Don’t worry, it’s not complicated at all. Just open your functions.php file in your theme’s folder and scroll to the bottom of the file. Here we’ll add the following code:

function adsense( $code ) {
    $code = '
        Your adsense code
    ';
return $code;
}
add_shortcode( 'myAds', 'adsense' );

Just insert you adsense code in place of the line: Your adsense code, save the file and upload it to your server. Now, when you’re writing a post, you can just type the [myAds] short code where ever you want your Adsense to appear.

A word of warning though, you might want to put the short code after the read more quick tag (<!--more-->) or it will show up in the loop and you might end up have more than the permitted number of ads on a page! Alternatively, you can use the is_single() conditional tag in the function to ensure that the Adsense code is only inserted when the single post is viewed, and not when it’s in the loop.

Just replace the code above with the following code:

function adsense( $code ) {
    if ( ! is_single() ) {
        $code = ' ';
    } else {
        $code = '
            Your adsense code
        ';
    }
    return $code;
}
add_shortcode( 'myAds', 'adsense' );

The obvious place to have your Adsense is on your home page. In this post, we’ll look at inserting Adsense on your hope page. This would be in the loop in the index.php page. As you can guess, it will also be applied to other pages that use the loop, namely the various archives pages.

Let’s begin:

Open the index.php file of your theme and find the line <?php if ( have_posts() ) : ?> and add the following just before this line:

<?php
    $postnum = 1;
    $showadsense1 = n1;
    $showadsense2 = n2;
    $showadsense3 = n3;
?>

Just change n1, n2, and n3 to whatever posts you want the Adsense to appear after. So if you want it to appear after the 1st, 4th and 8th posts, just change it to 1, 4 and 8 respectively. Also, if you only want one Adsense unit in the loop, discard the lines: $showadsense2 = n2; and $showadsense3 = n3;.

Next, scroll down to the line <?php endwhile; ?> and add the following code just before it:

<?php if ($postnum == $showadsense1) {
    echo '
        Your adsense code
    ';
} ?>

<?php $postnum++; ?>

Obviously, you need to replace Your adsense code with your adsense code. If you only want one Adsense unit, discard the second and third bits of php code.

That’s it, just upload the altered index.php page to your theme folder and your Adsense will be enabled.

Maybe you don’t want Adsense to appear on archives pages that have only one post as that might look MFAish? Not a problem, just show Adsense from the second post onward. Alternatively, you can filter out archive pages that have a post count of 1 by using $wp_query->post_count in the first bit of php code that inserts your Adsense code. In other words, you’d replace the code that you inserted before the line <?php endwhile; ?> with the following:

<?php if ($postnum == $showadsense1) {
    if (($wp_query->post_count) == 1) {
        echo ' ' ; }
    else {
        echo '
            Your adsense code
        ';
    }
} ?>

<?php $postnum++; ?>

There’s no need to alter the second and third iterations of the Adsense code as these won’t appear anyway if there’s only one post.

In our next post we’ll look at creating a short code to insert Adsense in your posts.