How to put ads on your WordPress site

Recently, a nice lady named Margie bought one of my books, and we have been communicating via e-mail because she had some questions to ask me.  I think I have been able to offer her some assistance, at least I hope so!

Yesterday, I got another e-mail from her, and she had another question for me.  This question is a very common one, a lot of people ask it.  Because of that, I thought it would be beneficial to share it here on Virtual Earner so that all of my readers could benefit, in case they have the same problem.

Here is Margie’s question:

This is Margie, I just want to ask how to put a google ads in wordpress templates. I am learning a lot now I can say..I know there are millions more to learn..

Google adsense just approved me yesterday..it is a success for now…

Thanks for the knowledge..

OK, Margie, I’ll be happy to help you with this.

Actually, there are a lot of different ways to add advertisements to your WordPress site.  It depends on a number of different things too.  The most important is what kind of theme you are using.  For example, for all of my sites, I use a Theme Framework with Child Themes.  On that kind of a setup, it offers a lot of flexibility and benefits, but editing the theme to add things like advertising is more difficult than if you use a “regular” theme for WordPress.  That said, it is also true that there is an easy way to add anything you want to your WordPress site, and that is by using the Widgets, which are usually in the Sidebars and sometimes in other places like the header, footer or elsewhere on your site.

OK, let’s go through, step by step of how to add Google Ads to your WordPress site, using the Widget areas on your sidebar.

The first step is that you need to create the ads that you will use.  In order to do this, go to your Google AdSense account.  Look up at the top of the AdSense account page, and you will find a link that says “AdSense Setup” click on that.  The next page you go to will offer you choices of what kind of ad you want to set up.  For the purposes of this demonstration, click on “AdSense for Content.”  Next, select “Text and Image Ads” under the “Ad Unit” selection, and click continue.

Now, if you followed the steps in the previous paragraph, you should be on the page where you create the actual advertisement.  The first step, you will need to choose the size of the ad you want to create.  In order to choose the correct size, you need to know the width of the sidebar where you will be placing the ad on your site.  For example, if your sidebar is like 310 pixels or so, then I would recommend that you select the “300 x 250 Medium Rectangle” sized ad.  Whatever the size of your sidebar, just select the closest ad size that will fit (don’t choose a size bigger than the space you have, or else it will look odd on your site).  Next, make selections for what color you want the different parts of the ad to be (something that will look good on your site – there are lots of debates over whether the ad should blend in, stand out, or whatever).  After filling in all of the choices, just click the continue button at the bottom of the page.

Next, you will come to a page where you can set up Ad Channels.  This is important so that you can see which areas of your site are producing income, and adjust your other ads to mimic those that are producing money for you.  You can name the channel whatever you want, provided that the name will help you remember which ad it is.  For example, you might call the channel “Right Sidebar Top” or something like that.  It’s up to you.  After creating and selecting the channel, just click Continue again.  When you get to the next page it gives you an Ad name, which you can keep or change.  Next, click “Submit and Get Code.”  When you do that, you will be given a code for the ad, which you need to place on your site.

OK, so the next step is going to be to go to your site and place the code in the places where you want to put the advertisement.  To do this, you need to go into the Admin area of your WordPress site.  On the sidebar to the left, look for the “Appearance” area, and under that heading, you will see a link that says “Widgets,” click on that.  Now you are on the page where you can customize the widgets for your site and change the looks, add an advertisement, or anything of that nature.

Once you are on the Widgets area of your blog, look on the right side of the page and locate the area where you want to put the ad.  Every theme uses different names for the widget areas but looks for something like “Right Sidebar” or something of that nature.  Next, get a “Text” widget from the left side of the page and drag it to the “Sidebar” area on the right.  Once the Text widget is in place on the area where you want it, simply paste the ad code that Google gave you into the Text widget, and click save at the bottom of the widget.  Now, go look at your blog, and you should see the ad there.  Please note, though, after you create the Google ad, it may take 15 to 30 minutes for the ad to start showing, that’s just how long Google takes to create the ad for you.  So, don’t worry if you place the ad and in 5 minutes the ad is not showing up.

So, Margie, that is how you put the Google AdSense ad on your WordPress site.  I hope that this information was helpful to you.  In case you need a more visual way to see how this all works, here is a video of the process, I hope that it helps!

[youtube pCV6YYuSeY4]