I would like to insert ads onto my Wordpress blog and was wondering what is the easiest way to accomplish this? Should I be manually adding adsense code and other pieces of code to the individual php files or should I be using a plugin of some sort. If the preferred method is a plugin, what are some of the better ones? Thank you
I manually insert the code to my WP blog for customization, but you can also use plug-ins, that will best suit to your needs, it is basically a question to yourself, if the ads displayed is enough.
If you know a bit about WordPress files, I would go for manually addition... a plugin would have a specific zones but manually you've lots of flexibility...Just remember to copy or have a backup of the original files before you make changes, so if you mess anything you can easily fix it...
I used WP-Ads, though there is another out there called Ad Mentor that adds the functionality of being able to customize banners and ads showing up on only certain relevant pages which I like. Both are super easy to use. You just add the code, name the banner, name the zone and it spits out a tiny code to add to your template files. You can put in or out of the loop on either. Very simple but powerful and easy to customize stuff. Other than that I sometimes use Adsense Deluxe but usually I hard code rather than plugins.
I use the adsense plugin for adding ads within posts. It makes it a lot easier as you have to manually reinsert adsense code everytime you edit a post. It works with other ad codes also.