Sometime ago, I introduced to you the Show125 WordPress widget, which was a WordPress plugin dedicated to display and manage your 125×125 advertisments.

My friend X-OR, who blogs with me at CatsWhoCode, decided to re-build a new version of the widget, which is now named ISIS Ads management.

What’s new?

ISIS Ads management expands the possibilities of Show125: You once were limited to 4 ads, but now you can manage an unlimited number of 125×125 banners.

Also, the plugin control panel has been totally rewritten. No more forms, you can now drag/drop your ads to place them as you wish, and edition have never been so easy before: Just click on the pencil icon to edit your ads properties (Link url, link target and css class)

ISIS Ads Management Demo

X-OR recorded this great video in order to demonstrate the possibilities allowed by ISIS Ads Management.

Click on the picture below to watch it.

Download ISIS Ads Management

If you’re interested by ISIS Ads Management, you can grab your free copy at CatsWhoCode.

X-OR (and me on this post) are also offering free support, so let us know if you experience any problems with the WordPress plugin.

A few months ago I wrote a post about the Got Banners WordPress plugin, which is a simple WordPress plugin that was designed to allow you to rotate banners in a set location.  What it does not do is allow you to rotate multiple banners without displaying them all, meaning you can’t rotate 8 banners within 4 posts, etc.

I’ve been waiting for a suitable replacement and I believe yesterday I may have found what I was looking for.   What I’m talking about is a new free WordPress plugin by MaxBlogPress called Max Banner Ads.

To get an idea what this plugin is about, you really need to click over and check out the video demonstration that comes with it, but I will attempt to explain it here.   Max Banner Ads sort of works like the Shylock AdSense WordPress plugin in that it requires no code hacking.  You actually control your advertisements from the WordPress dashboard.

Max Banner Ads allows you to rotate several banners in a single spot or multiple spots, and you can choose from several locations, including your header, sidebar (using widgets), footer, or even within your posts.   Want to place it only in the second post?  You can do that as well!

As I mentioned above, this plugin is actually being released for free by the author, but he does ask that you write a quick review or at least mention it on your blog.   Considering the potential value of this plugin, I think that is more than fair.

[Check out the Max Banner Ads WordPress Plugin]

About a month ago, I sent a call out to the WordPress community requesting that more themes be released that by default include slots for 125×125 banners. These ad ready WordPress themes are all the rage, yet it seems that few designers took the time to optimize their themes for these banners. Common sense says that if there is very little supply but a lot of demand, the people that fill the demand will find tremendous success.

In looking at the recent trends with newly released themes over this past month, it seems that bloggers have really responded and there is now a wide variety of WordPress themes available for download. I decided there are finally enough of them now that I can throw together a gallery of WordPress themes that allow for 125×125 banners. Enjoy!

Update:  The below are all free WordPress themes.  If you’d like to get a more advanced WordPress theme, check out our Premium WordPress Themes gallery.

2-Column Themes

Typebased Theme

Source/Demo | Download

Vintage Theme

Source | Download | Demo

Blues Theme

Source | Download | Demo

PassionDuo Theme (3 Colors)

Green: Demo | Download, Red: Demo | Download, Blue: Demo | Download

WP Freemium Theme

Source | Download

Dark Zen Theme

Source | Download | Demo

Maggo Theme

Source | Download | Demo

Green Tech Theme

Source | Download | Demo

Blue Sensation Theme

Source | Download | Demo

3-Column Themes

Padangan Theme

Source | Download | Demo

SimpleWP Theme

Source | Download | Demo

Black and White Theme

Source | Download | Demo

Firebug Theme

Source | Download | Demo

Simple Red Theme

Source | Download (Requires free registration)

True Blue Theme

Source | Download (Requires free registration)

WP Premiere Theme

Source | Download | Demo

Magazine-Style Themes

Structure Theme

Source | Download | Demo

Forte Theme

Source | Download | Demo

Mag on Wood Theme

Source | Download | Demo

Studio WordPress Theme (Available in Blue, Green, & Red)

Source | Download | Demo

Know of a good quality one we missed? Contact us or let us know in the comments below!

I’m not sure which is better, but in browsing through my 2-column WordPress theme gallery, one of the first things you’ll notice is that theme designers seem to prefer releasing themes with a right sidebar.   Is this a coincidence or do theme authors find that they get more downloads with a right sidebar?

I couldn’t tell you for sure, but I know that most “A-list” bloggers use 2-column themes with the sidebar on the right, so I suspect that this has something to do with the trend.  I know from my personal experiences that I prefer a right sidebar because I feel it looks better and creates a much more friendly experience for readers.

David of CyberCoder argues that people that have advertising on their websites should use a left sidebar for their 2-column theme.   His argument is that heat maps show that people read from left to right and your advertisements are more likely to get noticed on the left side.  While this is probably true, most advertising these days seems to be moving away from PPC advertising and more towards direct advertisements.   This is why the few theme designers that offer 125×125 banner slots on their themes are getting a ton of downloads.

So, what do you think?  Why do you prefer to use a 2-column theme?

If you are interested in promoting your blog, product, or service, you can now purchase a link at the top of my sidebar for only $15.00 a month through Text Link Ads.   You can also now purchase a link on individual posts if you would like.

If you’d prefer to purchase a link directly through me, you can check out details on my Advertise page, then Contact me directly.

As this site is dedicated to WordPress, I thought it would be a good idea to have a featured post dedicated to the best WordPress plugins available. This post is a constant work in progress, and will continue to be updated as I feature more plugins on this website. After each plugin, you should find a quick description, as well as a link to the full review. I have also broken the plugins down into categories for easy reference.

Premium WordPress Plugins

- Advertising -

• Billboard + Rotating Images – Two Premium WordPress plugins that allow you to easily add images like advertisements, photos, featured homes and social icons to your widget-ready sidebars and feature areas.
• OIO Publisher – Complete plugin that removes all hassle for bloggers who manage advertising. Automates banners, text links, paid reviews, and collects the money for you. [Full Review]

- Affiliates -

• Auction Thumbs – Plugin that allows you to easily integrate eBay Partner Network ads into your WordPress Blog. [Full Review]
• PHP Bay Pro – Premium plugin that integrates eBay auction ads into your WordPress blog. [Full Review]
• WP Affiliate Pro – Allows you to manage your affiliate links from within your WordPress dashboard. Also allows you to mask links and a number of other features. [Full Review]
• WP Ninja Affiliate – Similar to WP Affiliate Pro plugin, but provides some additional features including  multiple keywords and caching. [Full Review]

- App/Mobile -

• WiziApp – WordPress plugin that allows you to build a fully featured iPhone, iPad and/or mobile app from within your WordPress dashboard.  No Apple developer account required! [Full Review]

- Maintenance -

• Backup Buddy – All-in-one solution for backups, restoration, and migration. The single backup file created by the plugin can be used with the importer script to quickly and easily restore your site on the same server or even migrate to a new host with different settings. Whether you’re an end user or a developer, this plugin is sure to bring you peace of mind and added safety in the event of data loss.
• Email Buddy – EmailBuddy is an email newsletter solution for WordPress. Building email lists around your blog, or your products and services, is a vital marketing function. Despite the popularity of social media like Twitter and Facebook, email marketing is not dead. You can’t rely on people coming back to your site or knowing about your new launches. Simple text-based group emails are extremely effective at getting your message out to the right audience. With EmailBuddy, you can do that and more!
• Genesis Connect -Build a social network for your company, school, sports team or niche community all based on the power and flexibility of the Genesis Framework and WordPress.  Activate the free BuddyPress plugin along with Genesis Connect and instantly your website becomes a social network!
• Gravity Forms – Premium WordPress plugin which allows you to build a completely custom contact form for your WordPress websites/blogs.

- Media -

• Display Buddy – DisplayBuddy is a collection of plugins designed to showcase images, video, and text uniquely and easily on your WordPress site in a visually pleasing way. Each individual plugin is designed to allow easy customization controls and ways to put your content groups onto your site with features such as widget and shortcode support. All plugins include automatic upgrades & quality support.
• My Video Poster – Premium plugin that automatically publishes any videos you upload to YouTube on your WordPress website/blog.
• VidEmbed – VidEmbed is a powerful simple to use solution to adding videos inline within your WordPress posts, pages, and widget areas. With support for both self-hosted videos as well as YouTube and Vimeo you can quickly add videos from many sources. With the explosion of media on the web it is important to be able to easily and quickly provide video content to your site visitors.

- SEO -

• Scribe SEO – Incredible full featured WordPress plugin which analyzes your posts and offers tips for improving search engine optimization. [Full Review]
• WP SEO Sniper – Extreme SEO plugin designed to give people conscious of SEO full control over their blogs from the WordPress dashboard. Significant upgrade to the All-in-One SEO Pack plugin. [Full Review]

- Social -

• Facebook Page Themes – WordPress plugin that allows you to create a custom Facebook page for your website or business all from within your WordPress dashboard! [Full Review]

- Websites -

• Thumbs Up – ThumbsUp is an idea ranking solution that allows users to up/down vote a group of items (topics, videos, and images).
• WP Review Engine – Theme and plugin combination that allows you to create a fully featured website which makes it easy to provide information on a range of products, include thumbnail images, and link out the products.   Ideal for affiliate websites/blogs.
• WP Review Site - Simply activate theme and plugin to create a full-featured review website.  No additional work needed, allowing you to make a number of these sites quickly!  [Full Review]

Free WordPress Plugins

- Admin Tools -

• Gamer’s Pack – Makes your blog viewable using the Nintendo DS, Nintendo Wii, and PSP gaming systems. [Full Review]
• GoCodes – Easily create redirects from your WordPress Dashboard that point anywhere. Great for hiding affiliate links. [Full Review]
• Google Sitemap – Creates a fully-compliant sitemap for search engines. [Full Review]
• Greet Box – Identifies where traffic is being referred from and displays the appropriate welcome message to them, encouraging to subscribe to your feed, Digg or Stumble your posts, etc. [Full Review]
• In Series – Allows you to easily group a series of posts into a series. [Full Review]
• Jetpack – Supercharges your self-hosted WordPress site with the awesome cloud power of WordPress.com. [Full Review]
• MobilePress – Optimizes your WordPress blog for mobile phones including the popular iPhone. [Full Review]
• No Self Ping – Prevents your blog from sending pingbacks internally to your other posts. [Full Review]
• WP-o-Matic – Allows users to collect feeds and auto-generate posts on your blog. [Full Review]
• WordPress Backup – Plugin that backups up your WordPress themes, WordPress plugins, images, and other non-database stuff.  Works with WP-DB Manager.  [Full Review]
• WP-DB Manager – Plugin that gives you full control over your WordPress database backups.  Works with the WordPress Backup plugin. [Full Review]
• WP Sticky – Allows users to feature a post at the top of their homepage for a day or permanently. [Full Review]
• WP-Super Cache – Creates a cache of your posts to avoid server load. Great for surviving a Digg. [Full Review]
• WPTouch – Creates a cache of your posts to avoid server load. Great for surviving a Digg. [Full Review]

- Advertising -

• Chitika Premium Ads – Plugin that allows you to easily integrate Chitika premium ads into your WordPress blog.  [Full Review]
• Got Banners – Plugin allows you to randomize your advertising banners. Ideal for 125×125 banners. [Full Review]
• Max Banner Ads – Plugin that lets you control your advertising from the WordPress dashboard.  Also allows you to rotate multiple advertisements in a single spot.  [Full Review]
• Show125 – Plugin that specializes in managing your 125×125 block advertisements. [Full Review]
• Shylock AdSense – Allows you to easily insert Google AdSense code into your WordPress blog. [Full Review]

- Authors -

• Author Exposed – Adds a full featured display of the authors profile. Great for multi-author blogs. [Full Review]
• Role Manager Plugin – Allows you to control the various WordPress user roles can and cannot do.  [Full Review]

- Comments -

• CubePoints – CubePoints allows you to choose a certain amount of points for each comment posted by a certain commentator. You can offer premium content, allow readers to purchase merchandise or maybe even an advertisement for your blog with a certain amount of points. [Full Review]
• Keyword Luv – Adds an extra field to your comments where people can enter their website so they don’t add their website’s name in the name field for SEO anchor text purposes. [Full Review]
• Liz Comment Count – Displays a comment count in a similar fashion to the Feedburner feed count widget. [Full Review]
• MyAvatars – Automatically inserts the commentators MyBlogLog avatar next to their comment using the e-mail address provided. If unavailable, it will attempt to pull the bloggers Gravatar. [Full Review]
• Show Top Commentators – Allows you to display your top commentators automatically in a place of your choosing. Great for encouraging comments. [Full Review]
• Smilies Themer – Plugin that offers a variety of smilies styles to place in the comments section of your blog. [Full Review]
• Subscribe to Comments – Allows readers to receive e-mail notifications when a follow up comment is left. [Full Review]

- Domaining -

• Domain Name Portfolio – This plugin automatically creates a page in WordPress that domainers can use to display their domain portfolio. Everything is controlled from the dashboard. [Full Review]

- Downloads -

• Download Manager – Plugin that allows you to manage your downloads from the WordPress dashboard.  [Full Review]

- Feeds -

• Add Related Posts To Your Feed – Will automatically add related posts to your blog’s feed. [Full Review]
• FeedCount – Allows you to display a numerical version of your Feedburner feed count without using the Feedburner chicklet. [Full Review]
• Feed Footer – Allows you to use HTML to add a custom footer to your blog’s feed. Plugin also supports randomizing up to 10 different footers. [Full Review]
• RSS Footer – Basic plugin that allows you to easily add copyright notice, etc. [Full Review]

- Forums -

• RS Discuss – Plugin that allows you to easily integrate a forum into your existing WordPress blog. [Full Review]

- Maintenance -

• Server Buddy – ServerBuddy tests server configuration to look for problems with hosting configuration and determine compatibility with various WordPress themes and plugins. Additionally it provides easy to understand explanations of various server settings and generates reports and samples of what to ask your hosting provider if a problem is found with any server configuration that needs fixed. ServerBuddy is designed to be extremely powerful but still provide information in an easy to understand way for even a novice.
• WordPress Automatic Upgrade – Allows you to easily upgrade your WordPress installation to the latest version. **No longer needed in WordPress 2.7+**[Full Review]

- Miscellaneous -

• Best Posts Summary – Automatically generates a daily, weekly, or monthly review post.  Includes both post titles and brief descriptions. [Full Review]
• BreadCrumb Navigation XT – Allows you to provide your readers with additional blog navigation. [Full Review]
• Get Firefox Banner – Shows a banner to IE6 and IE7 web browser users recommending they switch to Firefox. Great for blogs whose WordPress theme is optimized for Firefox. [Full Review]
• Popularity Contest – Monitors your website traffic and gives you reports on your popular posts. Plugin is fully customizable allowing you to set the values used to calculate your posts popularity. [Full Review]
• WP-eCommerce – Plugin that allows you to create an online shop on your WordPress blog [Full Review]
• WP-Email – Allows you to add an “Email This!” button to your WordPress blog. [Full Review]
• WP-Submission – Creates a submission page then places all submissions into a post draft. Ideal for group writing projects. [Full Review]

- Related Posts -

• Related Posts – Uses keywords in your post URL’s to display a designated number of related posts. [Full Review]
• Related Posts by Category – Uses category to locate and display related posts. [Full Review]
• Yet Another Related Posts Plugin (YARPP) – Currently the ultimate/best related posts plugin available for WordPress users.  Includes related posts for your feed! [Full Review]

- SEO –

• All-in-One SEO Pack – The Ultimate SEO WordPress plugin. Allows you to set your homepage meta information and automatically generate custom meta information for your individual posts. [Full Review]
• Permalink Redirect – Creates a 301 Redirect to avoid duplicate content penalties with search engines. Also includes a Feedburner redirect. [Full Review]

- Tags -

• Better Tags Manager – Allows you to better manage your tags, as well as convert your categories to tags. [Full Review]
• Recommended Tags – Looks at your post’s content and recommends tags. Includes additional features. [Full Review]

- Video -

• All-in-One Video Pack – All-in-One Video Pack includes every functionality you might need for video and rich-media, including the ability to upload/ record/import videos directly to your post, edit and remix content with an online video editor, enable video responses, manage and track your video content, create playlists, etc. [Full Review]