There are several methods to put Google AdSense on your WordPress blog. I’ll share the most popular AdSense plugins, as well as our tips and tricks to make AdSense perform best on your WordPress blog.
 

WordPress for AdSense options

1. YieldBuild: the ad format optimization will help you find the best spots on your blog to run AdSense, it will guide you through the installation process, and it will optimize those ads’ background colors, border styles, border colors, sizes, placement and formats automatically, to maximize revenue. YieldBuild is used successfully on a wide range of hosted WordPress blogs, including Elliott Back’s popular WordPress blog. [Sign up for YieldBuild»]
2. Plug-Ins: The next-best solution is to use a free WordPress plugin, which won’t do the optimization for you, but will at least make installation considerably easier.First, via the AdSense console, choose your ad unit’s size, format, background color, border style, and border color. (Take a look at our AdSense formatting tips for the best rules of thumb for these). Also, grab your AdSense account number from your AdSense account.
   • Choose and format your ad units and grab their code here
   • Grab your AdSense account number here (at the bottom of the page, under Property Information, as AdSense for Content)

   Plugin Options: There are several options based on where you want to place AdSense ads. Keep in mind that you’re limited to 3 ad units per viewable page, but Google will simply not serve more than what’s allowed. (i.e. you can place code wherever you like, but you’ll only see 3 ad units at once on the page)

   • AdSense Widget for WordPress Sidebar: Installs AdSense into your blog’s sidebar widgets (under Design/Presentation)
   • MightyAdSense: Allows you to place your ad units from a console within WP admin. Somewhat clumsy UI but works reasonably well.
   • Adsense Injection: “injects” AdSense code at a random spot in your blog posts, reducing consistency and fighting ad blindness
   • Author Adsense: a great solution if you have multiple bloggers and want to share AdSense impressions for any author’s posts with the blog owner.
   • Shylock: Allows you to time your AdSense ad unit types (i.e. specify ad unit to show up a certain number of days after publication)
   • Adsense Deluxe: Allows placement and color management for your AdSense ads.
   • Adsense Earnings: Allows you to see your AdSense earnings within your WP dashboard.
   • AdSense Sharing Revenue and Earnings System: want to give some of your AdSense impressions to someone else? You can do so with this plugin.

   As with all plugins, download the plugin, upload it to your wp-content/plugins/ folder, and then activate each by going to your Dashboard, navigating to Plugins and clicking the Activation link. Be sure to update the plugins every once in a while when your Dashboard gives you notification (keep in mind that plugins come and go, and some might stop being supported).

Tips and Tricks for AdSense on WordPress

1. Keep in mind that you’re allowed 3 ad units and 2 text-link units per (visible) page. If you install code beyond that, you will still not be able to exceed that limit. Remember, though, that the maximum number of ads won’t necessarily earn you the most money; sometimes, less is more. (Although, unless you have YieldBuild, you won’t know until you test)
2. Unless you have a testing protocol in place that demonstrates otherwise, your best rule-of-thumb bet is to go with the three main ad sizes: 300 x 250 (”medium rectangle”); 160 x 600 (”wide skyscraper”); and 728 x 90 (”leaderboard”).
3. Keep your ads above the fold whenever possible, and “touching” in the L-formation, whenever possible, too.
4. Choose a background color that matches your page background, or is a shade darker, if you have a white or light-colored background. If your background is dark, choose a bright-colored ad, or one that is a shade lighter than your background.
5. Make the borders either the same color as your background (“invisible borders”) or a shade darker. Rounded borders generally perform better than square ones.
6. If you change WordPress themes, make the necessary adjustments to your ad unit formats and placements (unless you’re using YieldBuild, which will make those changes automatically) to reflect the new ad “environment.”
7. Although it is more difficult to do so, consider embedding your medium-rectangle into a post. Without the use of a plugin, you can do this manually by opening your Single Post theme file, looking for the <?php the_content… string and embedding your AdSense code immediately before that. Be sure to add an align=left or align=right (or style=”leftalign”/”rightalign”) attribute to embed your ad unit to the left or right of the start of your content.

This entry was posted on Friday, August 1st, 2008 at 4:04 pm and is filed under Online Advertising. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.