format and you can add it or replace it directly from the theme folder. What makes it appear at the top of browsers is a function pre-installed in your theme.
All the modern themes support Favicon and you don’t have to add anything there. All you have to do is to upload your own Favicon and deleting the default one directly in the theme. Let’s get started:
Create your own Favicon
It’s an easy job to do, you need a square image, create it on your computer using Photoshop, or any other software, or simply use an existing square image. Until now, there is no need for any exact size, a small or big image will work.
Remember that a Favicon should be small as 16×16 pixels, and can be also 32×32 pixels and goes up to 64×64 pixels. But, the majority of browsers support the 16×16 pixels Favicon and this is why you should choose that size, to make Favicon appears properly in any browser and device.
Please, make sure that you create a simple image with a clear letter, for example. You don’t need to create an image that will look completely unreadable when it will be resized.
To resize your actual image to 16×16 pixels and make it in “Favicon.ico” format you can use free online tools. One of these tools is the Dynamic Drive Favicon Generator. Just upload your image and click the “Create Icon” button as the screenshot below:
The page will be refreshed and you will get your Favicon to download:
Good job, now you have the Favicon and you need to upload it to your WordPress website and replace the old one if exist.
How to upload a Favicon to WordPress website
As I said before, the Favicon should exist in the theme that you’re using in WordPress. Many WordPress themes come with an option to upload your new Favicon, but if you’re using the Genesis or any other themes, you can easily do the same, just follow my steps.
You have two options to edit your theme files, the first is cPanel, which is the easiest one, and the second is an FTP. Let’s show you how to upload your favicon using cPanel, it’s the easiest and the fastest method.
Login to your cPanel account or similar nomination for some hosting companies, and find your “File Editor” icon and click on it. Next, locate the “wp-content” folder and open it as below:
Now, click the “Themes” file, and inside it click your actual theme. As an example, I’ll select “Genesis” and next find a file called “images” and open it to find “Favicon.ico” as below:
If you have another theme, use the structure in the screenshot above to find your Favicon file. It’s the same location in general under the file “Images” in the theme.
The last step will be deleting the default Favicon, and upload the new one with the same name always should be, favicon.ico, see the below:
After that, refresh your browser, or, delete the cache and you should see your blog or website custom Favicon appears at the top browser tab. And most important, it will appear with every link bookmarked.
You can also use any FTP software and follow the above steps. You will need to have your login details, but I just used the cPanel, simply, because the majority of new servers work with the cPanel manager service.
If you have a theme with a control panel, then, you don’t need to work with cPanel, just search on your theme control panel and settings. You will find an option that lets you easily upload your Favicon directly from the WordPress dashboard, it’s easy and takes a few seconds.
