Have you ever wondered how some people have a cute little picture or a photo of themselves or their business logo next to their name when they leave a comment? It’s called an avatar. Other social networking sites call them by different names but the general name is an avatar.

You can have an avatar through google, which will show up on all blogger blogs. You can also have a wordpress.com account with an avatar but still, this is limited. I’m aware of OpenID but when one wants to keep some things separate I believe that gravatars, linked to your email accounts are the way to go.

What you really want is a gravatar!

Your Gravatar (a globally recognized avatar) is an image that follows you from site to site appearing beside your name when you do things like comment or post on a blog. So, when you use your email address on a gravatar-enabled site, your chosen avatar is automatically used. How cool is that?

Many people will tell you that it’s important to use the same logo or photo all the time. I agree that this important if it is a business but I don’t think applies to personal bloggers as much.

I do try to use the same avatar across the Internet but I also like to change it up occasionally. This means that I change it at Gravatar.com, facebook, Google and AussieHomeschool.

Go grab one now at Gravatar.com. Sure but how?

• Go to Gravatar.com.
• Click “Get your Gravatar today”.
• Enter your email address.
• Activate your account by clicking on the link in the email you receive.
• Choose a username and password.
• Add your image/photo.
• Crop it and finish.
• You can use multiple email addresses and images.

How to enable your (self hosted wordpress site) to use gravatars?

• Simply login to your admin dashboard.
• Go to Settings –> Discussion –> Avatars and select the desired fields.
• Done!

If you have problems, which is unlikely, check out the FAQ.

** Alternatively, if you have a self hosted wordpress site and like the Hover Gravatars that wordpress.com use, you can download the Jetpack plugin, activate it, enable hovercards and away you go!

Hope this helps,