I’m excited to announce the release of Placeholders, a new WordPress plugin that makes wireframing and prototyping ad layouts easier than ever. The plugin is now available on WordPress.org and ready for production use.
The Problem
If you’ve ever worked on a WordPress site that displays advertising, you know the challenge: during the design and development phase, you need placeholder blocks that accurately represent where ads will appear. You want them to match real ad dimensions, but you don’t want to set up actual ad serving just to see if your layout works.
I found myself repeatedly creating custom HTML blocks or CSS to mock up ad placements while working on various projects. Each time, I’d have to look up IAB standard ad sizes, write the markup, and style the placeholders. It was tedious and repetitive work that felt like it should be solved once and reused everywhere.
The Solution
Placeholders solves this by providing 14 Gutenberg blocks for the most common advertising sizes. Each block is pre-configured with the correct dimensions and provides a clean, wireframe-style placeholder that clearly indicates the ad size and space it will occupy.
Supported Ad Sizes
The plugin includes blocks for all the standard IAB ad sizes:
- Leaderboard (728×90px)
- Medium Rectangle (300×250px)
- Wide Skyscraper (160×600px)
- Mobile Banner (320×50px)
- Billboard (970×250px)
- Large Rectangle (336×280px)
- Half Page (300×600px)
- Small Square (200×200px)
- Square (250×250px)
- Small Rectangle (180×150px)
- Vertical Rectangle (240×400px)
- Large Leaderboard (970×90px)
- Portrait (300×1050px)
- Netboard (580×400px)
Key Features
Simple to Use
Just search for any ad size in the block inserter (e.g., “leaderboard” or “medium rectangle”), insert the block, and you’re done. No configuration required.
Customizable
Each placeholder supports:
- Background color customization
- Text color customization
- Alignment options (wide and full alignment)
- Responsive design that works on all screen sizes
Clean Design
The placeholders feature a minimalist design that clearly shows:
- The ad size name
- Exact pixel dimensions
- A subtle border to indicate the space
This makes it easy to visualize your layout without the placeholders dominating the design.
Use Cases
Placeholders is perfect for:
- Wireframing: Quickly mock up ad placements during the design phase
- Development: Reserve space for ads while building the site
- Client Presentations: Show clients where ads will appear without setting up ad serving
- Testing Layouts: Experiment with different ad placements and sizes
- Documentation: Create visual guides showing ad placement options
Technical Details
The plugin is built with modern WordPress development practices:
- 100% Gutenberg native – Works seamlessly with the block editor
- No dependencies – Pure PHP, CSS, and JavaScript
- Lightweight – Minimal performance impact
- Well-tested – Includes comprehensive unit tests
- GPL licensed – Free and open source
All blocks are grouped in a dedicated “Placeholders” category in the block inserter, making them easy to find and use.
Installation
You can install Placeholders in three ways:
From WordPress.org (Recommended)
- Go to Plugins → Add New in your WordPress admin
- Search for “Placeholders”
- Click Install Now, then Activate
From the Plugin Directory Download directly from wordpress.org/plugins/placeholders
From GitHub Clone or download from github.com/whyisjake/placeholders
What’s Next
This is the 1.0 release, and I’ve kept the scope focused on solving one problem well. However, I have ideas for future enhancements:
- Custom ad size support
- Templates for common ad layout patterns
- Integration with popular ad management plugins
- Dark mode styling options
If you have feature requests or find bugs, please open an issue on GitHub.
Try It Out
The plugin is available now on WordPress.org. If you work with ad layouts in WordPress, give it a try and let me know what you think!
- Download: wordpress.org/plugins/placeholders
- GitHub: github.com/whyisjake/placeholders
Happy wireframing!
Placeholders is free and open source software, released under the GPL v2 license.