How to accept PayPal donations

In case you own a blog or website and you want to not pepper it with too many unsightly ads, you may opt to instead accept PayPal donations from your readers. This tutorial will teach you how from scratch and will even teach you how to modify the Donate Now button (my next installment, watch out for it) to suit your needs.

The Make a Donation button lets you start accepting contributions immediately. To create a button follow these steps:

1. Sign up for a Paypal account here.

In order to fully appreciate the power of Paypal and for you to benefit its full service features for the Philippines, you need to sign up too for a Union Bank EON Visa debit card, in that way you can be a verified Paypal account holder/business and withdraw funds to your EON Visa debit card which can then be withdrawn through ATM. But you can sign up later after you have set up your PayPal account.

2. After signing up, an email will be sent to you, so be sure to use a working email address you have acccess of. Plus the fact that PayPal works by using email addresses. People sends you money just by using your email address. So to get going Login to your PayPal account.

3. Click the Merchant Tools tab, and then click Donations (under Website Payments).

4. Fill in a name and ID number, if you wish. A Donate Now button's name and ID number, like the Item Name/Service and Item ID/Number in a Buy Now button, let you and your contributors identify payments. By using different numbers and descriptions, you can place a number of buttons on your site, each soliciting donations to different programs.

5. Enter an amount or leave blank if you want your donors to enter an amount themselves. Either way, you'll need to select a currency in which donations will be made.

6. Choose from the selection of PayPal donation buttons, or specify the URL of your own button image. (Yes, you can make your own Donation button design)

7. Choose the encrypted or unencrypted version of the button. If you're not sure which one to use, choose the unencrypted version; you can replace it later with an encrypted one once your button is functioning.

Unencrypted buttons are plain HTML forms—easy to read, understand, and modify. An encrypted button, on the other hand, is inscrutable to anyone but the PayPal system and impossible to modify or customize.

While unencrypted buttons can be created with any software tool, encrypted buttons can, be created only with the PayPal system's Merchant Tools. Encrypted buttons can be useful in some situations, such as to protect your email address from spammers. Openness, however, is usually best.

8. Click Create Button Now when you're done.

9. The HTML code generated for your button is found in a text area box on the next page. Just select its contents, press Ctrl-C to copy the text to the clipboard or right click and copy, and then paste the text into your web page.

10. Voila! you now have a Donation button ready for receiving money from generous readers. If these information was useful to you, you can also donate some to me, my Donate Now button is on the right. Thank you