What is Gravatar? – It is Globally recognized Avatars, an images which can be associated with the email id you use online.
These images will be served all over the net, wherever you will use your email and if that blog supports Gravatar’s. It will be served from Gravatar site, so you just need to setup it once and forget about it.
It has become a social norm and all of blogs over internet use this service to show avatars. This is also an easy way to create an online presence with a recognizable visual presence.
But is this service really good for your blog or business? Should you really need a Gravatar for your blogs?
Why You should avoid having a Gravatar
1. If you are not confident about the stuff you write
If you use Gravatar, you are a recognizable personality. You write and people can connect the face with what you have written.
If you are not confident enough about what you write, you can avoid having Gravatar. It’s a human nature to avoid low sides and an easy way is to avoid having Gravatar’s.
Having Gravatar can create an extra sense of responsibility, and motivation to write better as you know world is watching. This can help you to put efforts towards your writing and try to improve.
The other thing which can help is, write about the topics you believe in. If you are writing about these topics, you will feel proud to get the world know about it.
2. You are not sure you can last long enough in the Blogging Sphere
If you are not started with a long term view and without any strategy planning, you may end up leaving it.
You can avoid having Gravatar, if you are experimenting with your blog. Free Blogging Platform has most number of abandon blogs, because you have nothing to lose.
If you pay small amount of money in hosting, you have more chances of retaining it. It’s not because of money paid, but because of human nature of fear of loss.
That fear forces you to go and put efforts to make it a success. Though you need to invest it smartly, do your research before spending it.
[box type=”gray”]Note: I do use Hostgator for most of my blogs and I would recommend that hosting. You can get 25% off on their plans with the coupon code “webworld25”[/box]
3. You take a shortcut and write lot of spam comments just for backlinks
There are many people who are doing it, so it can be a valid reason for doing it. We know backlinks are important and can be a good way to increase SERP’s rankings.
Many people will come to your blog and write a 3 word comment, saying thank you or nice post. Some will go extra length and generate a generic text which they will copy paste at as many blogs as possible. They will not read the comment policy and will refuse to use added options like keyword link.
If you are one of those, you can avoid having Gravatar. You don’t want everybody to know your face with those spam comments.
Having Gravatar can motivate you to write meaningful comments and once you keep doing it consistently, people will start reading your comments by seeing your Gravatar.
4. You are not confident about the services you provide
If you not confident about the services or the service you provide are of low quality, you should avoid having it.
Having it can motivate you to put emphasis on customer satisfaction as you feel personally responsible for it.
It also means an improve business relations with your customer and they feel that they know you. It increases a safety level in human mind and they will try to do more business with you.
5. Let’s take a different path from the others and avoid Gravatar
You can decide to be on less crowdie path and decide on not to have Gravatar or You can choose to have your blog logo as an image for you.
Both the options are fine and for me, both are same as long as you do not take pride in the brand image you are creating.
If you take enough pride in the brand image than it also serves the same purpose as your own image. It will motivate you to perform, serve your readers in a better way and increase your reach in blogging sphere.
So what do you say, Do you want to have Gravatar or not?
Image Credit: basketman / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
I recently got a gravatar and i think it’s great. Nice post
You got me on a Long thing bro. Actually, As A Blogger, You should be confident about yourself and your services except you are a Scammer and u wanted to mean “5 Reasons You should avoid Using Your Real Face In Gravatar”… The number 3 Reason got me poked cos i was once a victim. LOL… Have fun Bro.. Nice Ideas though.
Having a Gravatar is very useful. I don’t consciously think about putting more effort into my comments, but now that you mention it that is what I’ve been doing.
Before I read your post, I actually thought it was going to be against having a Gravatar, which would have surprised me. I think that having a Gravatar can add a lot of personality to your comments. It makes people look at a comment and think “oh, this came from a real person, not just someone trying to promote themselves.” When I see a Gravatar, I’m more inclined to click through and see what a person’s blog is about if I enjoyed his comment.
Oh, Your title got me! haha.. I thought I should stop using my gravatar. Yet, you have shown me reasons to create more appealing and great articles and content. That is what my boss is asking me to do, create an interesting article that can catch the attention of the readers. Thanks Sanjeev. anyway, you given great tips in the article! More power!
Hi Juphet, Thanks for liking the article. I agree title is little catchy so people tempt to click on it…one of the good ways to bring people…
So basically it sounds like you have to be a blogger that knows and likes where you are going. You need to be confident and honest to use gravatar well.
Yes and having Gravatar with your face makes you credible for your content. Isn’t it?
I think some people don’t know that there is a gravatar service or what it does. Others might be a little on the lazy side and don’t bother setting it up. And, of course spammers don’t usually bother with setting one up. I like them, and they do make comments look a little more professional or attractive.
Hi Ray, I agree that some people are unaware of the services and that’s why they avoid it but many are there who are intentionally avoiding it. They are a great way to create online presence.
Gravatar is great source for making unique identity towards bloggers.And I really surprised I get 100 plus spammed comments with no gravator on daily basis on my official blog.
I know, there are many people who try to avoid it purposefully, It should be the first thing which we should setup even before writing out our first comment.
I think the gravatar is fantastic precisely for the reasons you list. It encourages accountability, improves recognition, and ties it back to you. Of course that all assumes that you take pride in everything you write and don’t spam.
Hi Samuel, Yes, if we take pride in what we write we should have Gravatar and let people know that it is us who has wrote this. Actually its one of the things which encourages in clicking their links.
This is the first time that I read something about the disadvantage of having gravatars. From what I know, gravatar can help you establish your personality. It can also earn you credibility. But after reading your blog, I became more open-minded with the consequences of having a gravatar. And you know what, you have a strong point.
Rai, Did you actually read my post, I am also in favor of having Gravatar and I have put that point accross.
By the way, why you don’t have Gravatar?
I agree that some of those who have no gravatars are really spams and it is so sad because they are becoming more and more…
I do not want to generalize it as some of them are not at all aware of the services but yes many would go and spam…
Really great point you share with us. I agree with you. thank you so much for sharing this post.
Abhinav, If you agree to my points than why you don’t have a Gravatar for you?
As for me, then I avoid using Gravatar because I don’t see any sense in it. I don’t want it to appear everywhere where I comment
But it does create your presence and once people will be know it there are more chances that they will read your comments and click on your links..
Sad but true: About 2 out of 3 people without a gravatar are spamming; at least on my blogs.
Yes, I am also deleting lot of comments because people fail to read comment policy or fail to use options provided for better backlinks….and it is really frustrating.
Gravatars are great because I dont need to upload a pic over and over again. I also love the fact that I recognize people commentting on my blog easier and faster.
Oh Yes, Its the ease of use which makes it really attractive and good for building connections.
This article was like the mathematical questions we used to prove by contradiction in school 🙂
Ya, it is something like that, I have always wondered why people try to avoid having Gravatar’s and here is my reason for that..:)
Comments are closed.