The process of making your website popular involves building up your reputation as an expert in a specific niche. If you can establish yourself, then your website becomes to the “go to place” for anything related to that niche.
There are many bloggers who are niche bloggers. Building a brand takes time and effort, it is equally difficult to maintain. Building a strong brand also helps in building a thriving community around your website. It adds credibility to the services and products that you sell.
Now I'll get to how using a custom default avatar adds value and helps with building your brand.
Take this page for example.
You'll notice there are two users who aren't logged in, their default avatars are tedious to look at and add no value whatsoever.
To make a lasting impression on the first time visitor, it is important that he/she recognizes the logo and recollects the name of the website and it's domain of expertise. A simple way to do that is to reinforce the logo's image, we can do that by adding the brand's logo as the default avatar.
How does the test site look without the custom default avatar ?
Now we'll get rid of the faceless man with the two plugins that I am about to introduce you to for free and with consummate ease.
Add New Default Avatar – A Free WordPress Plugin
It hasn't been updated recently, but it works like a charm. And very simple to use as well.
1. Add the image to your gallery.
2. Obtain the URL for the same (one you want to use as your default avatar), make sure it has the right dimensions. Sometimes your theme takes care of this for you when you add it to the plugin's avatar choices, otherwise you'll have to add “/%size%/” as part of the URL for the image.
I'd rather not leave that to chance and get everything correct from the get go. So, create the image with the right dimensions to begin with and then upload it.
3. Add it to the plugin's set of images. Then, set it as default avatar.
4. Voila! Doesn't this look better ?
[icon file-text-alt] More details & downloads
WP User Avatar – Yet Another Free WordPress Plugin
WP User Avatar is another plugin that works just the same way as the previous plugin. This plugin offers a bit more in terms of choice. However, when comparing functionality, it serves our purpose of adding a custom new default avatar to WordPress just as well as the previous plugin.
Similar to the previous plugin:
1. Add the image to your gallery
2. On your WordPress panel, you'll see the option “Avatars”. Open that and add your freshly uploaded image. With WP User Avatar, adding the image is easier, you can add directly from the gallery images.
[icon file-text-alt] More details & downloads
Final Thoughts
Every little thing matters, this is one of the little things that will help you on your blogging journey. It will take you at best five to ten minutes to complete the entire process.
The impact of a custom default avatar is greatly magnified, when you have an active comments section. You wouldn't want to miss out on traffic or the increase in brand value because you failed to put in a few minutes of effort, would you?
Add your custom default image now and reap the benefits, however small, for the remainder of your blog's life.
