Gravatar gets your photo next to your name on blog comments across dozens of different websites. Which photo you pick is its own question, and I’ve covered it in why your profile photo matters.
What Is Gravatar?
A Gravatar (Globally Recognized Avatar) started as a simple image linked to your email address, but it’s grown into a full online identity platform. Your Gravatar profile now supports avatars, a bio, verified accounts, a wallet, links to your websites and portfolios, interests, photos, an email signature, an AI profile, smart redirects, and a digital contact card. When you interact on any Gravatar-enabled site using your registered email, your profile information appears automatically.
Automattic, the company behind WordPress, owns Gravatar. That means it’s built into every WordPress site by default. If you’d rather hand this off, see my WordPress help for writers. That’s millions of websites where your Gravatar will appear without any additional setup on your part.
Why does Gravatar matter for your brand?
Readers start recognizing your face or logo before they read your name.
Every time you comment on a blog, participate in a forum, or engage on a WordPress-powered site, you’re either showing up as a faceless gray silhouette or as a recognizable image. The silhouette says nothing about you. A consistent photo or logo across every platform you touch builds recognition over time.
For writers, consultants, and anyone who comments on industry blogs or participates in online discussions as part of their professional presence, Gravatar creates visual consistency.
Readers start recognizing your face or logo before they read your name. That recognition is branding at its most basic and most effective level. It takes thirty seconds to set up and works automatically from that point forward.
If you’re building a personal brand, use a professional headshot. If you’re building a business brand, use your logo. Either way, the goal is the same: make yourself instantly recognizable wherever you show up online.
Your name needs protecting in other places too. A domain scalper grabbed richardlowe.com and asked $500 for it. I stalled and kept visiting the site until he put disturbing images on it. Then it was time to buy, and I talked him down to $250. That domain now redirects to thewritingking.com. If you see a domain with your name on it, grab it.
My take
Set up a Gravatar today. It takes five minutes, and every comment you leave on a WordPress site stops showing a gray silhouette. Use a headshot for a personal brand and your logo for a business. While you’re at it, grab any domain with your name on it. A scalper grabbed mine and I had to buy it back. Faceless comments and lost domains are cheap problems to prevent and annoying ones to fix.
How do you set up a Gravatar?
Go to Gravatar.com and click “Create Your Own Gravatar.” If you have a WordPress.com account, sign in with that. If not, create a new account. Add the email address you use most often for online interactions.
Upload the image you want as your avatar, crop it, and you’re done. The entire process takes under five minutes.
If you use multiple email addresses, add all of them and assign the same image. That way your Gravatar appears regardless of which email you use on a given site.
Once it’s set up, your image will appear automatically on any Gravatar-enabled site when you use your registered email. You don’t have to do anything else. It just works.
