WordPress Banner Rotator Plugin Ad Squares Affiliate Widget
I recently found a cool WordPress banner rotator plugin called Ad Square Affiliate Widget brought to you by the team over at PriMo Themes.
If you have started to monetize your self-hosted WordPress blog by now you will have probably opted for one of the easier ways to generate income, 125 x 125 banner advertising.
A quick note: free plugins, while effective, do have their limitations. If you are looking for something with many more banner management options and features that will boost your affiliate income, then you need to take a look at OIO Publisher.
For those of you that are wondering what a 125 x 125 banner ad looks like, you’ll see a screen-shot below that shows 4 affiliate banners.
There are many banner advertisement management plugins for WordPress but what I like about this particular plugin is the ability to rotate your ads.
Why would you want to rotate your ads?
This is one way of overcoming banner blindness! Banner blindness is the term given to describe how people tune out ‘banners’ and ‘banner advertising’.
Okay, other WordPress banner rotator plugins have the same banner rotation feature so I must stress that what really helps the Ad Squares Affiliate Widget plugin stand-out as my new ad management plugin of choice are the following features:
- it’s free
- you don’t have to have a link that points back to the plugin author site that will only be removed if you upgrade to pro
- it is super easy to use
- it is a widget, meaning that you do not have to play around with your theme code to display the banners where you want
- it has some very useful options
- the plugin supports Google Adsense, XHTML, PHP, iframes and Javascript banners
You can read more about the plugin here.
WordPress Banner Rotator Plugin Installation
To install the plugin you’ll need to either download the files directly from the site here or use the WordPress ‘Add New’ plugin feature that makes installation a simple process.
Log-in to your WordPress admin panel and locate ‘Plugins’ on the left-hand side of the screen if you are using the traditional layout.
Click ‘Add New’ as shown in the screenshot above and you’ll now be presented with the screen below.
Now type in ‘Ad Squares’ (1) in the search box and click on the ‘Search Plugins’ (2) button.
If ‘Ad Squares’ fails to return the results you want try ‘Affiliate Widget’.
You’ll have to scroll down until you see ‘Ad Squares Widget’ listed as shown below.
You can tell you have the right plugin as it will say by PriMoThemes.com and WebSharks, Inc in the plugin description area.
Now hit the ‘Install’ button located to the right of the plugin description.
The next screen you will see will give you details of the plugin such as the version and compatibility with your WordPress version. If all is okay then simply click on the final ‘Install Now’ button.
The next screen are presented with simply requires you to click on ‘Activate Plugin’.
I already have the plugin installed so the image above shows a different plugin being activated, the process is the same.
You will find a new link under ‘Appearance’ that says ‘Ad Squares’. This only displays information about the plugin.
To start adding your banner codes simply go straight to your ‘Widgets’ area located under ‘Appearance’.
Now simply drag the ‘Ad Squares’ widget into the location you desire and start adding your ‘affiliate banner codes’.
Now, for the nitty-gritty!
(1) This allows you to select how many banners you wish to display from 2 – 8.
(2) Drop your banner affiliate code into the given boxes so they can be displayed live on your blog.
(3) The beautiful part, add <!–rotate–> followed by as many banner ad affiliate codes as you like to display a infinite number of add combinations.
(4) Select ‘yes’ to rotate your affiliate banner positions.
By combining option (3) with option (4) you’ll increase the possibility of grabbing your visitors attention, especially those returning visitors that have already been exposed to your banners and banner location.
Be sure to hit save and you are good to go. Now check your blog to see how your banners look.
When you refresh the pages here you’ll notice that our banners.
1st Affiliate Banner Rotation
2nd Affiliate Banner Rotation
3rd Affiliate Banner Rotation
Bonus Tip: You can take your banner advertising to the next level, get more clicks and improve the effectiveness of your affiliate banners by taking the time to design them yourself. You can do this without the need of hiring a professional designer by using the Easy Banner Creator software. If you can point-and-click then you can easily create eye-catching banners.
As you can see, the combinations are endless.
To your success,
Karl Foxley
P.s. You can sign-up as an affiliate at the following places so you can start finding products to promote (and get their banners to add to your site).
36 Comments
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- Richard Kawane - Wordpress Banner Rotator Plugin | Ad Squares Affiliate Widget http://bit.ly/9CWgvX
Hi there, I currently have WP125 installed on my site, http://theappwhisperer.com but it seems that my right column is not wide enough to accommodate ads side by side. Although I have two column enabled it will only display a single column. I can use the widget you have suggested here, but then I cannot add a click through link or see the number of times the ad has been clicked. Can you help – ideally, I would like to widen by theme so that I can incorporate WP125 as it has everything I need but its not wide enough. Joanne
joanne Carter recently posted..Daily App Digest – November 15, 2011
Hi Karl,
. So again this comment is just to say that you are brilliant and that’s it. Cheers.
Man your blog was SO SO SO helpful. Thank you so much for this really nice explanation. I just used this plugin on my blog and am so happy. I nearly wrote your name on top
To the first million,
Gio
You’re welcome Gio.
Nice plugin! One feature that would make it the ultimate is if it could track impressions. Trying to find an ad plugin that will allow easy CPM management is proving difficult.
Cheers!
Sted recently posted..Left Handed Myth Busted
Hi Karl,
I’ve uploaded this plugin to add ads but my sidebar is not big enough to accomodate two ads side by side. I’m looking for a free or paid ad banner plugin that would allow me to add banners and text links with an option to randomly display the ads or by order. Can you recommend any? Thank you so much!
Try the WP125 plugin. http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp125/
It works on most themes I’ve tried it with.
Exactly what I was searching for (multiple 125 x 125) plus a great tutorial. Thanks for this post, you rock!
Jay recently posted..New Twitter Bots and PPC Marketing Methods
You are welcome Jay. Great to see you here.
Hi Karl – is it possible to use this plugin to create just a single column of 125 x 125 banners? I don’t have a 250 sidebar. Thanks.
Hi Kim, I’m not sure as I’ve never tried to use the plugin on a site with that narrow a sidebar. WP125 may be a more suitable alternative if that feature is not available.
Great review.
I just installed this plugin based on the terrific reviews it’s been getting. Trouble is, my host doesn’t support 5.2.
Is there any way around this obstacle? Perhaps an older version of this plugin which doesn’t need this version of PHP? Do you know where I can find the older version?
And is there any alternate plugin which is as good as this one?
Saqib Khan recently posted..Monsoon Branding – The ignored Slice of Life
Hey Saqib, you would need to ask the plugin creator linked to above for help on that front.
A good alternative I often use on my sites is WP125.
Thanks Karl,
This is great! Only problem I’m having is I need to have PHP 5.2 to run this. Not sure what version my server is using, but, I’ll try to find out and get them to update asap.
Might save time for people if you note this requirement in your review.
Thanks again,
Deb
(aka GypsyOwl – My E-Book VA )
Thanks Deb, I’ll look into it.
Thanks Karl. The theme I use actually has four 125×125′s in it. But, since they are built in, modifying them takes time that I really can’t afford to lose. Thanks for the tutorial on Ad Squares Affiliate Widget.
You’re welcome David. Nice to see you here.
Karl
this is the easiest plugin ever
thank to you
.-= zach´s amazing last blog ..Cheap Auto Insurance =-.
Glad you like it Zach, I know it makes managing my banners a breeze.
Thanks for sharing. I’ve just applied for Buysellads.com I hope I’ll be approved so that I can start placing ads using ads plugin.
.-= TechGyo´s amazing last blog ..Now See the Moon in 3D using Google Moon =-.
You can always use affiliate banners in the mean time.
Karl
Sweet! I sent the link to my designer for her perusal.
I’ll get the link over to you today Dennis, sorry for the delay.
Which?
The WHOIS one.
Cool plugin. My theme from Woothemes actually has a 125*125 manager that has rotation which is great. Just wondering what plugin do you use to zoom in on pictures with the magnifying glass? Thanks!
Hey Ben, nice to see you here. The image management is hardcoded into the theme so doesn’t use a plugin.
Thanks. Ok that’s very cool that it comes with the theme. Best regards Karl.
Hi Karl,
this is a great plugin, especially that you made such a valuable tutorial!
Thanks for that.
I have also checked the Easy Banner Creator website and it looks quite ok. Have you used that software? What is your opinion about it?
Cheers
.-= Justyna Bizdra´s amazing last blog ..Is WordPress Security of any importance to you? =-.
For the price and ease of use it is a great tool. The only thing I would say that really beats it is if you know how to create banners in Photoshop.
Thanks Karl, yes I know what you mean about the power of Photoshop. Amazing stuff, I used to use it for a while:)
.-= Justyna Bizdra´s amazing last blog ..Is WordPress Security of any importance to you? =-.
Thanks for the tutorial. I already install one but I’ll this plugin since you provide the tutorial here. Thanks Karl
.-= Latief@AnotherBlogger´s amazing last blog ..Facebook Fan Page Report =-.
Give it a try Latief and let me know what you think.
This is very nice plugin, I didn’t know about it before, I will probably use it to rotate affiliates as it’s actually boring to keep the same ads all the time, and it’s not good to take a big space when displaying them at the same time!
Perfect!
.-= Hesham @ FamousBloggers´s amazing last blog ..Google Analytics Video Tutorial – Blogging Guide =-.
Absolutely Hesham, even I get bored when looking at my sites and seeing the same banners.
Hey Karl this is pretty cool and I’m going to try it I have been waiting to switch my ad style etc
I made alot of money with 1and 1 but god knows when they decided to pay it I wish they would take it and apply it to the bill I would never pay 
I guess it does work out like that but they should send it sooner. They actually called me today I thought it was billing but they wanted to know what I thought 
Peace
Hope all is well Look me up if you get a chance.
I had to unfollow everyone as the auto follow route just brought tons of nonsense
when I seen you I followed
Thanks going to mess with that plugin now
.-= John Sullivan ´s amazing last blog ..What’s your Game plan ? =-.
Hey John,
That’s awesome, never too late to switch up the ads!
1and1 are pretty cool. I’m a big fan of Clickbank and the likes but I’ve always had much more success with the type of affiliate products and promotions that you find over on Commission Junction.
The guys who have created this plugin also created another Ad Management plugin that I’m actually using to display the newsletter opt-in form on this page. The other plugin is called Ad Codes, you may find it useful.
Always good to see you here John,
Karl