Don’t Be A Headless Ghost Writer: Learn How To Set Up Your Gravatar
by Kerie Cooper Bobatoon on April 15, 2010 · 0 comments
I can recall the first comment I ever made on a blog – actually, I won’t forget it because I was extremely disappointed about the fact that my picture didn’t show up next to it. You see, I had no idea of how to get my picture to display next to my comment and I really didn’t know what keywords to use to even look it up on Google. I felt like a headless ghost writer and was really frustrated that I couldn’t find any answers about how to resolve it because I didn’t know the right questions to ask to get them. You see, I just figured that my picture would show up by osmosis or something. After reaching my peak of frustration, I stumbled across a blog post that was dated back to 2006 or something like that, and I discovered the little secret that every other blogger in the world knew that I was clueless about… I learned the secret of the Gravatar!
I had been learning all sorts of amazing information from ‘guru’ types about blogging, but none of them broke down the basics of the Gravatar, which is why I want to share it with others who might be facing a similar frustration that I did. I decided to provide a step by step instruction guide for how to set up your Gravatar picture so you can drive more traffic to your website. That is the name of the game here – driving traffic to your website, so why would anyone go to your site if they don’t even see your picture?
But wait, what is a gravatar? According to WordPress.org, “An avatar or gravatar is an icon, or representation, of a user in a shared virtual reality, such as a forum, chat, website, or any other form of online community in which the user(s) wish to have something to distinguish themselves from other users.” Gravatar is a free service that gives you a globally recognized Avatar so you don’t have to upload your image to every single place you want to leave a comment. It saves you lots of time…and I love time savers!
If you have a self-hosted WordPress blog, like I do, then you’ll need to follow the simple steps I’ll outline for you here to successfully add a Gravatar. If you don’t have a self-hosted WordPress blog, you may want to consider hosting your blog, which would protect it from ever being shut down if someone complains to WordPress about it if they don’t particularly like your content. That actually happened to me when I first started out blogging – ugh!
A) For un-hosted WordPress.com blog users, you can visit http://en.gravatar.com/ and login using your WordPress.com login or simply sign into your blog profile and add a Gravatar image.
B) For hosted WordPress blog owners, you can visit http://en.gravatar.com/ and create a Gravatar login. Be sure to use the email address that your WordPress blog is associated with. After that is done, go to your WordPress dashboard, then ‘settings’ then ‘discussions’ and scroll down to the ‘avatar’ section. Choose the option for Gravatar.
Other options include:
C) Installing a Gravatar plugin: to do this, log into your dashboard and add a new plugin. Search for ‘Gravatar’ and choose the one that works best for you – it’s a good idea to check the ratings of the plugin as well as note when a plugin was last updated.
D) You can also edit your theme files if you don’t want the overhead of a plugin. That sounds complicated – I’d go for one of the other options!
~Kerie
P.S. If this was helpful and you want to see if these instructions work or not, feel free to test it out here. Show me your Gravatar! Don’t forget to ‘Tweet’ or share this on ‘Facebook’ (or anywhere else) if you find it helpful. Thanks!
Don’t Be A Headless Ghost Writer: Learn How To Set Up Your Gravatar
by Kerie Cooper Bobatoon on April 15, 2010 · 0 comments
I had been learning all sorts of amazing information from ‘guru’ types about blogging, but none of them broke down the basics of the Gravatar, which is why I want to share it with others who might be facing a similar frustration that I did. I decided to provide a step by step instruction guide for how to set up your Gravatar picture so you can drive more traffic to your website. That is the name of the game here – driving traffic to your website, so why would anyone go to your site if they don’t even see your picture?
But wait, what is a gravatar? According to WordPress.org, “An avatar or gravatar is an icon, or representation, of a user in a shared virtual reality, such as a forum, chat, website, or any other form of online community in which the user(s) wish to have something to distinguish themselves from other users.” Gravatar is a free service that gives you a globally recognized Avatar so you don’t have to upload your image to every single place you want to leave a comment. It saves you lots of time…and I love time savers!
If you have a self-hosted WordPress blog, like I do, then you’ll need to follow the simple steps I’ll outline for you here to successfully add a Gravatar. If you don’t have a self-hosted WordPress blog, you may want to consider hosting your blog, which would protect it from ever being shut down if someone complains to WordPress about it if they don’t particularly like your content. That actually happened to me when I first started out blogging – ugh!
A) For un-hosted WordPress.com blog users, you can visit http://en.gravatar.com/ and login using your WordPress.com login or simply sign into your blog profile and add a Gravatar image.
B) For hosted WordPress blog owners, you can visit http://en.gravatar.com/ and create a Gravatar login. Be sure to use the email address that your WordPress blog is associated with. After that is done, go to your WordPress dashboard, then ‘settings’ then ‘discussions’ and scroll down to the ‘avatar’ section. Choose the option for Gravatar.
Other options include:
C) Installing a Gravatar plugin: to do this, log into your dashboard and add a new plugin. Search for ‘Gravatar’ and choose the one that works best for you – it’s a good idea to check the ratings of the plugin as well as note when a plugin was last updated.
D) You can also edit your theme files if you don’t want the overhead of a plugin. That sounds complicated – I’d go for one of the other options!
~Kerie
P.S. If this was helpful and you want to see if these instructions work or not, feel free to test it out here. Show me your Gravatar! Don’t forget to ‘Tweet’ or share this on ‘Facebook’ (or anywhere else) if you find it helpful.
Thanks!
P.P.S. Add me on the social networks! Click Here and do it now…
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Tagged as: avatar, comment on blog, gravatar, gravatar picture, how to gravatar