What is a favicon?
Favicon, which is short for favorites icon, is a little icon that is associated with your website. Browsers that support favicons may display them in the browser’s URL bar, next to the site’s name in lists of bookmarks, and next to the page’s title in a tabbed document interface.

Why is this important to me?
There are a lot of advantages why it is important to install your own favicon. Here are several of them.

Get noticed in the Tab.
With the tabbed browsing emphasized as a main feature in both Firefox and Internet Explorer 7, it is no doubt one of the best features in browsers today. It would be an advantage to have a favicon installed in your site so that you can easily be seen. Just be sure to make your favicon noticeable.

Stand out in the feed reader.
The same concept with the tab applies here. Because your reader has subscribed to many blogs and rss syndications, having a favicon can increase your chances of being noticed and so being read by your subscribers.

Stand out in your readers Favorites List.
Exactly the same idea with standing out in feed readers. Although, standing out in the favorites list plays a bigger factor because your blog will be highlighted in rss readers if you have posted a new article while the favorites list only shows a static listing.

Gives the reader something to associate you with.
Branding is very important, period. And having a favicon can help your readers unconsciously associate your blog or site to a specific logo or picture, because it will be shown on all pages on your site. It will be reloaded over and over again to your readers so the next time they see that logo or picture, chances are they will remember your site.

Things to remember when making your favicons:

• Be unique as you can be
  One if the main reason you are making a favicon is because you want to stand out among your competitors, so make it unique.
• Make sure it is understandable
  Since the icon is very small, make sure it will be understood by your readers. The last thing you want to have is a favicon that makes no sense.
• Color should blend with your design but stand out as a whole
  Your favicon might become a disadvantage instead of an advantage if you don’t blend it with your site’s theme or design. Why? Because it would just look plain ugly. Make it stand out but not too much.

Do-It-Yourself Favicon
Because of the size of the icon. It would be very hard to design or draw, right? So, what I do is I make the design on a big resolution (I use 300 x 300) and then just convert it using this Favicon Generator. You can also convert your pictures.

Other Favicon Generators you can use:
Favicon Editor
Favicon Converter
Favicon Generator
Online Icon Maker

Hope you enjoyed this sharing of mine. I’d love to hear feedbacks from you. By the way, please subscribe to my rss feed for more of my upcoming resources. I’m sure you’ll love them.

Popularity: 8% [?]

Wow. This has been my third consecutive post regarding Google’s PageRank Update. If this keeps up, I might have to change my blog niche all together.

Anyway, it seems Google has not only been dropping PageRanks, but also adding PageRanks? When I woke up this morning and checked my blog, I saw a PR 3 on my Google toolbar.

I thought it was the cache from another website I was visiting. But when I browsed my site, there really was a PR in the toolbar. I even had to check it with PRChecker just to be sure. And well, I found out that I really had a valid PageRank 3.

This might be good news for all the websites and blogs out there waiting for the awaited PR update. This can really help you with monetization if you are selling links or advertising. But take note, PageRank isn’t everything. In fact, it’s not really a big factor.

So if you still see a white bar on your Google Toolbar, don’t worry. Like I said before, Forget about PageRank and get back to the basics of making money online, which is to create great contents, gain readership and build your traffic.

How about your blog? Did you receive a valid PR too? I’d love to hear your story.

Popularity: 5% [?]

Everybody has been so serious and slumpy because of the recent Google PageRank update. Why not laugh our way through this?

Problogger launched a little competition to create a slogan for the recent Google PR nukes. It can be in a form of text slogan, image or video. I’ve already seen a lot of the entries and they’re quite funny!

Here’s my entry:

That’s right, I’m a Wii fanboy. You are too? Great! Let’s play sometime, for now why not subscribe to my rss feeds?

Popularity: 6% [?]

It’s all over the news, well blogging news anyway. Google has dropped one of the biggest PageRank nuke which affected even the big name bloggers like ProBlogger, Andy Beard and Coppyblogger. But it doesn’t stop there, even Forbes Magazine got a drop in its PageRank.

Here is a list of websites that took the PR Hit compiled by Daily Blog Tips:

• Statcounter (from 10 to 6)
• Engadget (from 7 to 5)
• AutoBlog (from 6 to 4)
• Problogger (from 6 to 4)
• Copyblogger (from 6 to 4)
• AdesBlog (from 7 to 5)
• Search Engine Journal (from 7 to 4)
• Quick Online Tips (from 6 to 3)
• Search Engine Roundtable (from 7 to 4)
• Blog Herald (from 6 to 4)
• Weblog Tools Collection (from 6 to 4)
• JohnTP (from 6 to 4)
• Coolest Gadgets (from 5 to 3)
• CyberNet News (from 6 to 4)
• Washington Post (from 7 to 5)
• Washington Times (from 6 to 4)
• Charlotte Observer (from 6 to 4)
• Forbes.com (from 7 to 5)
• SFGate.com (from 7 to 5)
• Sun Times (from 7 to 5)
• New Scientist (from 7 to 5)
• Seattle Times (from 6 to 4)

According to PinoyMoneyTalk, some big name Philippines websites also got affected.

• Daily Inquirer (from 6 to 4)
• Manila Times (from 6 to 4)
• Philippine Star (from 6 to 4)
• Yugatech (from 5 to 3)
• Jozzua (from 5 to 3)
• About My Recovery (from 5 to 3)
• Retzwerx (from 5 to 3)
• PinoyMoneyTalk (from 4 to 2)

Why would Google do such a thing?

Is it because of paid links and paid reviews? Might it be because Google is changing it’s PageRank Algorithm? Or maybe because of the curse of the 666? What ever the reason is, why the hell should we care?

Google PageRank is not a big factor, traffic is!

Yuga shares an insightful thought on why pagerank shouldn’t matter.

If you’re not selling links for PR juice, why should it matter? So, if you don’t sell ads on your site or blog, the PR is just for decorative purposes. Five years ago, it might represent some sort of authority but that perception has been devalued or totally erased now. Will people stop reading your blog? Will feed readers un-subscribe? Will blogs not link to you anymore?

If there’s one valuable lesson this has taught many of us, it’s the realization that high PR does not mean high traffic. So, even at a much lower PageRank, referral traffic from Google still remains the same.

As to how DoshDosh puts it, “Google is a factor that is outside of your control”.

If your ad revenue is affected just because PageRank changes, then you’re not doing something right. Not exploring the right monetization options. Not having a long term business plan. Not making full use of the traffic you have. Not getting the right advertisers who know the value of your site.
And all these are factors within your control. Who cares what Google thinks about content or site quality? People are the ones who visit your site and decide if its worth reading or recommending to someone else. Google doesn’t own the way you write or think. They don’t influence the type of content you decide to put out.

So enough of this Google Lockdown. Let’s get back to the basics of making money online, which is to create great contents, gain readership and build your traffic.

Popularity: 8% [?]

I’ve been quite busy working on the Web 2.0 designs and I thought I’d share some link love. Here are a summary of blogs that I am reading or found very interesting. Hope you enjoy them.

• Yuga explains a new centralized google adsense management will be implemented soon. I’m really looking forward to that!
• Pinoy Money Talk shows the Philippines top 10 richest tycoons. I love these kind of lists! Especially if money is involved.
• Taintedsong demands a please don’t click on my ads awareness especially for the prebloggers.
• Macuha discloses a Filipino earning 19k in one month last august. Very inspiring indeed.
• The Manila Freelancer talks about things you need to know when you work at home. A simple truth on how great we can harness the power of the internet.
• Brown Baron on the StumbleUpon toolbar feature that lets you show additional details in your search results. Better check it out.
• Techie Girl shares the importance of having a sitemap of your site. It is indeed very important.
• TheQuickstop goes back to basics with trackbacks and pingbacks. Every blogger should know this.
• YuwonCedric shares a simple way of separating trackbacks from comments. This can keep your blog organized and clean.
• Donalyza lists some free website analytics tool to track your site’s traffic. If you haven’t found the right tool for you, better check this one out.
• AtmaXplorer on news of Sun replacing mobile specific Java. This can improve the java platform even more.
• Silkenhut shares the importance of having a schedule on blogging everyday. This is so true which I still need a lot of work on.
• Jaypee features an awesome multi gadget charger. This is definitely for those gadget freaks out there.
• Dexter exposes a Yahoo and Microsoft spam email. Everybody hates spam, but some of them just manages to go through.
• Eli discovers how rss subscriptions help a lot of readers. Well, it does.

Do you want your blog to be featured too? Drop me a comment below and I’ll visit your blog. I’m always looking for interesting blogs to read. It just might be yours!

Before you read more of my articles, you might want to subscribe to my awesome RSS feeds. It’s awesome!

Popularity: 7% [?]