Donation buttons.

How to monetise a website.

How to make money from your website through voluntary donations.
Introducing Donation buttons into your content.

Important update:

Since writing this article on Donation buttons Pay Pal now, I believe, specifies that all donations go to a Charity or Cause with this statement included in their donation button code generator. “This button is intended for fundraising. If you aren't raising money for a cause, please choose another option.” Please also see here .

Using Donation buttons.

If like me, you own a website and provide free content then I advise that you use Donation buttons. This is not as silly as it sounds, think about it. You're providing a free resource of useful, beneficial information that they can use free of charge.

For example, if you read this article and use the information in it to your advantage, in this case, to make some extra money towards the running costs of the site. Then why wouldn't you want to show your appreciation in the form of a small voluntary contribution to my site? By adding a donation button to your page you are giving your visitors the opportunity to do just that. Does it work? Believe it or not, not all people are ignorant or unappreciative of your efforts. Some are more than willing to show their gratitude and help you as you have helped them. You may argue that the internet is full of free advice.

So why would anyone want to make a donation to you? There is so much free information available anyway so it seems highly unlikely that they would.

But you need to ask yourself two things.

1: Just how much of my content do they actually benefit from?
2: What have I got to lose. After all, if you don't ask, you certainly will not get.

Donation buttons: How to receive voluntary donations.

In order to receive donations, you will need to set up a PayPal account. as this seems to be the easiest way to get started. To set up your PayPal account Click Here.

How to create a PayPal donation button.

Once you have set up your PayPal account you will be able to receive donation payments via credit cards, debit cards, and PayPal. PayPal also provides an easy to use Button factory where you can build your donation buttons.

To build your donation button follow the simple instructions on the screen. Next, just copy and paste the prepared code into your web page. When a visitor clicks the donation button they will be sent to a secure pre-prepared generic donation form that you can put your website name onto where they can enter the amount they wish to donate. They will also have the option to donate monthly should they wish too.

Paypal.me

Click the image below to help support our content.

Click on the banner to sign up for a new PayPal account and start receiving voluntary donations via paypal.me today.

You do not have to stick with the generic button gif provided. Just create a new gif image and give it the same name as the one provided and save it. You will be asked if you want to replace the existing file with a file with the same name. click yes and you are done.

Warning! Sometimes it can cost.

I once received a donation of £3.00 GBP and a few months later a notification from PayPal arrived in my inbox stating:
"We were recently notified that one of your buyers filed a chargeback. This simply means they asked their credit card issuer to reverse a payment made to you purchased on 20 Dec 2010. The buyer claims that this purchase was made without their authorization to use the credit card. Their credit card issuer needs additional information from you about this transaction to help resolve this."

After reading the above I provided the necessary details and awaited their response. Eventuall, the buyer was issued a full refund and I debited both the donation fee and charged a reverse transaction fee on the credit card on top of the refunded amount. This resulted in me losing money which obviously I was not happy about but it was completely out of my control, as despite presenting a strong and detailed account of the transaction I still lost the case.

With that said, and on a positive note I have also recieved many donations over the years for the free content I provide that have helped keep the site running and the content free to the masses.