Monetizing WordPress Plugins

There are a lot of ways you can add ads to your WordPress blog. As part of my month long series on WordPress Plugins, I thought I’d take a glimpse into WordPress Plugins that help you monetize your WordPress blog.

WordPress Plugins that add ads to your blogs may assign advertising blocks to specific areas, or allow you to customize where they appear. Others will automatically inject them between blog posts or within the post content itself.

Note: For the most part, the following WordPress Plugins involve editing your WordPress Theme template files in order to add the Plugin template tag exactly where you wish the generated information to appear. For information and tips on installing any of these WordPress Plugins in WordPress Themes, see How to Install, Configure, and Use WordPress Plugins.

Adding Adsense Ads to Your WordPress Blogs
For a long time, AdSense from Google was one of the most popular methods of monetizing your blog. Thus, there are a lot of WordPress Plugins to help you add AdSense to your blog.
Adsense Deluxe WordPress Plugin place the above AdSense Deluxe screen to your Wordpress options panel. From there you can create multiple AdSense ad units and decide what parts of the site should have or not have ads, and what ad sizes to run. The Adsense Deluxe+ WordPress Plugin claims they go farther to help you customize your ad placement and improved performance.

AdSense Sharing Revenue and Earnings System WordPress Plugin helps you track your AdSense earnings and impressions, including publicizing the information. Other WordPress Plugins that will help you track your Adsense income include
Adsense Clicks Tracker and Adsense Earnings WordPress Plugin.
Author Adsense Wordpress Plugin permits ads to be displayed by author, so the post author gets credit for the ads, not the blog itself. For multiple blogger blogs, this is an interesting way to share the wealth.
AdSense Widget for WordPress Sidebar
Adsense Injection Wordpress Plugin
Adsense Inline Wordpress Plugin
MightyAdsense Wordpress Plugin
Adsense Attachment WordPress Plugin
Mighty Adsense WordPress Plugin
Google AdSense Referral Rotator WordPress Plugin Widget
Adsense-Paster Plugin for WordPress

Amazon.com WordPress Plugins
There are several different Plugins that will help you add Amazon.com ads, wishlists, current reading lists, and other Amazon ad types to your WordPress blog.
The powerhouse of all things Amazon.com for WordPress is Amazon Media Manager WordPress Plugin. There is a lot of flexibility and customization in this Plugin. It’s been around for a few years and only gets better with time.

The Amazon Media Manager allows you to select Amazon.com books, music, and products from within your WordPress Administration Panels and easily add them to your WordPress blog in a variety of ways. It keeps track of what you’ve added, and helps you choose how to display the ads, and so much more.
Now Reading WordPress Plugin incorporates data from Amazon.com and allows you to add a “review” or commentary about the book or product.
WP-Amazon WordPress Plugin lets you to search Amazon as you write your post and embed the Amazon information directly into your blog post or Page.
Last Amazon Review WordPress Plugin showcases your most recent review on Amazon.com, helping you to promote the book or product. It features customized configuration of the incoming information and is also available as a Widget to work with Widgitized WordPress Themes.
Amazon Wishlist WordPress Plugin lets you put your Amazon.com wishlist on your WordPress blog, a nice way of asking for books in lieu of money.
Other Advertising WordPress Plugins For Your WordPress Blog
A lot of advertising javascripts and links require no special features to add to your WordPress Theme, but sometimes, a little WordPress Plugin help goes a long way.
CafePress WordPress Plugin allows you to create an online store front for selling your blog products through CafePress.
eMiniMall WordPress Plugin works with Chitika’s eMiniMalls to integrate them into your WordPress blog.
Text Ads Link Sidebar WordPress Widget helps you add Text Ads Links to your sidebar.
AdKit24 WordPress Plugin adds an ad bar for your WordPress blog with configuration through the WordPress Administration Panels.
TicTap Ads WordPress Plugin helps you add TicTap Contextual Ads ads to your blog.
Bidvertiser WordPress Plugin for Bidvertiser ads.
Many large website and blog supporting advertisers feature their own WordPress Plugins to help you add their ads to your blog.

Ad and Banner Rotator WordPress Plugins
There are a variety of random generators and rotators you can use to feature random ads and banners on your WordPress blog. Some are simple scripts while others are easy-to-use and highly customizable WordPress Plugins.

WPAds WordPress Plugin provides rotating options but also allows you to define the ad positions on your blog. It supports AdSense, Yahoo Publishers Network, and other ads including image banners.
PHPAdsNew Integration WordPress Plugin helps to add an ad banner or other content to your WordPress blog.
Other general ad rotating scripts and WordPress Plugins include:
Photomatt’s Random Image Rotator
Image Rotator PHP from Automatic Labs
Andersdrengen - Randomizer WordPress Plugin
AdRotator

Shopping Cart WordPress Plugins
I thought I would find more WordPress Plugins that help you set up a store front or online shopping cart, but I only found two.
Instinct e-Commerce Light WordPress Plugin adds a shopping cart to your WordPress blog for selling products and services, or for accepting fees online.
YAK WordPress Plugin is simple to use, allowing association of products with specific blog posts and more. There are some customization options and it adds two Admin Panels to your WordPress blog for showing and fulfilling orders, helping you keep track of orders, and managing products.

Are you familiar with any other shopping cart style WordPress Plugins?
PayPal Donations WordPress Plugins
There are several WordPress Plugins and Widgets that will help you include a PayPal Donate Button on your WordPress blog, which is especially helpful for WordPress Plugin and Theme authors.
They include:
EasyPayPal WordPress Plugin
PayPal Donate Plugin for WordPress Widget
Simple PayPal Donate Plugin
Paypal Donate WordPress Plugin

Adding Ads to Feeds
While I’m not personally a fan of ads on feeds, here are some WordPress Plugins to help you add ads to your WordPress feeds. Be aware that some advertisers will not allow you to run their ads in your feeds. Check your Terms and Conditions before using any of these.
Better Feed WordPress Plugin supposedly offers an option for adding ads to your feeds. Other WordPress Plugins that allow ads on feeds include:
PostPost WordPress Plugin (Commission Junction and Adsense)
WordPress Plugin: Pre and Post Feed Content
Feedvertising WordPress Plugin for Text Link Ads

Monitoring Other People’s Money
There are only a few WordPress Plugins that will help you monitor other people’s money, and maybe some of your own, though there are a lot of Google Gadgets you can use are similar to Widgets and Plugins, and integration into WordPress is fairly easy.
Stock Quote Tooltip WordPress Plugin allows you to create a hover mouseover effect over the link of any business to display the stock quotes in an AJAX mini window, similar to the Snap Preview effect.
Stock Quote Sidebar allows you to customize which stocks you want to follow and displays them as a list of stock quotes in your sidebar.
Stock Chart Widget displays a chart of your stock quotes in WordPress Widget.
Web 2.0 Rubble Widget is a regular Widget you can add to Widget-enabled WordPress Themes that tracks 10 Web 2.0 type stocks that are considered “popular”.
Move The Markets Post Stocks List WordPress Plugin isn’t the name of this Plugin which the author hasn’t yet named. Still, it’s an interesting stock market and investment oriented WordPress Plugin. It scans your post for stock market symbol names (like Exchange: SYMBOL, NYSE: CSX, Nasdaq: SUNW) and creates a table at the bottom of each post with links to search results for that ticker symbol on Yahoo, Google, and StockTickr.
Monetizing Your WordPress Blog

I’m sure I’ve missed a few good WordPress Plugins that help you add ads and money-making fun to your WordPress blog. Any tips, tricks, or recommendations?