How do I Choose the Best Blog Icon?

The best blog icons will help link your blog to other popular sites or allow readers to express their thoughts or emotions through emoticons, the small faces people can embed in blog comments. Social networking sites often provide free icons and the necessary hyper-text markup language (HTML) or website coding that is needed to place them on your blog. If you own and edit the blog, there no limits to the type and size of icons you can use. Blogging sites, however, can have some restrictions in layout and format and therefore can limit your choices. Consider the design, color style and tone of your blog when selecting icons.

Blog icons come in a variety of sizes, colors and looks. The best ones are easily found yet also blend in with the rest of your blog’s design. Keep in mind that the smallest icons might be hard to find, and extremely large ones can call attention away from content and other things on you blog.

The design style of the blog icon is another consideration. A blog icon for a social networking site, for example, can have a hand-drawn look or a cartoon-like appearance. The predominant age and demographic of your target audience also should be considered when you choose a blog icon.

Generally, a work- or business-related blog should have a more conservative look. Creative fields such as design, art or dance usually have more options. A funky or cartoon-looking blog icon might work for an artistic blog or one written for teenagers. Of course there are no hard-and-fast rules, and you are always free to make your own choices and follow your own intuition.

When choosing a blog icon, also consider how easy it is to install. Blogging sites that host numerous blogs often will have instructions on how to install the icons. If you decide to figure it out on your own, you should have at least a basic understanding of HTML or coding so that the icon shows up and is placed appropriately on your page.

Emoticons also are popular features for blogs. These are the little "smiley faces" that can appear within blog comments. The faces are designed to add emphasis to a statement or to express the emotion of the writer. The emotions expressed can include happy, angry, confused, mischievous and a host of others. Like any other blog icon, emoticons come in a variety of shapes, sizes and styles.