How to use WP QUADS to show ads on your website or blog

We saw in an earlier article that there are many plugins for WordPress that help us to display adverts on our website. In this article we will work through an example using WP QUADS.

Adsense Plugin WP QUADS is perfect for bloggers and website owners who are just starting out and are on a tight budget. There is no end to the ways in which you can spend money on a website, so this freebie is welcome.

There are extra features that can be unlocked in the paid Pro version, but all the basic functions are free and you can create a bunch of adverts and display them at the top, bottom and middle of the page, and other locations.

1 Go to Plugins

If you have not yet downloaded and installed WP QUADS, go to the sidebar and click Plugins. Click Add New.

2 Search, install, activate

Enter WP QUADS into the keyword box and the plugin is among the first to be listed. Click the Install Now button and when it has finished, click the Activate button.

3 View your ads

When you want to view or create adverts, click WP QUADS in the sidebar. Select the ADSENSE CODE tab at the top.

Empty ad slots are called Ad 1, Ad 2, Ad 3 and so on. Click one, any one. Might as well be the first.

4 Switch to AdSense

Before we continue with WP QUADS, open AdSense in a new browser tab and go to your ad units view. This is where all the adverts you have created are listed (we saw how to create ads in an earlier article).

Find the ad you want and click Get code.

5 Get the ad code

A box like this appears and it contains the code for the ad. There are two options.

Copy all the code OR copy the data-ad-client (your unique publisher ID), and the data-ad-slot (the advert’s unique ID).

6 Create the ad

Switch back to the WordPress tab in your browser and you can now create the ad.

The default names are Ad1, Ad2 and so on. Click the name and enter your own for the ad, like Banner, Square, Skyscraper or something similar.
Select the AdSense option if you are creating an AdSense ad.
Any code can be inserted into web pages with this option, not just AdSense, so affiliate links, your own ads, messages you want to give visitors and so on.
If you copied the whole ad code in step 5, click this button, click in the box that appears and press Ctrl+V or Command+V.
If you copied the data-ad-client and data-ad-slot in step 5, this is where you insert those codes.
Is the ad you created in AdSense a responsive ad or was it a specific size? Click this menu and select Fixed or Responsive.
Position the ad. Select one of these three options. They determine whether the ad is on the left, right or centred.
If the ad is too close to the text, increase the margin here.

7 Enable the ad

Now you need to enable the ad and choose where on the page to display it.

Select the GENERAL & POSITION tab at the top.
When you have a lot of ads and a lot of rules, it is easy to lose track of them. This avoids accidentally having too many on a page. At one time AdSense rules permitted only 3 display and 3 text ads on a page. These days there are no rules other than to avoid annoying the user by having too many. A small number of well placed ads are better than lots of annoying ones.
Tick the box to enable this ad rule.
Select the ad this rule is to display.
This is where the ad will display, in this case, the middle of the post.

All that remains is to save the post and you’re done. View your site in an incognito or private browser window and the ads will appear.