Thanks,
Kelly

Support my site as i have just added the donation button :)

cheers

Other bloggers who just rant on about their life, post a few photos and are half-hearted about offering anything of value absolutely don’t get a tip, and therefore I think their call for donations is offensive.

My continually updated site offers one-of-a-kind advice and instructions in English for people moving, living, working in Greece. Gets about 1000 hits a day, and at least 2-3 people per day ask for personalized help, which I often give — some people write back to say ‘thank you,’ some people don’t say ‘boo’ after I took an hour to help them. It’s difficult to say whether people would donate or not, even though I’m saving people money and time.

If I ever did it, I wouldn’t offer it on every post — that seems a bit overboard. Perhaps in one location on one page.

And I agree with Pip and Desi Baba regarding John. He seems to be ticking off a lot of his readers lately. I find myself going over there less and less these days as well. Just not finding much quality and useful content. And that no-follow tag stuff…just not right IMHO.

Shine on,
Aaron

I’d like to share another ‘word of warning’ about placing PayPal donation buttons that was shared with me by a high-profile affiliate marketer friend.

A visitor to his site made a donation thinking that the money would go to a charity, despite the fact that there was no mention of any charitable organization on the site – just a request for ‘donations’.

The visitor then requested a receipt for tax purposes.

When a receipt naming a registered charity couldn’t be provided, the guy who made the donation complained to PayPal.

Paypal responded by locking the account, freezing the funds (a sizeable amount) and the matter is now going to court.

So, the point would be — watch how you word those PayPal donation buttons! “Buy Me a ____” is good, whereas “Donate ____” could land you in a world of trouble.

Blogging always has to be about providing good content because that it what readers want, right? It would never even cross my mind to stop visiting an excellent blog or to feel offended by a blogger because of a donation button. Why shouldn’t a blogger profit or benefit from their contribution? I for one do not wish to remain a poor, starving, struggling artist and will use any ethical means to support myself.

I think someone is only likely to become a potential donator after they’ve explored and engaged with the blog/website, and gained some value from it. Such readers would probably at some point be curious enough about the author to visit the About page, and see the donation button.

Those who don’t engage with the blog sufficiently to be curious about the author won’t get to see it, but then they’re hardly likely to donate anyway.

I think it’s vital for people to remember why they’re blogging. What’s their purpose. That’s what should help guide decisions on what to do with their blog (and their business).

Monetizing, in any way, is quite tempting. Yet is it worth sacrificing all the hard work you put into building a following only to loose it for a little financial gain? That’s for each of us to decide ourselves.

I’m not against making money with our blogs – not at all. I just feel it’s wise to consider how we make money with the larger picture of our blogging purpose.

A nice example of this recently occurred in Sweden. A Swedish language blogger, Dick Erixon, has for a really long time (like almost ten years or something amazing like that) been blogging on politics, especially American politics from a right wing (neo conservative, these days). I can tell you this is a lonely niche in Sweden. But since you cannot *anywhere* else find his angle on American politics in Swedish, he got a lot of readers.

He has never – as far as I know – utilized any commercials. (I think you have to be extremely large in some affiliate market to make any sort of money blogging in Swedish) A couple of month ago he declared crisis and needed donations to be able to keep the website. He has been rather alone in his field for almost ten years and his readership felt they really made use of his political comments. In a couple of weeks he had $15 000 (Swedish has 9 million speakers, so we talk about a rather small market). He will now continue by selling a news letter rather expensively to support his quite intensive blogging. (His site is in Swedish, but anyway at erixon.com).

Don’t try this at home, though.

When I first started it, most of the interest was from people wanting the script themselves – it’s available for $97 to self-install, or I’ve installed a few for people, and designed and hosted their “Virtual Bars” for them.

I had one person set up her site as a “virtual shoeshop” to get people to help her fund her shoe fetish!