How do you post advertisements within a theme

  • I’m just getting started with WordPress and am in the process of selecting a theme. I’m using “WordPress for Dummies” to help me. I notice that nowhere in “Dummies” nor in any theme description is the topic of advertising discussed. Given that the desire of some (many?) bloggers is(at some time)to sell advertising on their blog, I’m thinking that I must be missing something here: I must not know enough to ask the right questions. But here goes:

    If I plan to have to have advertisements in a sidebar, what do I need to know? When I look at a theme description, what information should I look for that lets me know that I will be able to post advertisements if I use that particular theme?

    Will I need specific widgets for this purpose? If so, why have I not found any widget descriptions that reference advertising?

    Great appreciation to anyone who can help.

Viewing 5 replies - 1 through 5 (of 5 total)
  • delete

    (@moonbatwingnut)

    These folks set the standards:

    https://www.iab.net/iab_products_and_industry_services/1421

    But if you just want Adsense: https://www.google.com/adsense/

    You have a few choices on ad size and shape – squares, vertical rectangles, and horizontal rectangles. To put an Adsense ad in the sidebar, first be sure the sidebar is big enough to contain the shape/size you want. Then set up an account at Adsense and get the code to insert the ad. Go to widgets and add a text widget, then copy/paste the Adsense ad script into it.

    To add Adsense elsewhere, you will have to create a <div> to contain it, and add that <div> to the templates in the theme editor.

    Thread Starter annespears

    (@annespears)

    This is wonderful information that, at some point, I know I’ll be able to use. It does, however, point out to me that I’m correct in not knowing the right questions to ask. Thanks for bearing with me here.

    The type of blog I will have is a community/news blog–I plan on selling ads to local merchants. (As of now, I have no plans for any click-through type of ads).

    My idea is to place ads (which may include text, graphics, or photos and which would be linked to the merchant’s web site) in one of the sidebars. An example of this kind of ad can be found at https://westseattleblog.com/blog/.

    Do you know how that’s done?

    Thanks!

    If I plan to have to have advertisements in a sidebar, what do I need to know?

    Basic HTML. That’s what you need to learn before thinking of advertisement. If you want to be a webmaster and to manage your website – learn the basics first. That’s how we all did.
    https://www.w3schools.com/ – very good resource!
    And the online WP manual, the Codex is also a good place to start.

    The other option is you outsource the jobs you don’t want to learn. In plain English: hire a pro.

    delete

    (@moonbatwingnut)

    Right-click > View Source and scroll down to see the code for how they set up that side bar. It appears to be all hand-coded.

    If you are using Firefox there’s a plugin for it called Firebug that you can use to inspect the code of any webpage to learn how they set it up.

    A good basic book on HTML/CSS: HTML, XHTML and CSS by Elizabeth Castro.

    Thread Starter annespears

    (@annespears)

    Moshu and MoonbatWingnut: thank-you! I thought that maybe I could avoid mucking around in the code but I guess not. Very thoughtful for both of you to have included resource references.

Viewing 5 replies - 1 through 5 (of 5 total)
  • The topic ‘How do you post advertisements within a theme’ is closed to new replies.

Tags