One of my clients last week asked how she added a picture of herself when she commented on blogs.

And I thought, it’s easy but if you don’t know, you don’t know!

Those little pictures are called Gravatars and the Gravatar you create follows you around wherever you comment…like magic!

But it doesn’t have to be a picture of yourself. It can be an image, a caricature or a symbol. Basically it just has to be an image.

But before I take you though the process, why add a Gravatar in the first place?

I think it helps your comment stand out. It can help brand you. Blog owners and other commenters like to see people’s faces. A nice smiley face staring at you makes you want to read their comment, doesn’t it?

Adding a Gravatar

Step 1. Go to http://www.gravatar.com/ and click on the “Sign up” menu tab

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Step 2. Add the email you would normally use when commenting on blog sites and click

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Step 3. You will be informed, “We’ve sent you an activation email.”

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Step 4. Go to your email inbox. You will have an email from “Gravatar” and the subject line will say, “Welcome to Gravatar”. Open the email and click on the confirmation link inside.

Step 5. On the new screen that appears after you click on the confirmation link, enter:

Username (can be any name) and check is it available by clicking ‘Check’

Password (twice)

(Make a note of your username and password)

And then click the ‘Signup’ button.

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Step 6. Your account has now been set up. Now let’s add a photo or image of your choice.  The screen you are now on says, “Whoops, looks like you dont have any images yet! Add one by clicking here!”
Click on “Add one by clicking here!”

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Step 7. Here you have the choice to decide where to get your image from. The majority of the time, it would be from your PC.

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Step 8. Click “My computers hard drive”

Step 9. Click on ‘Browse” to fine the image you’d like to upload. Click ‘Next’.

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Step 10. You can then ‘crop’ your image.

Step 11. Once you are happy with your finished image, click “Crop and Finish”

Step 12. Choose a rating for your image. It’s normally “G” (G rated Gravatar is suitable for display on all websites with any audience type.)

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Step 13. That’s it. You have now added an image associated with your email. Next time you comment using that email you have just used to set up your Gravatar, your chosen image will be displayed alongside the comments.

You can more emails and more images to your Gravatar account if you wish.

Are you more inclined to read comments if there is a nice image associated with the comment?

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