How to Get Your Photo to Appear Next to Your Blog Comments

If you look at the comments on my posts, you’ll see that some folks have their photographs show up, and some have a quilt square next to their comments. Did you ever wonder why that was? Would you like for your profile photo to show up everywhere you make a comment on the Internet?

It’s actually very simple to do with a service called Gravatar, which helps you create a universal “avatar” photo that sites around the web can pull from.

Now if you have a WordPress free blog, you may already have a Gravatar. There is a relationship between WordPress and Gravatar, so that if you have uploaded a profile photo in WordPress, it will appear as your Gravatar.

If you don’t have a WordPress blog, though, you can still get a Gravatar. Here’s what to do.

Navigate to http://www.gravatar.com. Click “Get Your Gravatar Today.”
Enter your email address.
Click the confirmation link you get in an email from Gravatar.
Create a username and password after clicking the link, and click “Signup.”
Now it’s time to select your universal profile photo. Click the blue text that reads “Add one by clicking here!”
Select where your profile photo is stored. This is most likely on your hard drive.
Click Choose File and select your headshot. Click Open on the image window. Then click Next.
Your Gravatar has to be a perfect square. If the photo you uploaded is not a square, you’ll be prompted to crop it. Make sure you like the way your previews look, and then click Crop and Finish.
Choose a rating for your Gravatar (this had better be G!!!)
That’s it! You can make edits to your Gravatar from this screen, or you can close out for now. Within a few hours, your universal Gravatar should be showing up around the web.