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SEO Dave

Comment on Hosting WordPress Custom Ads

Hosting WordPress Custom Ads

Custom ads is part of Stallion 6, but I’ve not got around to documenting it yet :-))

Under your widgets menu

Appearance >> Widgets

You’ll find multiple widget areas on the right hand side. Each Widget area represents a part of the page. Won’t go through them all, couple of examples.

Header Ad Widget : that area is where you see the Search form in the header area. If you turn the Search Form box off (via the Stallion options) you can add any html code you like to that area via a text widget.

Drag and drop a Text Widget into that widget area and add some code, it will float to the right of the right hand side of the header area. That area is suitable for a ad banner around 468px by 60px comfortably fits.

Content Ad Widget : that area is directly above the main content of the first post on archive page and top of post on posts and static pages. You can use that area to put an add in the same location as a main AdSense ad that floats to the left or right.

The sort of code you can use in this location is what I used for the Stallion Clickbank affiliate program the code below for example you use the large Stallion Clickbank Banner floating to the right where you’d have your AdSense ad normally, this would give you a clickable banner ad.

<div style="float:right;padding:5px;">
<a href="http://CLICKBANKUSERNAME.stallionad.hop.clickbank.net/?tid=STALLION&dpdid=Stallion_seo" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.domain.com/stallion-300-250.gif" alt="Stallion SEO Ad Theme" width="300" /></a>
</div>

Basically you add your banner image link within a div that has the styling you want for that area, if you wanted the contents to be centered you’d use something like:

<div style="text-align:center;">
The banner code
</div>

If you used that code on the Content Ad Widget area the banner would be above the main content centered above it.

Using the widget areas and text widgets you can place banner ads (any HTML code) in multiple locations of the page (in Stallion 6.1 adding another area below the main content, missed that area in 6.0).

Unfortunately you can’t use PHP code within text-widgets, so doing something more interesting like only having the ad on the home page or specific posts isn’t possible without editing code: that’s possible via the /widgets/custom-widgets.php file where you can add code like:

<?php if (is_front_page()) { ?>
code you only want on front page
<?php } ?>

<?php if (is_single(26)) { ?>
code you only want on the post with id 36
<?php } ?>

<?php if (is_page(13)) { ?>
code you only want on the static page with id 13
<?php } ?>

You’d use this sort of code within that file like this:

<?php /* Widget start */
function st_banner01() { ?>

<?php if (is_single(26)) { ?>
code you only want on the post with id 36
<?php } ?>

<?php } register_sidebar_widget(__('Jims Banner Ad Post 26'), 'st_banner01');
/* Widget end */ ?>

This would add a widget to your widgets called “Jims Banner Ad Post 26” which you could add to any of the widget areas and it would only show on post with ID 26. Because this is code based you can add HTML and PHP code to this widget. It’s how I built the “Stallion Affiliate Banner” widget that comes with Stallion, I incorporated that widget with the WP Expander Plugin that delays the loading of the Stallion banner (you can see it in action on the above page).

Nofollow and selling banner ads.

Google recommends you use nofollow on sold links.

Two problems with this, firstly adding a nofollow link deletes the link benefit that would have flowed through the link, so it damages your sites SEO!

Secondly many people buying ad space are going to want the link to pass link benefit. If they are paying for impressions rather than SEO benefit you’d need a script to track banner impressions ideally.

When I add a link I don’t want Google to follow I use the link cloaking I’ve added to Stallion, see Cloak Affiliate Links Tutorial. This serves the link using javascript, so if you are selling banner ads be aware it’s estimated 10% of visitors have JavaScript turned off, so they would see a non-clickable banner (or anchor text if a text link). This is fine for affiliate links and banners, you aren’t selling the banner per se, not so good if you sell the space. That being said there are scripts that use javascript for banners, so it’s not unprecedented.

If you sell ad space that does pass link benefit there is a potential risk of a Google penalty if you get caught. Problem is if you don’t pass link benefit less advertisers :-)

David

Update: most of the code examples can be achieved within the Stallion Responsive Theme without any code editing.

Hosting WordPress Custom Ads