What it really means is that you can now embed your ads directly within your individual pages and posts exactly where you think they might be most effective. It also means that you can vary where your ads are positioned in each and every post, and therefore potentially reduce ad blindness.

The magic starts with the new HMT Ads button:

When you click it, you will see a dialogue appear which allows you to inject a WordPress shortcode directly into your post.

You can select which of your ad widgets you would like to appear in the post, and also how you would like the ad aligned.

You can then click on the Insert HMT Ad button and a shortcode will be inserted directly in your post content…

..and when you view the post it would look like this:

As you can see, an ad placed in this way is very hard to avoid, so if you don’t want your site to look like it belongs to Mr Spammy Spamster then use your new power of laser targetted ad placement wisely.

Where to Embed Your Ads?

But, that brings the next question, where is the best place in your post?

Of course above the fold positions might get the most attention, and the biggest possible ad will make the it even more visible,  but, if you have content that is engaging and interesting to readers, you don’t want to bug visitors too much, and you would like to retain an air of site quality, then placing ads lower down in the content might be more appropriate for you to experiment with.

You might also consider placing ads near to ‘often-clicked’ links, bullet pointed lists, or images that are embedded within your posts (be careful though not to b break the Google TOS though when doing that).

Tools which might help you find where visitors are clicking

To uncover where your visitor are really clicking without having to read through reams of statistics then the Click Heat Dynamo plugin is worth a look. It generates a HeatMap diagram which makes it super easy to visualise visitor behviour.

Have fun with the new HMT Ads button. If you are into being strategic and optimising your ad placment to the max you are going to absolutely love this new feature.

Okay, so the more observant of you will have noticed this site has mysteriously changed from being about an Adsense theme to being an Ads theme (you did notice didn’t you? or were you just thinking you were going a bit loopy and that it had been this way all the time?)

It’s now HeatMap Theme’s one month birthday and during this short time that I’ve come to realise that HeatMap Theme has developed its own grand designs that stretch beyond Adsense. Yes it’s true, I originally started this whole thing to solve my own problem of being able to quickly and conveniently launch my own sites without having to install a whole mess of plugins and retrofit my WordPress Themes to make them work neatly.  Well it seems that goal has been achieved (although there is more to come on that score).

I’m now starting to use other ad networks (US Visitors might notice some Chitika ads on this site) and other affiliate programs with HeatMap Theme, and since so many people are actively using HeatMap Theme with Adsense alternatives it makes sense that HeatMap Theme starts to spread its wings.

“To Infinity and Beyond!”

My goal now is to develop a theme for people who have some great content to give to the world and want to be able to easily monetise that content in a stylish integrated way with Adsense and beyond. I’m not at all interested in any ‘make money quick with ads’ stuff, and you’ll never find that here on HeatMapTheme.com. I’m only interested in great content that’s in it for the long run, adding genuine value to the sum total of human knowledge and being rewarded for that.

My lofty aspirations for HeatMap Theme are that it develops to be one of the tools that WordPress users instinctively turn to when they want to integrate an ad revenue strategy into their original content. We have a long way to go. Maybe you’ll come along for the journey.

So, back to the (small) name change. A comment on this site from daniel added fuel to the fire of my growing unease about just focussing on Adsense. Google are rightly picky about use of their trademarks, even though Google trademarks have transcended their brand and become common usage words in everyday conversation. It seems that there are a billion websites abusing Google’s trademarks but I don’t want HeatMapTheme.com to be one of them. HeatMap Theme is here for the long run and I want to make sure we do things in the right way, and we are early on enough in the life of HeatMap Theme that we can make slight changes to trajectory and ensure we are on the right course.

“Change is a-coming…”

So what will happen? Well over the next few days I’ll be changing many of the Adsense references on this site over to ads. Its now ‘HeatMap Ads Theme’ folks.

New themes based on the HeatMap Theme ‘engine’ will not specifically mention Adsense in their name, instead opting for more generic terms. Forthcoming updates to HeatMap Theme will change the footer credit link and modify references to Google Trademarks so as to be within their policies wherever is practical. In short, less focus on Adsense, more focus on the whole area of ‘ads’.

So one month in, and nearly 4,500 downloads since launch we are making big decisions for the future. I’m sure as HeatMap Theme grows there will be lots of strategic decisions that we make. Remember this decision as being Number 1, and it took place on HeatMap Theme’s 1 month anniversary.

Okay, well I can’t just sit around making corporate decisions all day, there is themeing to be done! All the best to you fellow HeatMapsters!