A Globally Recognized Avatar: Your Gravatar 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. Avatars help identify your posts on blogs and web forums, so why not on any site?

 

Basically your email address and your picture are linked, so when you use that email address to add comments your picture will automatically be added.

Gravatar functionality has been added to WordPress to natively, this means EASY to set up on your blog!  If you do nothing it will automatically be used for your comments.  Many themes take advantage of the functionality by using it for the Author box as well.

How Gravatars work

How Gravatars work is based on your e-mail address. Therefore when you set up your Gravatar account it is important that you use the e-mail address that you use when posting and commenting on other’s sites/Blogs. Your e-mail address is what will trigger the display of the photo associated with it.

Gravatars are 80 pixels in height and width (80 x 80). So make sure you use a photo that fits those dimensions so that your face doesn’t look skewed when the system resizes your photo to those dimensions.

Why would you use a Gravatar?

From a branding perspective, having an avatar which is consistent across the web as representing you enhances your brand. Wherever people see that, they will associated it with you and your brand. This allows others to see your smiling face and really feel like they are talking with you.

From the blogger perspective, using gravatars enhances the sense of community. It turns comments into statement by real people. It enhances the sense of real community at the blog.

How to set up your Gravatar

• Sign up for a free account at http://en.gravatar.com/

• Verify your email address by clicking on the link in the email you are sent

• Choose a nickname and password (only lowercase letters and numbers allowed)
• Upload a picture to the site from your hard drive or use an online image

• Crop your picture to suit (slide the slider to the left to shrink your picture)

• Choose a rating

• Click on the image to associate it with the email address

• Your gravatar should now show up next to your email address. You can add one more email address on this account.

Now you can add additional email address and additional images and combine them any way you see fit.  Always keep your branding in mind when you are selecting the images to use!

Related Posts

1. Install WordPress 3.x
2. Users and Administrators 3.x
3. After Install Configuration List

Admin Toolbar

If you are like me you usually start at your admin login page and then open the public page.You will now notice when you are logged in and viewing your public page you can see the tool bar. Click the image to see a larger version.

You can use the drop down go jump directly to the admin side

Add Link Button

The box is a lot more user friendly!

Enter your URL, Click add link * the title link is optional.

You can now easily link to other pages on your site.

Click on “or link to existing content”

Highlight/Click the page you are looking for and then click add link

I look forward to seeing the website you create, send me a email with the link to your site!

Related Posts

1. WordPress Checklist: Have you completed everything?

1. WordPress installed
2. Unique theme installed
3. In WP Settings —> General make these changes: Site Title, Site Description. Email should be youremail@email.com. Timezone = YourTimezone
4. In Posts —> Categories, change the default “Uncategorized” category
5. In WP Settings —> Permalinks change it to Custom Structure, use /%category%/%postname%/
6. In WP Settings —> Discussion change it so an admin must always approve a comment
7. In Links —> Change the default and remove all wordpress links
8. Google Analytics installed & configured w/ http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/google-analytics-for-wordpress/
9. Akismet installed & activated (key is XXXXXX)
10. Related posts displaying at the bottom of individual post pages w/ http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/yet-another-related-posts-plugin/
11. Facebook Share button installed and configured
12. Twitter Share button installed and configured

There are always a lot of ways to turn your WordPress into something truly UNIQUE!

Related Posts

1. Plugins – Google Analyticator 3.x
2. What is WordPress?
3. After Install Configuration List

First you do need a Twitter account.   Jump over to http://twitter.com/about/resources/widgets For this demo I just used the Profile Badge.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Related Posts

1. Facebook Badge and Share Button
2. Overview Easy WordPress Websites
3. WordPress at Okanagan College

First you do need a Facebook account.   Jump over to http://www.facebook.com/badges/ For this demo I just used the Profile Badge.

The Facebook Share Button allows your reading to easily post your page or post to their Facebook wall.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Related Posts

1. Twitter Widget and Share Button

Click here to view the embedded video.

Related Posts

1. Plugins – Google Analyticator 3.x

Click here to view the embedded video.

Related Posts

No related posts were found, so here's a consolation prize: Overview Easy WordPress Websites.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Related Posts

1. Installing WordPress Plugins
2. Plugins – XML Sitemap Feed 3.x
3. Installing and Activating Plugins 3.x

Click here to view the embedded video.

Related Posts

1. WordPress Checklist: Have you completed everything?

Click here to view the embedded video.

Related Posts

1. Plugins – Google Analyticator 3.x
2. Installing and Activating Plugins 3.x
3. Plugins – WP-DB-Backup (WordPress Database Backup)