Profitably Place Links And Promotions With Eight Widgetized Areas

Eight areas of the Abundance theme are widgetized – the left and right sidebars, a wide sidebar area above these that spans both of them, a banner area above and below the content, the footer bar, the top widget bar and an Adsense box inside posts on the top left. All these are optional.

Of course, you can put anything you like in these areas and probably have some creative ideas of your own. They’ve all been used for Adsense (although obviously not at the same time) across various sites, and the top banner area is often used for Amazon or Clickbank banners. If you’ve a blog roll that’s not especially long, it can be beneficial to place it in the bottom banner area where those few links can catch the eye of surfers immediately after they’ve finished reading an article, instead of over in the sidebar where they often remain unseen.

Seven of the widgetized areas are highlighted above, with the eighth shown below. For a variety of reasons it would be unwise to use this one on sites where there are images inserted at the top of some of the posts, but this does not mean you’re excluded from using images with it altogether. If you want to associate an image with the post in order to fill a spot with it on the front page, simply insert the image further down the post or define it’s URL in a custom field and not show an image in the post at all. The Abundance theme can handle either method of image management, and as already pointed out, displaying the ad box is optional. Whether you choose to display the ad box in your posts, carefully positioned images, both or neither, will depend on the purpose of the site you’re building.

With so many positions possible for the placing of ads, it’s important not to fall foul of Adsense rules regarding the number of units you can put on your pages. Check carefully before implementing what might seem like a bright idea – you’ll generally get a higher price per click with fewer ad units on your page anyway.

Placing navigation in the footer and using the sidebars for monetization, is a tactic that’s proven effective for me. You can use one sidebar, two, or all three.