A Gravatar, or Globally Recognized Avatar, is an image or picture of yourself or something that represents you.  Avatar images have been around for a long time used on bulletin boards and blogs to show users who you are. 

Avatars were usually local to the system you were logged into.  Now we have Globally Recognized Avatars available through gravatar.com .  It is a free service that lets you create an account and assign Avatar Images to your email addresses.  Then when you are on a system or blog that recognizes you it will show your Gravatar next to your name in comments and sometimes posts.    The use of gravatars has become more and more popular and more systems are adding support for them. 

At gravatar.com you can upload a picture you already have, that you can then crop and save, or you can take a live snapshot using your web-cam and use that as your gravatar.  They do not supply any images.  Generic avatar images are available many other places on the net.  Just do a search for “avatar images’ and you’ll find all kinds.

Go ahead!  Get yourself an Avatar today and post a comment somewhere.  You’ll see your avatar show up.

The Web avatar, gravatar

by: Richard Legg

Nowadays, it seems that everyone and his cousin have taken to blogging. This form of online self-expression has slowly but steadily taken over the World Wide Web to become somewhat of a phenomenon in recent years. Some people use blogs as their personal journals, some may see them as an outlet for their creative work, and others may just want their own personal place in cyberspace to share thoughts and ideas.

Now, a quick question for the Internet businessman. If you have a blog, can you use it to boost your site’s exposure and drive more traffic to it? A blog is great for sharing ideas and posting about things you like or don’t like, but can a blog help your online business succeed?

The answer is a definite YES. Your blog can do wonders for your website, but it all depends on the way you utilize its potential power. I’m going to teach you a tried and proven method that has been effective for other website owners, and this method is applicable for any type of blog. You will just need a lot of creativity and some time to make it work.

First thing you have to keep in mind is that most blogs on the Web have a community feel to them. You may think that your blog is your own, since you’re the one who installed and developed it. And you may be right. But your blog is also connected to other blogs on the same site. You may also be connected to other blogs that are using the same blogging software as you. This situation guarantees that sooner or later, a person will land on your blog and be able to see all that you have to say. This can also mean that your blog is now getting free advertising within the blogging community. I don’t think you need me to tell you how beneficial this can be for your site’s traffic.

However, you do have to keep in mind what you’re posting as your blog’s content. If all you’re doing is making posts that promote your products or your business, then you’re dead. Believe me, that is not the recommended way to use your blog. Have you seen the Internet lately? It’s already overflowing with loads of advertisements for products and services. Be different. Your visitors need a good reason to keep coming back to your blog. Use it to give expert and knowledgeable information about your line of work to your readers. If you’re selling a product on your site, talk about it on your blog, and don’t just post a measly advertising blurb.

Read more…

The Web blogging, website

WordPress Plugins.

One of the great things about WordPress is that you can install “Plugins”. Plugins supply additional functionality to your WP Blog. Some things you can see and some things you can’t. We always seem to install a favorite set of plugins for any blog and then there are others that we install according to the specific needs of your site. Such as photo galleries or music players. The plugins we install all the time are listed below.

All In One SEO Pack - Adds good meta decsription and keywords to all your pages and posts automatically plus you can add even more.

Google XML Sitemaps - Creates a correct XML Sitemap and notifies Google and other search engines of its status.

StatPress - Basic Real Time Stats of visitors and spiders with many details.

The above plugins and many more can be found at wordpress.org .

There are many other Plugins that we use and they all add terrific benefits to your site. These are what we consider essential for a site that wants to be indexed in the major search engines.

Other plugins can also be installed to give your site features like photo galleries, email forms, event listings, Gig listings, music players and more… Your possibilities are endless due to the efforts of all the people that contribute to the WordPress effort.

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Wordpress plugins, Wordpress