20 Best WordPress Themes for Google AdSense

One of the most prominent ways to generate revenue from a WordPress powered blog or website is to incorporate Google AdSense. In fact, a lot of bloggers and website administrators rely specifically on income from this platform.

However, it’s not enough to just add the necessary code and place ads. To really make money and boost your click through rates, it is imperative that you use a WordPress theme optimized for AdSense. Unfortunately, finding the perfect theme can be quite a daunting task. A lot of AdSense powered themes actually increase bounce rates because they are either designed poorly or offer a terrible user experience.

I have scoured the internet for relevant themes, and I am confident I have chosen the absolute cream of the crop. If you’re looking to install AdSense friendly themes with lots of CTR potential, you’ve come to the right place:

Jump to: Nominal | Clickable | CTR Theme | Hot News | AdSense Pro Ultimate | Flick | Socrates | Sensational | Ciola | Fortune | Freshlife | TruePixel | Splash | News Pro | Pinstagram | Jarida | Digitalis | TrueMag | MaxCTR | Resizable

20. Nominal

The Nominal WordPress theme adopts a more professional look, albeit with a rather minimal design scheme. The best feature of this theme is that you can properly use larger AdSense unit sizes, thus allowing you to generate more money. It also offers widget-based ad support, various ad-placement locations and SEO optimization. Unfortunately, you cannot remove the publication display dates without delving into the code, so if you don’t know how to do that – and if you don’t want dates visible – this theme might not be for you.

Nominal is available from MyThemeShop for $35.

Back to Top

19. Clickable

As the name implies, this theme was designed from the ground up to increase click through rates. That being said, it is remarkably user friendly, although it does use some pretty bland design elements. It’s an excellent theme and it works exceedingly well with AdSense content, but if you want something a little more visually appealing, you might want to look elsewhere.

Clickable is available from its own website for $29.

Back to Top

18. CTR Theme

One thing that CTR Theme really has going for it, is that there are dozens of customer testimonials which reveal just how great it works with AdSense. The most unique feature is that it allows randomized ad placement, which places ads randomly with each visit. Furthermore, many of the available ad locations correlate with the best examples suggested by the official Google AdSense team.

CTR Theme is available from its own website as part of a kit for $67.

Back to Top

17. Hot News

Hot News is incredibly attractive, and it makes use of a content heavy design. Many of the features you’d expect from an AdSense powered theme are available with CPC and CTR optimizations to increase revenue. Of course, it’s also completely optimized for search engines.

Hot News is available from MyThemeShop for $35.

Back to Top

16. AdSense Pro Ultimate

The name pretty much gives away the design inspiration for this theme. In terms of visual aesthetics, AdSense Pro is not the best. However, the developers have painstakingly compiled and tested the theme to offer some of the most effective ad placements options. In addition, AdSense Pro includes several social bookmarking features, multiple typography options and impressive load times.

AdSense Pro Ultimate is available from CTR Themes for $69.

Back to Top

15. Flick

This is another great AdSense ready theme from MyThemeShop. It’s primarily built to host media content such as photos, graphics and videos. The entire site is responsive – which means it’s accessible to a wide array of devices including mobile and desktop – and makes great use of some unique mouseover effects. It’s beautiful, highly customizable and fully optimized for SEO. You really can’t go wrong with this one.

Flick is available from MyThemeShop for $35.

Back to Top

14. Socrates

This theme was designed by resourceful internet marketers. It includes out-of-the-box support for Google AdSense and ClickBank – a platform for promoting ebooks and similar products. In addition, the theme is SEO optimized to help you reel in some extra traffic. While minimal, Socrates definitely has an eye-appealing design too.

Socrates is available for $27 as a single install, or $47 for unlimited domains.

Back to Top

13. Sensational

This is another theme that reveals design elements with the name. It is definitely sensational in nature because it uses a very unique, yet still visually appealing, design. This theme is heavily customizable, and doing so is pretty simple thanks to a backend options panel. It is optimized for AdSense and SEO, so you should have a good enough time making money with this one.

Sensational is available for $35 from MyThemeShop.

Back to Top

12. Ciola

There are plenty of customer testimonials advocating use of this theme, which offers review capabilities perfect for a tech or gadgets blog. It offers a fully responsive design with several layouts to choose from. In addition, it supports AdSense through pre-configured – and efficient – ad placements along with SEO optimization.

Ciola is available from the Envato Themeforest for $45.

Back to Top

11. Fortune

This is another responsive theme, which is great because a majority of people actually browse via mobile devices these days. It is both AdSense and SEO optimized. Finally, the user friendly design elements will increase click through and bounce rates, ultimately boosting revenue.

Fortune is available from MyThemeShop for $35.

Back to Top

10. Freshlife

One of the best things about this theme is that you can easily manage your AdSense ads, and you can also place content in several places on the site, including the side bar widgets. If you ever run into a problem building your site, or making alterations, you’ll always have help thanks to the lifetime support guarantee. Oh, and it’s SEO optimized, but that’s pretty much a given with AdSense powered themes.

Freshlife is available from ThemeJunkie for $39.

Back to Top

9. TruePixel

If you’ve never heard of Viral Nova, then you must have been living under a rock. It’s essentially a trendy news aggregator that pulls in content from all over the web. The most notable detail about the site is that it’s running TruePixel, one of the best AdSense ready themes available. TruePixel is responsive, clean and elegant. It’s also optimized for increased speed, SEO and of course AdSense. If you want to see it customized and in action, check out Viral Nova. Viral Nova’s entire existence is based on earning money from AdSense – so you can bet they’ve tested to find a theme that pays out well.

Otherwise, True Pixel is available from MyThemeShop for $35.

Back to Top

8. Splash

This theme is more like an AdSense optimized template, because you can change quite a bit to fit your needs. There are several locations to place ads, including above the fold and in the header. It’s responsive and speedy, which means it can be accessed from a wide selection of devices. Finally, it includes a powerful option and admin panel complete with more than 600 Google fonts to choose from – that’s incredible.

Splash is available from – you guessed it – MyThemeShop for $35.

Back to Top

7. News Pro

This is yet another online publication friendly theme, which features a simplistic and minimal design. The theme’s designer Amit Agarwal claims this helps any sites powered by it to drive more traffic. We probably don’t have to say it, but it’s both AdSense and SEO optimized.

News Pro is available from StudioPress for $99.95.

Back to Top

6. Pinstagram

This theme is ideal for anyone looking to use a Pinterest inspired theme, as it uses the trademark grid-based layout with varying posts sizes. It’s AdSense and SEO optimized, and it really captures the attention of visitors thanks to the familar design elements. If you’d like to see an example of Pinstagram in action, check out Viral Circus, another trending content aggregator.

Pinstagram is available from MyThemeShop for $35.

Back to Top

5. Jarida

Jarida is a clean and responsive theme designed for magazine, news and blog based content. It includes an integrated rating system, which allows visitors to rate published content in stars – up to five. It includes support for more than 30 shortcode functions, AdSense and SEO optimization and RTL. In addition, it includes a separate language file which – if translated into your native language – will allow you to use any language with the theme. To see Jarida in action, visit Cleverpedia.

Jarida is available from Themeforest for $55.

Back to Top

4. Digitalis

Since the market is making a huge push toward media based content like photos and videos, this is a great theme. Digitalis is a responsive and attractive WordPress theme that was designed with photographers and bloggers in mind. It uses a Tumblr-like design with incredibly efficient ad placement options for AdSense users. More specifically, ads can be placed in the header and sidebar at the recommended sizes.

Digitalis is available from MyThemeShop for $35.

Back to Top

3. TrueMag

This theme is not exactly AdSense optimized, but that’s okay. The design is so minimal and simplistic that ads you do place on your site become the central focus. That’s not to say they become obtrusive and blinding. TrueMag balances the display of content and ad-based locations exceptionally well. It’s also pretty easy to customize, though admittedly some of the more advanced changes will require a bit of coding knowledge. It is, however, fully SEO optimized, which is absolutely necessary in this day and age. If you want to see this theme customized and in action, check out Code Condo, a WordPress and web development blog.

TrueMag is available from Themeforest for $55.

Back to Top

2. MaxCTR

Since a large majority of content marketers deal in micro niche channels, this theme is one of the most ideal. In fact, it was specifically designed for micro niche sites. It makes use of AdSense, but more importantly, the ads are contextually relevant. It can also double as an Amazon affiliate website too if you would rather go that route instead.

MaxCTR is available from AdSensePress for a subscription to the site, which costs $69 for a lifetime.

Back to Top

1. Resizable

This is one of the most recommended themes on this list. It includes some of the most efficient and sensitive ad placement spaces out of any theme available. It optimizes your entire site for use with AdSense, including the front page, single posts and additional pages. It’s easy to customize from the dashboard and even includes SEO optimization support.

Resizable is available from  Theme Junkie for a subscription, which costs a one-time fee of either $39 or $99, depending on what subscription plan you choose.

Back to Top

WordPress Themes

Succeeding with an AdSense blog requires more than just the right kind of content to draw in your traffic – you also need a website layout optimized to push your ads so that visitors are more likely to notice and click them. Though some of these themes aren’t the prettiest, there’s no denying that they get the job done, putting your AdSense blocks front and center. And it’s always telling to see what layouts other popular or “viral” sites are using to push their ads – normally they have chosen their theme after much testing and tweaking, so emulating them can be a great shortcut.

Have you tried any of the themes above and seen profitable results? Have another theme you think deserves a mention?