What Is a Gravatar and How to Use It for Your WordPress Website?

by Vipe Team in WordPress Development; Published on 30.11.2021

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Whether you’re a serious business owner or a blogger, engaging with content on the web that is similar to your niche is essential for building your online reputation and expanding your audience.

One of the most effective ways to communicate with other companies and content creators, which our WordPress Agency for Development can suggest, is by leaving comments on their websites or their personal or professional blogs.

Comment sections are the perfect places to spark interesting conversations and to attract visitors to your own site. You have probably noticed that most bloggers and commenters on the web have one thing in common – a picture associated with their names.

These types of images that represent a person on the web are called avatars and they have been around for a long time. Online communities have been using them for years to make the communication between users feel more personal and real.

Even before the rise of WordPress website development, avatars were a popular type of image that could be commonly found on different discussion groups and forums. What’s more, gamers have been using avatars as their digital personas long before it was commonplace.

What about avatars in WordPress, though? If you’re an active user of the CMS, you probably have a slight idea what Gravatar is. In a nutshell, this is a very handy service that lets you display avatars on the Internet.

In today’s article, our WordPress development agency is going to tell you everything you need to know about Gravatars, their benefits, and how you can use them for your website. Let’s enter the digital realm and create our own avatars!

Gravatar Explained

And so, if you’re a Gravatar user, you’ll be able to create a profile picture that can be displayed across various different websites that support the service.

Additionally, if you’ve chosen a professional WordPress website development for your online business, Gravatar will help you automatically display profile pictures for your users and commenters.

Gravatar actually stands for “globally recognized avatar”, and the idea behind the service is pretty amazing. Thanks to Gravatar, Internet users can upload their avatar in just one place and the image is then automatically recognized by other websites.

Gravatar is closely tied in with WordPress because the service is provided by Automattic – the company behind WordPress.com. If you’re already using WordPress, you might have noticed that Gravatar is built into the CMS.

The great thing, though, is that many other sites and services have adopted its use, which truly solidifies the idea of the “globally recognized avatar”.

How Does Gravatar Work?

Our WordPress development company likes Gravatar because the service makes it really easy to create your “globally recognized avatar”.

There are some very basic steps you need to take in order to start using Gravatar:

The first thing you need to do is create a Gravatar account. This happens by simply using your email address. If you need to, you can also add multiple email addresses.
The next step is to upload the avatar picture you would like to use. And that’s it, really.
Once your Gravatar account is created, you’ll be able to use your avatar picture on all sites that also use Gravatar. You just need to use the same email address that is associated with your Gravatar profile when you want to leave a comment.

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Our WordPress Agency for Development reminds you to choose your Gravatar picture carefully. After all, it will represent you on all sites that use the service. So, whether you prefer to use your actual photograph or a random icon, just make sure it’s something that people can easily remember you by.

When you finalize your WordPress website development, you can use Gravatar to leave comments on other WordPress sites and write guest blogs. Of course, the avatar image will be shown on your own blog, as well.

The service lets you upload a picture up to 2048 pixels wide. Gravatar always makes your images square and usually displays them in 80×80 pixels size, regardless of the actual size of the picture you uploaded.

Our WordPress development agency advises you to upload larger images because not all sites and services use the default dimensions of Gravatar. This means that if you upload a smaller picture and a certain website decides to scale it up, you risk having your avatar appear blurry. This is obviously a big no-no, so have it in mind and go for images with higher resolutions.

The Benefits of Using Gravatar

Now that you know what Gravatar is and how the service works, our WordPress development company would like to give you some more insights into the benefits of the “globally recognized avatar”.

Overall, the best thing about Gravatar is that it helps people recognize you more easily across the web. We’ve all seen comments that don’t have an avatar attached to them. You can usually see the name that the person has chosen to comment under, but instead of an avatar, there’s a grey icon that only displays a silhouette.

This is obviously not ideal, as it can make even sincere comments look shady and spammy at first glance. Additionally, if you’re a business owner, a blogger, or an influencer, you’ll most likely want to let people know what you actually look like. This builds credibility and authority.

By using Gravatar after you’ve completed your WordPress website development, you’ll make it much easier for people to remember you. Let’s say you’re an avid commenter or you guest-blog a lot – if this is the case, you would like it if people start recognizing you, right? Gravatar can really promote your online reputation in that regard.

Another amazing benefit of Gravatar is that the service allows you to feature additional details about yourself. This means that when you click on the avatar next to the authors’ or commenters’ names, you can discover more about the person, see their website, and social media profiles.

Our WordPress Agency for Development considers this a very helpful aspect of Gravatar because it makes you more authoritative as an author or as a commenter. What’s more, by including a link to your own website in your Gravatar details, you can drive traffic to it even while you’re commenting on other people’s blogs. This additional information encourages web users to connect with others outside the specific site they’ve found them on.

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How to Create Your Gravatar Profile

If we’ve managed to convince you of the indisputable benefits Gravatar can have for your online reputation, you’ll probably want to know just how you can set up your own Gravatar profile.

Our WordPress development agency can assure you that the process is super easy and straightforward. We’ll go step by step and explain how to create your Gravatar profile in the next few points.

Log in to Gravatar With Your WordPress.com Account

It’s important to understand that in order to use Gravatar, you need to have a WordPress.com account.

If you already have a registered WordPress.com profile, you can skip the registration process and instantly log in.

Our WordPress development company can help you with the exact steps for that easy process:

Go to the Gravatar website;
Find the WordPress.com sign-in button that is located on top of the page;
Click the button;
Enter your username and password;
Click the “Log in” button.

When you complete these simple steps, you can set up your Gravatar image and edit your profile.

Even if you run your website on the self-hosted version of WordPress, you can still register a free WordPress.com account. Don’t worry, the platform doesn’t demand creating a site with them.

Our WordPress Agency for Development thinks you won’t lose anything if you register a free WordPress.com account. On the contrary, doing so will allow you to use VaultPress, Akismet, Polldaddy, Gravatar, and IntenseDebate with just one account. These services are known as WordPress.com Connect.

Here’s what you should do if you want to create a Gravatar profile by registering a free WordPress.com account:

Go to the Gravatar website;
Click the blue-button that says “Create your Gravatar”;
Enter your desired email address, username, and password;
Click the “Sign up” button.

When you complete these steps, you should receive a confirmation email. Simply open your inbox and confirm the registration by clicking the link. A new screen will open that will ask you to log into your new WordPress.com account.

Set Up Your Gravatar Picture

Here comes the fun part. Our WordPress development agency knows that once you log in to Gravatar, you’ll be eager to set up your image.

If this is your first time logging in, the service will offer a link to upload your new Gravatar picture.

Here’s what you should do:

Click the “Add One By Clicking Here” link;
Upload your photo by selecting a file from your computer;
Crop your image if needed;
Select a rating (it is best to use either G or PG to ensure your image won’t be blocked on some sites).

How to Edit Your Gravatar Profile

Similarly to how you can edit aspects of your WordPress website development, you can also easily edit the information about your Gravatar profile.

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The service lets you change and modify your image as well as your profile information.

Manage Gravatars (My Gravatars)

When you log in to Gravatar, you will be taken to the “My Gravatars” tab. You’ll be presented with the option to add additional emails that can be controlled from the same account.

You can also change your current Gravatar image or add new pictures that you can switch between whenever you want to.

If you want to upload a new image, our WordPress development company advises you to simply click the “Add a new image” link. When you add multiple pictures to your Gravatar profile, you’ll be able to select the one you want and change it whenever you fancy a new avatar.

Edit Your Gravatar Profile (My Profile)

The whole point of Gravatar is that the service enables you to do so much more than simply choose an avatar image. Like we already mentioned, the best thing about Gravatar is the additional information it lets you fill in about yourself.

To edit that part of your Gravatar profile, our WordPress Agency for Development can point you towards the “My Profile” tab, which you should click.

From there, you can do a lot of things, including:

Add details about yourself;
Add more pictures to the gallery;
Change backgrounds;
Add links to your websites and social media profiles.

The most beneficial option of all is definitely the one that allows you to add links to your websites and social media. We strongly advise you to take advantage of it as it can help attract visitors to your site (when you comment on other people’s blogs) and will also build your authority and connect you with your readers.

Use Gravatar for Your WordPress Website and Solidify Your Online Reputation!

Gravatar is a very handy service that our WordPress development agency can recommend to anyone who wishes to further improve their online reputation and make a name for themselves in any given industry.

By using the “globally recognized avatar”, you’ll make it easier for people to recognize you, especially if you publish articles or comment actively on other blogs.

The great thing about Gravatar is that it takes care of your avatar with minimal effort on your part. Simply upload your desired image and add details to your profile. Everything else will be automated by the service.

Your avatar will be shown on WordPress.com, self-hosted sites, as well as third-party platforms and services that use Gravatar.

Keen on the idea of creating a Gravatar but still don’t have your own site where you can use it in its full glory? We can help! Vipe Studio offers a world-class WordPress website development service that can set you apart from the ever-growing competition on the web. So, don’t hesitate and contact us today. We’re awaiting your inquiry!