Promote Your Wesite With Gravatar

Many of you reading this will at some point,  make comments on other peoples sites & in many cases there will just be a blank space instead of a Gravatar image. This really is an opportunity being wasted, a chance for a little branding of your own blog & some self promotion.

It is well known amongst the more seasoned bloggers, that commenting on other blogs & forums is one of the best ways not only to attract much sought after backlinks, but it is also a great method for self promotion, spreading the word & getting the name of your site / blog in front of peoples eyes. That said, one could be forgiven for asking why so many seem to ignore such a golden opportunity.

What Is Gravatar

Gravatar, available here >>> Gravatar <<<, is a free service that in effect displays a badge/image of your choice, to be associated with your chosen email address. For those that do not know, Gravatar will display your chosen image on Wordpress blogs, forums & websites that have this option enabled. That my friends is an aweful lot of potential new visitors to your site.

Get Your Own Gravatar Displaying To The World In Just 5 Easy Steps

1. Create a suitable image using photoshop or similar image editing software.

2. Register for a free account with Gravatar

3. Verify your chosen email account / address

4. Add/upload a new image for use with your email address

5. Choose a rating for your Gravatar image

Now I know there are a few of you out there that are camera shy & do not class yourselves as particularly photogenic, but that is not a problem, because what we are talking about here is promoting the name of your blog & not your ugly mug hahaha.

Another big advantage to this is that many blog owners, myself included, do not like commentors filling in the name field with names of websites or keywords, I just find it cheap & tacky! However a nicely designed image that displays your website / blog title is much more acceptable I think.

When designing your Gravatar image try to fit it into a 150 x 150 pixel square & also pay close attention to contrast, you will need the text to be readable after all. This simple method of branding & self promotion is not going to bring stampeding hordes to your door, however it will do considerably better than the many blank images we now see on blog comments.

Steve Nickson | Create Your Badge