How to Set Up Your WordPress Gravatar Image

Posted on Nov 29 2015 by in Blogs and Blogging 

Commenting on other blogs is great. It helps drive traffic back to your site. However, when commenting, you may end up seeing other guys have a WordPress Gravatar image as their profile while yours only shows a default, generic and dull image. Letting your image show up online is cool and has been proved to increase trust.

Would you like to display your own image in the comments you leave on other blogs? Would you like your image to show up whenever you respond to any comment on your own blog? Well, the answer to these questions is to create your own Gravatar.

What’s an Avatar/Gravatar?

Chances are you know what Avatars are, from message forums and the virtual gaming world. In short, an avatar is simply a graphic used to identify an online user. On the other hand, Gravaratar simply means Globaly Recognizable Avatar. In other words,  a WordPress Gravatar image is an avatar that makes you recognized everywhere online.

A Gravatar is hugely integrated in most WordPress Themes. Therefore, it has a broad use across the net. It will make your image show up anytime you comment on other WordPress sites. It helps to make the web more of a community than anonymous.

Changing the default avatar on your blog

Not everyone who comments on your blog has created a Gravatar account. Therefore, for such users, a default grey avatar will appear. To change the default image, simply head to your admin panel > settings > discussion and then select another option.

However, this will still be a different form of a default avatar. It will not be your real picture. You can set up your own image in simple steps.

How to Set Up a Gravatar Profile

  1. Visit gravatar.com. It is free!
  2. Sign into the site using your wordpress.com account rather than your wp-admin account. Note that you created a wordpress.com account the moment you registered for JETPACK.

If you do not have any account, you are going to need to sign up for one

  1. Add an email address. You are allowed to add several email addresses and then add avatars to each of those emails.
  2. Select your email address then upload your own photo or other type of image that you would like to show up under that email address.

It’s recommended that you use your own photo and not the company logo or icon. To be consistent, ensure that the image used here is the same one used in your social media profiles.

  1. Repeat the same process for each of your email addresses. In fact, you can select a different image (avatar) for each of your emails. You can also let all your emails have the same avatar.

That’s all! Now, you are ready to show the entire world who you really are.

Why do you need to set up a WordPress Gravatar image?

Setting up a Gravatar is important for you and your online business in the following ways:

Branding

It helps to build your branding. It is important to consistently let the world know who you are both in text and graphics. This aids in branding. Web visitors get accustomed to your photo and can easily associate that with your business.

Enhances online credibility

A comment showing the photo of a real person is more credible than that of a mystery person avatar. Given that many comments of WordPress blogs are spam, a WordPress Gravatar image will set you apart and let the blog owner know that your comment came from a real, legitimate person.

Shows professionalism

Even if don’t comment on other blogs, you will still need to reply to comments on your own blog. It is more professional to reply with your real photo beside the comments.

Convenient

It is easy to create a Gravatar account. It doesn’t require any management from your end. If you choose to change an image assigned to a certain email, you simply need to log in to your Gravatar account and change it. Once you do this, all blogs you ever commented will auto-update the image.

Comes with a profile widget

There is nothing awesome than including an author bio below each post to let your readers have a feel of your expertise and hobbies. Fortunately, JetPack offers you a Gravatar profile which you can edit to include a short bio about what you do and who you’re.

If you don’t have a WordPress Gravatar image already, it’s time to start setting that up. First, install the JetPack plugin then create a profile on it. After that, head to gravatar.com and add your photo.

Easy as pie, huh?