Imagine bringing in a consistent income simply by posting advertisements on your blog or magazine. Think about paying a selection of writers to generate quality content while you sit back and manage the whole operation from the comfort of your own home or office. This is the goal for so many bloggers and magazine creators. And if you want to make it work, a Google AdSense optimized WordPress theme is a great way to get started.
An AdSense strategy is a wonderful way for startups to create an extra income stream. But many are hesitant to get started. It might be too hard. It might not pay off. Well, I’m here to tell you that it absolutely can (and does) work.
The WordPress Advantage
It’s clear that using a WordPress theme is the best way to make a website today. There’s no reason to hire a pricey website developer to make your site from scratch. Just grab a template that works and start creating content. Keep in mind that many WordPress themes are optimized to support Google AdSense, making it much easier for you to monetize your site.
What Other Features Should I Look For?
When selecting a theme, you’ll want to make sure it has AdSense support included, of course. But you should also look for a theme that embraces the idea of passive income to the fullest. So, something that works with affiliate marketing is a great idea, as is a theme that offers the most promotional tools, like social media sharing, CTAs, contact forms, and ad widgets.
Best Themes Optimized for Google AdSense
Read on to learn about the best Google AdSense optimized WordPress themes currently available.
TruePixel
The TruePixel theme, from MyThemeShop, has everything you need to run a solid blog including a powerful options panel. The theme is completely responsive for viewing on mobile devices and the AdSense optimization makes inserting ads a breeze.
The engaging layout helps to highlight the viral content and make your articles look more interesting. Many top bloggers use this theme because of the different monetization and sharing possibilities. The theme is also optimized to load fast and includes translation files so you can reach visitors all over the world.
Divi
Try out the Divi theme if you’re looking for the most customizable and easy-to-use theme on the market. Although you must subscribe to ElegantThemes, the $69 per year payment is similar to what you would pay for most standalone themes and ElegantThemes offers access to every theme in their database. It’s fairly easy to implement the Google AdSense code and you don’t have to have any coding knowledge to customize your website. The theme comes with the Divi Builder, a drag-and-drop interface that allows you to choose from pre-made layouts and add content blocks to any of your pages.
The responsive design is a nice touch, and the Divi modules include items like sidebars, contact forms, images, pricing tables, sliders, and more.
Directory Portal
Directory Portal allows you to build both a directory and an AdSense since it combines directory theme features with beautiful ad display. The easy admin panel has a unique way to manage your website. It looks like you are working on the front end, but that’s just the design. Connect to PayPal to accept payments from your visitors and use the geolocation support to make it easy to reach a local audience.
The Revolution Slider plugin is included, which is great for displaying high-resolution photos which highlight your best listings or latest blog posts.
Business Finder
The Business Finder theme is another directory option, using features for geolocation, front end site management, and multilingual support. The Google AdSense spaces are remarkable and clean. These help you bring in money whenever someone clicks through your links. A standout feature is the ability to manage premium packages, meaning that people pay you for listing additional business information or for viewing premium business information.
The Business Finder theme includes the Slider Revolution plugin, which works wonders for showing off your media and adding cool animations. The interactive AJAX search is a great way to help people find relevant content while PayPal integration allows you to collect payments easily.
SeaShell
The SeaShell theme is a modern and responsive blogging theme that is ideal for corporate or personal bloggers. The theme includes plenty of ad space so you can include multiple AdSense ads and the responsive design makes it easy to view your website on a mobile device. The advanced theme options panel is designed to help you build your website as quickly as possible.
Use unlimited fonts and colors to add your own branding to your website. The unlimited sidebars are nice for implementing certain widgets that can show on all of your pages. Finally, the built-in theme translator is a must-have so you can easily reach a global audience and expand your website’s reach.
Grimag
The Grimag theme works wonders for magazines with its responsive design and AdSense support. The theme also includes integration with BuddyPress and bbPress, both of which help you create a community around your website. People who come to your website are not always going to speak your language so it’s important to use the translation features.
The articles from your magazine blend in nicely with your ads, which are placed in multiple locations on your website with the intention of convincing users to click through.
Truemag
The Truemag: AD & AdSense Optimized Magazine theme is a mobile-ready WordPress theme built completely around the idea of publishing content and monetizing that content with ads. The BuddyPress and bbPress integrations are nice for building forums and social networks, but the true power comes into play with the AdSense optimization. It’s easy to implement your initial AdSense code, and your advertisements show up throughout your website without creating a distraction from the main content.
The SEO optimization brings in more people to your site. Keep in mind that you can always make even more money with your magazine by selling products with a WooCommerce store. This theme truly does offer the ultimate monetization layout by targeting website hot spots, which are places that people are more likely to click on.
DirectoryS
The DirectoryS theme is clearly a directory listing option. The monetization tools are all included with PayPal support and AdSense integration for quickly turning your site into a money-making machine. Manage premium packages from your admin panel and use the geolocation support for targeting people based on their mobile devices.
The theme provides the premium Revolution Slider plugin, which is by far the best slider plugin in the world. The interactive AJAX search helps people find relevant listings and content–and considering this is an AdSense article–the advertisements blend in beautifully.
GOLIATH
The GOLIATH – Ads Optimized News theme works for companies or bloggers who want to start magazines or review websites. The theme provides several niche-specific layouts suitable for a news, fashion, tech, or sports website but has plenty of customization options that make it easy to adapt the theme for various other niches. Place unlimited Google ads and image banners in various sizes to ensure maximum CTR.
The Photoshop PSD files are included for those interested in making detailed customizations to the theme. The Goliath theme is prepackaged with some of the hottest plugins on the market, such as Slider Revolution, Visual Composer, and Mega Menu. Play around with the translation-ready features so that you can reach a wider audience. Keep in mind that the theme also works well with WooCommerce, for yet another monetization option.
Osage
The Osage theme is great for creating a magazine. The theme is retina ready and responsive which ensures your website will look crisp on all devices. The fly-out mobile navigation clears up space while browsing on tablets and smartphones. Choose from over 600 Google Fonts to customize your fonts and use the sticky navigation and sidebar to guide users to your best articles.
WooCommerce is supported, but the best part is the support for custom wallpaper ads. Just insert your AdSense code and build the ad wallpaper however you desire. The custom social sharing tools allow you and your visitors to share your content on social media. Try out the post/page slideshows for showcasing additional content and making people stick around on your site for a longer period of time. Finally, you can implement bbPress into your magazine website, which generates a forum and is a great way to encourage user interaction.
Planer
Planner creates an elegant magazine layout with plenty of space for Google ads. It has a 3-column grid and has several home page options so you can feature various types of content without looking cluttered or messy. It has an amazing slider to feature your latest content. It’s compatible with plugins including bbPress, BuddyPress, and WooCommerce, but what’s even more impressive is the responsive advertisement so your Adsense banners will look great on any size screen. The banners look great when placed above the header and in the sidebar. As your visitors scroll down, the main menu stays on the screen so they always have access to your easy three-tiered navigation structure. The social media icons look great sitting next to the slider. The mouse-over animations look sharp and add to the elegance.
It’s easy to customize. It comes with over 200 icons, plenty of page and post options, custom widgets (which includes a Flickr widget), and shortcodes to add features. The included shortcodes add buttons, accordion, tabs, toggle, progress bar, highlight color, and callout. It’s Retina ready, translation-ready, SEO optimized, built with clean code, and is lightweight so it loads fast. This theme will make any WordPress-based magazine or blog look highly professional.
ProStore
ProStore was developed as a news theme in order to feature content while keeping a clean and user-friendly magazine layout. It has a three-column grid design and has many home page content options. Adsense banners look great when they’re prominently featured above the header and in the sidebars. The three-level drop-down menu system remains at the top of the screen when readers scroll down, giving them easy access to your menus at all times. The ability to feature two articles side-by-side in the slider area with each one having mouse-over animation looks fantastic and gives the site a unique and elegant look.
The theme is fully responsive, is Retina-ready, translation-ready, and features clean code for fast loading while still being easy to customize. The shortcodes include buttons, accordion, tabs, toggle, progress bar, highlight color, and callout. It has unlimited sidebars, unlimited fonts, 200 icons, and custom widgets; widgets include Flickr and Twitter among others. It has lots of page and post options and is compatible with BuddyPress and WooCommerce. It’s SEO optimized to help you rank higher in search engines. This is a great choice for magazines and blogs.
DizzyMag
DizzyMag has all the tools you’ll need if you’re looking to implement Google AdSense ads on your website. Include all the AdSense modules you want, and even incorporate ads from other platforms or make your own. What’s nice about this theme is that all of your ads are responsive, so if someone visits your website on a mobile device, they can still see your ads and click through. This is not always the case with AdSense themes. Most of them simply remove the ads when a customer is viewing on a phone or tablet. The DizzyMag theme is primarily grid-based, so your content combines well with the ads and it almost makes them blend in completely, which is great for conversions. Reviews and ratings are available through the theme, making it easy to generate useful content for your visitors.
The WooCommerce plugin goes great with the theme as well, making it easier for you to bring in even more money for your company. The media portfolio is one of the areas that stands out since it looks clean and professional. You can technically use this portfolio for just about every industry, and as stated before, the ads sit near the portfolio, making them look similar to the portfolio projects. The whole point of this theme is to make more money for you, so you can feel free to place ads in the header, sidebars, footer or body area.
Krava
Check out the Krava WordPress theme if you’re thinking about working with a multipurpose design with ad functionalities. As you may have assumed, AdSense goes well with the Krava theme, considering you can implement your ads all over the homepage without any custom coding. Light and dark version are available while a clean and multipurpose design comes in handy for constructing just about any type of website. The drag-and-drop page builder in the dashboard is one of the better builders we’ve seen. It comes with a decent amount of website elements that you don’t have to code yourself. You will end up utilizing up to 14 custom widgets since they all come with your purchase. The mega menu is solid for those who are trying to have hundreds of pages on the website and the multiple headers allow you to create a unique look and feel for your website.
The unlimited colors are yet another reason to go with the Krava WordPress theme. PSD files are included with your purchase, presenting an interesting opportunity for those who consider themselves more advanced developers. The translation-ready files make it easy to translate your entire website into any language your want. Along with highly optimized code, a beautiful slider, and unlimited sidebars, the Krava WordPress theme has something for everyone.
UniverMag
UniverMag is an elegant magazine theme that not only has a beautiful three-column layout for fitting in tons of content, it also has plenty of space for ads to boost your AdSense earnings. The header area allows you to upload your own logo to brand your site and includes several social media icons to encourage users to follow you on various networks. However, since this is one of the prime spots to include an ad, UniverMag leaves plenty of space to include an ad. You can also include them right below individual post titles as well as in both sidebars. Other notable features include a slider to feature your most popular stories and full compatibility with both bbPress and BuddyPress so you can create a community around your site.
The theme is also responsive, which is essential if you’re featuring ads on your website since the ads will display beautifully on smaller devices such as phones and tablets. The theme also includes over 30 customization options as well as translation files that help you reach an international audience.
Material
Consider Material if you prefer a simple, clean look focused on bringing the attention to your content. Using a clean theme is a great way to increase the chances of people clicking on your ads and you can include them in the header as well as right below individual post titles. The theme has a three-column layout and a beautiful gallery area right below the header which allows you to pull readers in and encourage them to read the full post. Considering you can display an ad in the post, the chances of them clicking it are pretty high.
Material is also responsive, which plays a huge role when it comes to ads and ensures everybody can see and click the ads even if they are on a mobile device. Consider adding forums to your website with bbPress to encourage conversation about trending topics and you can also setup your own shop with WooCommerce to sell any digital or physical items. Along with extensive customization options, SEO optimization, and translation files, Material is worth checking out.
Magfolio
Business owners and freelancers rejoice because you now can display your work, increasing your chances of getting hired, and throw in a few ads to boost your income with the Magfolio theme. This theme is packed with features that will allow you to present your business in style as well as feature ads. The header includes a slider which is wonderful for showcasing your recent work along with a brief description. You can also present your services and include recent posts that demonstrate your industry knowledge. The homepage features a two-column layout and the sidebar is where you can include different ads.
Add a shop with WooCommerce to sell any products you might have and don’t forget to include social media icons to boost your follower count. The theme is responsive and includes extensive customization options that allow you to change the colors, fonts, upload your own logo, and more. Several page templates and blog layouts are available, which further improve your SEO, and you can also use shortcodes to insert buttons, columns, accordions, and more without touching a single line of code. Along with over 700 FontAwesome icons, translation files, and awesome animation styles, Magfolio is sure to increase your ad clicks.
Simple Life
Simple Life is professionally optimized to utilize all the common banner sizes available in AdSense. The detailed ad management options enable you to have precise control over the placement and appearance of the ads.
The theme developers followed all the web best practices, resulting in the perfect display of your ads and the entire website in all modern web browsers and screen resolutions. There are several custom widgets to make the sidebar and footer section look more interesting. The customized social sharing buttons will help your content get more exposure.
Voltov
Voltov features an attractive AdSense-ready layout with lots of customization options. You can choose unlimited colors, which is old news. But what about adding separate colors for each category? This could be very useful for personalizing the category pages and blending the ads with your content.
Built-in infinite scrolling will ensure that your visitors never run out of content. What if they stumble upon a broken link? The stylish 404 template will take care of that. There is also a maintenance mode to keep your visitors updated about the latest status of the website while you are updating behind the scenes.
Adsos
Not Available.
Adsos is a great example of a minimalistic theme with plenty of space to put the focus on your content. It’s optimized for AdSense so the advertisements can be displayed in multiple locations on your website. The search engine optimization is another huge feature since it brings in a high click-through rate from search engines to the ads you serve. The clean and simple design is perfect for helping your ads stand out and the easy customization allows you to customize the website to best suit your needs.
Use image galleries and videos to engage your visitors and try out the unlimited color options so that your website stands out from the crowd.
Youit
Not Available.
The Youit theme is a nicely designed theme from the ThemeIsle company. It’s designed primarily for gaming websites and blogs but it can easily be adapted to a different niche and includes plenty of spaces to display third-party ads. The theme features a responsive design with clean code for easy page loads and unlimited color choices that make it easy to customize your website and add your own branding.
Use custom theme widgets to add extra content to your pages and implement different modules without having to touch a single line of code. The theme options panel is ideal for uploading your logo, changing colors, linking to social accounts, and for implementing your AdSense code. You also receive localization features for translating your site into different languages.
Epicurean Theme
Shekhar Kumar
July 2, 2017 at 5:33 amWhile I am not here to promote or market for a new theme, if I had to choose one from the list, I would go with the Adsense Theme from MyThemeShop.
I don’t use Adsense on my most of the site, but I’ve been considering it. If I ever do, maybe, I’ll switch to one of these templates to see if it would support me to increase my earnings. All the themes you shown are really charming and elegant but are also premium. I will be happy if you could propose some free Adsense friendly themes.
I personally worked more WP themes on my blog before, it was not so good in boosting the AD Revenue, but it was heavy in loading particularly for newbies like me that always looing to make money blogging from Banner Ad Instead of Affiliate Marketing. I would suggest any but newspaper style which is way better in terms of speed as well as mobile responsiveness since they also have quite extraordinary benefits like structured Data etc.
Thanks for sharing all these themes with us, I know that they will help anybody to increase their Adsense earnings.
Sarah Bishop
July 3, 2017 at 12:30 pmThanks Shekhar for all the feedback.
Brian
November 27, 2017 at 10:42 amHey Sarah, awesome roundup 🙂
May I suggest: https://theme-stop.com/themes/viral-mag/ which is a free popular Adsense optimized magazine theme that I think would be of interest to your readers.
Let me know what you think?