To Donate or not to Donate

In the beginning I thought offering visitors the option to Donate was a bit cheeky!

However, after reading an article by Steve Pavilina, I am starting to come round to the idea being a valid option to make money online. I have therefore decided to put a Donate button and page on this website.

In his article Steve Pavilina informs us that Donation's are in fact his second biggest earner behind Google Adsense (his site currently brings in $1000 per day, a very impressive sum!).

In fact his top six income streams are:

1. Google Adsense.
2. Donations.
3. Text Link Ads.
4. Chitika Mini Malls.
5. Affiliate Marketing Programmes like an Ei42 Shop.
6. Individual Advertising.

To date I have only begun to use Google Adsense, Donations and Affiliate Programmes in my quest to develop money making strategies.

It's great to imagine a blog or site bringing in $1000 per day but it is also impossible to achieve without large volumes of traffic passing through. I have started to document my ways to generate traffic and will see how many visitors the methods described bring to this blog.

Anyway back to Donations!

The article continued, stating that an average donation is around $10, but that Steve has also received a number of $100 donations too. It is very simple to add a donate button via your PayPal account. Simply sign into or create your account, merchant services, click donations in the useful link section and follow the instructions.

By providing your visitors with a donate button you are offering them a means of voluntary contributions, should they wish to support your site/content. It is definitely a win-win situation as it doesn't cost you anything to set up and therefore qualifies as a genuine possible way to make money online via a blog.

Donations will give you a sense of pride in your Blog as it will give you an indication of the value readers put on your site. After all if they are willing to give money for something that could be free to them, then surely that has to be one of the highest complements.