Once upon a time, bloggers could write about our passions, from horse grooming to motorcycle maintenance – assuming, of course, that we were proficient in the language of source codes to create attractive and user-friendly pages.And then WordPress burst onto the scene as a free, open-source platform designed with blogging in mind, allowing bloggers to utilize templates, tools and widgets without slowing down our creative juices. It was the perfect marriage of the art of writing and the art of presentation. Even while many “real” journalists still considered blogs a passing fad, we bloggers knew that we had found our niche.
However, unlike “real” journalists, we were somewhat hampered in our ability to promote our favorite products, our favorite blogs or even ourselves, lest our blog be viewed as spam. Likewise, as the captivated audiences of successful bloggers grew, advertisers were hampered in their ability to capitalize on this highly informed and engaged audience.
Listening to the needs of its bloggers, WordPress developed a number of plugin applications that allow bloggers to enrich our content and monetize our blogs without compromising our integrity. The following programs are some of my personal recommend(both free and paid).
Easy AdSense
Easy AdSense makes sense of the wide world of advertising. It limits the number of ads to no more than three per page. After all, your blog is the feature, not the advertisements. With Easy AdSense, you can choose where and how often ads appear in your blog. Personally, I prefer to have no advertisements on my home page. I want my readers to be able to read enough of my blog to capture their interest before bombarding them with advertisements.
WP-Insert
WP-Insert combines many of the mundane functions of utilizing advertisements on your blog. It allows you to run up to three different ad networks at one time. Insert ads anywhere on the page – top, middle or bottom of the post, left or right side banners. WP-Insert is also geographically sensitive, allowing you to support the local businesses that support your blog. With WP-Insert, it is simple to add a privacy policy, terms and conditions, and disclaimers, as well as tracking codes to determine the ads that most interest your readers.
AdRotate
This amazing plugin allows a blogger to use multiple banners for separate pages on his or her blog. The banners can be generated randomly or tied to a certain topic. AdRotate lets you manage ads or groups of ads in the same manner. With its internal statistical analysis, AdRotate sends you an email when your banners or ads are about to expire. It even tailors ads to your loyal readers’ preferences based on their previous clicks. You can disable an ad or banner after a pre-selected number of clicks to ensure that your advertising content never becomes stale.
Billboard
Billboard provides a professional, seamless appearance to articles, items and other materials mentioned in your blog. In a recent blog post about the skills shortage in advanced manufacturing (I know, not the most scintillating topic for everyone, but it has my attention), a certain report regarding the statistics that supported the post appeared as the report’s cover. I simply clicked on the report cover to download the full report so that I could form my own opinion and comment on the original post. And yes, I did read the entire report.
Ad Injection
This crafty little plugin automatically connects any other advertisement platform (Google, Amazon, etc.) to your WordPress blogs and pages. Several ingenious features make this a must-have for bloggers interested in monetizing their site. Ad Injection allows you to position the advertisements wherever you please on your site. As a blogger, you can also tailor the ads according to the length of your post, your visitor’s profile or even by the age of the visitor. Ad Injection also provides A/B testing so that you can determine the best placement for your ads. Automatic injection helps to reduce “ad blindness”, a condition wherein the reader simply ignores an advertisement based on its location within a blog. You can restrict the ads to appear only on older posts, allowing you to attract visitors with your well-informed blog before subjecting them to advertisements. One interesting feature of this plugin is that it can be used for options other than advertisements. You can use Ad Injection to provide your readers with a place to sign up for your email list or as a coupon for your products or your advertisers’ products.
Author Advertising
This plugin accommodates a blog for which many authors contribute materials. It interfaces with many of the traditional advertising platforms such as Yahoo, Google AdSense, Amazon and others. The blog administrator retains control over which advertisements appear for each author. This feature allows the administrator to calculate revenue generated by author with complete accuracy. The administrator controls the type of advertising and its placement to optimize the blog’s monetization.
Max Banner
Max Banner takes the guess-work out of using banner advertisements. Generally speaking, banner advertisements pay more than smaller, block advertisements. However, creating banner ads can create quite a headache. This plugin contains a tracking mechanism so that you can track your most profitable ads. It also allows for banner rotation and placement in various positions throughout the blog.
Traditionally, “real” journalists are supported by advertising, whether directly through companies that want to advertise in their columns, or indirectly through the advertisements attracted by the publication itself.
The plugins offered in conjunction with WordPress recognize the unique perspectives and advertising needs of today’s bloggers while respecting the integrity of the blogger’s words. Advertisers can trust that the bloggers they support will generate interest in their products, and bloggers can trust that the advertisers will enhance their blog rather than detract from the subject at hand.
