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How to Create a Donate Button with the free donate button creator

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1. Introduction

Creating a safe and convenient method for you to receive donations now becomes easier with the implementation of the donate button. The donate button is a PayPal feature built with the purpose of providing an easy donation mechanism that can be implemented by developers. The way it works is very simple: all users have to do is log into their PayPal account, and then they will be redirected to a page where they can approve or reject a payment. With this method, the donation can be directly responded to and easier to control. The donation can be made to a specific person or group, as a way of giving thanks for the information you have received, or as something that is worth from the giver. Though easy, often there are people who find it difficult to create a donate button. In this article, I'll cover the ways you can make it quick and easy. The donate button can be defined as a button that contains a set of code and will link the web page with a page for payment approval using PayPal. Typically, the donate button takes the form of a standard image or uses images that have been specified by PayPal. With the HTML code or JavaScript, the button can be placed anywhere on the web page, and the payment approval page can be set as a new page or a pop-up window.

2. Benefits of Using a Donate Button

- Donation buttons can tell the donor much about the organization. For example, a PayPal donate button provides information regarding the organization's status as a PayPal verified non-profit, how often the button has been used to donate in the past, and buyer satisfaction rate (if payments through PayPal). This fact influences the donors. PayPal button also allows guests to use Debit or Credit cards for their donation if they do not have a PayPal account. This may increase the number of international donors, as PayPal serves Web users from many countries and supports multiple currencies. The less donors questions the validity of the organization and how to donate, the more likely they are to donate. In a survey on online giving, 5.7% of donors who did not donate online in the past year stated that they would likely support an organization through an online donation at an undecided future time.

- When a donation button is linked to a simple payment process like PayPal, it drastically reduces the donor's effort to complete the donation. The easier it is to donate, the more likely it is that a donor will complete the donation and return to donate again in the future. A simple payment process also means fewer donation attempts that are later discovered and refunded by the donor. By this payment feature most the donors are happy to give more and again in the future.

- When a donor visits a site with the intention of donating, a donate button is a convenient and recognizable tool to start the donation process. Picture this scenario of a potential donor who has to scour a website to find an address, then has to write it down, find an envelope, fill it with a check, and finally mail it to the organization—they may never get around to it. With websites often being the first point of public contact, the absence of a donation button is a lost opportunity. Plus, with minimal effort, small groups or individuals can accept online donations; which allows these organizations to compete with larger organizations for donor funds. This latter point is especially important during the economic downturn, as donors may redirect their limited funds to organizations where their money can make a bigger difference.

In a research conducted on Simon Kucher Partners' website, it showed that when an organization adds a donate button, their donations may increase by 4 fold. The reasons include:

Benefits of using a donate button

2.1. Increased Donations

To achieve the increased donations mentioned in the section above, a donate button can be specifically programmed to guide visitors in the concept of contributing funds. Using images and messages, the donate button is a direct and effective means to a donation. Although an array of donate buttons can be set up, simplicity is key to increased donations. A basic donation button with a small message like "Support Us – Donate!" can be most effective, seeing as how more complex means of donation can deter potential contributors. If a donor sees a message that catches their interest, all they have to do is click the button and follow a few simple instructions. Step It Up! found that the use of a simple donate button made an increase of 2.5 times their previous revenue. With large amounts of traffic and many visitors to all sorts of websites, something as simple as a donate button can really make a difference.

2.2. Simplified Payment Process

So we have seen how a simplified payment process can increase the likelihood of a single transaction being completed, and the probability of future transactions by the same donor. But wait, there's more! This wonderful new payment method is also likely to increase the average donation amount. PayPal's donate button allows you to set predetermined donation amounts, which is proven to encourage higher donations. When donors are presented with suggested giving levels, rather than open input field, they are more likely to make a selection from one of the predetermined amounts. This increases the average donation size, and the likelihood of the same donor making a larger donation in the future.

In our fast moving society, time has become the single most valuable commodity, and everyone is in a constant rush to get from point A to point B more quickly. This rings especially true for potential donors. Studies have shown that the easier it is to complete a transaction, the more likely a customer is to not only complete that transaction, but repeat it again in the future. With traditional donation methods, every second it takes to complete the transaction is an opportunity for the donor to change his or her mind. How often have you visited a charity's website and decided to make a donation, only to give up due to being confused by the process or restricted by the payment methods? If the answer is even once, then you know the importance of having a simplified payment process. With PayPal's donate button, donors are taken straight to the payment page, completely bypassing the shopping cart and checkout process. PayPal members can pay quickly and securely using debit or credit cards, bank accounts, and of course their PayPal balance. Non-PayPal members are only required to provide their payment information once to begin making instant donations on any website that offers PayPal. This streamlining of payment methods and information entry makes it much more likely that a donor will complete a transaction, and opens the door for repeat donations in the future. A simplified payment process can even help to recruit new donors. When current donors are impressed by the ease and efficiency of their transaction, they are more likely to recommend the donation process to friends or family.

2.3. Enhanced Donor Experience

Another important benefit of using a donate button is the enhanced donor experience. This can take many forms and in the final analysis represents the relationships between the charity and their supporters. Items of tangible value provided in exchange for a donation such as tickets to a show or a raffle entry are enhanced by the donor's payment experience. This is because it is simple to link this form of transaction to a specific donation amount and further information can be withheld from the donor unless the transaction is completed. Any donors that have given up their valuable time to participate in an event or promotion will appreciate simplified payment process and will be deterred if they encounter any form of difficult procedures, thus improved payment process will often directly lead to more donations in these situations. Any person who donates to charity does so with the aim of improving the situation for others. This is most effective when the donation is of a significant amount and donors will be discouraged if their payment is engulfed by transfer fees or eaten up by an uncompetitive exchange rate. By utilising a donate button charity can ensure that the payment is as cost effective as possible by specifying the exact amount in the desired currency. E-commerce websites have the potential to greatly improve the methods by which they handle the payment of donations. PayPal offers an integrated donate button that will allow first time users to easily establish a PayPal account during the donation process and proceed to pay with their credit card or bank account. This is a secure and easy to use payment method preferred by many users, hence the donation experience is improved at no cost to the charity. PayPal account holders have it even easier with the option to pay using PayPal's Direct Payment methods. This eliminates the need for the user to re-enter personal and payment information and allows for one click donations. This method is similar to purchasing an item at an online store and is preferred for convenience. An improved payment experience using specific payment instructions and methods to all users including widely used PayPal services will result in increased popularity and higher donation return for the e-commerce websites. Oxfam has recently begun to utilise a PayPal donation service and donate button for their Trailwalker event and has experienced significant success. This service has been preferred by Trailwalker participants due to its ease of use, reliability and low cost and has been the key to multiple donations by the same users. This is what the payment experience is all about. In summary, donation payments whether they are one off transactions, periodic payments or purchases for charity events should be a simple and cost effective process that both the charity and the donor can be satisfied with. By using a payment specific method the charity can ensure that all forms of donation are well facilitated and should the charity communication be lost at any point the donor need only think of the cause. The smiley face.

3. Steps to Create a Donate Button

Add payment integration or a link that directs the user directly to a donation payment page. Payment integration processes the payment immediately and is the most effective way to secure a donation. Note that this usually involves placing code on your website which may be a daunting task for some. If you are unable to do this, it is best to link the user directly to your charity's donation page. Make sure the page is simple, user-friendly and provides clear "donation amount" options.

Design a donate button with a strong "call to action" message. A call to action message is a compelling statement that tells the user what to do. An effective call to action combined with a strong message is proven to increase donations. Your button should be particularly easy to find and stand out in comparison to other elements on your website. It is also beneficial to remind your audience why they should donate, explaining how their support will benefit your cause.

Choose a platform that suits your website best. If your site runs on WordPress, use the donations application for maximum compatibility. This can be found in the "Ultimate Donations" section; an affordable, comprehensive and flexible donations plugin for WordPress. If your website is not built on WordPress, you should still install an application which caters to your website's platform. For websites without a platform, choose a widely recognized donation program to ensure maximum compatibility and donor confidence.

3.1. Choosing a Platform

These are obviously very crucial things to think about, but there are also some less obvious things to take into consideration. Ease of creating the button could be important if you are planning on creating several different types of buttons, i.e. donate buttons for specific things or general donate buttons for your different pages. Additionally, some platforms have added options for the appearance of the button that can be quite useful, for example providing a check box option to allow customers to make a regular monthly donation. Finally, some platforms may give you added information on the donations that are made using the button, which could be useful for your accounting and record keeping.

When deciding on a platform for your donate button, there are several things you need to consider. The two most important things are: 1. What platform will make it easiest for you to create and implement the button? 2. What platform will make it easiest for your donors to use the button and make a donation?

There are a variety of ways you can accept donations or raise funds for your organization. One of the more common ways to do this is by creating a "donate" button and placing it on your website. In order to create a donate button and link it to a PayPal payment page, you need to follow the normal procedure for creating a button but with an additional step. This tutorial will take you through the process of creating a donate button, enabling the button to initiate a payment, and linking the button to your PayPal payment page. This is a four-part tutorial. The first part will be about creating the button and getting the button ID. The second part will be about enabling the button to initiate a payment, and the final part will be about linking the button to your payment page.

3.2. Designing the Button

The donation button should be placed and designed in such a way that it gathers attention of the visitors of the website. There are some common mistakes that people make with reference to the donation buttons. The buttons are placed at such locations that they are mostly ignored by the visitors. It is essential that the button must be somewhere on the homepage. It should be noticeable and must catch attention. The button must be surrounded by some explanatory text, as per what the money is for. For example if you are making a donation button for a charity, then it should be mentioned with the button as where this money will be spent. Now coming on to the design of the button, it is recommended that the button should be somewhat larger than the normal buttons links etc. The colour of the button must be some bright colour making it noticeable by the visitors. The text which is written on the button should be larger enough to read and must define the function of the button. Last but not the least, test the button frequently, to make sure it's working properly. Also ask some of your friends or other people to check what they think about the button, to know how much effective the button is.

3.3. Adding Payment Integration

The recommended best practice for non-profits or other organizations with an online presence would be to use a platform such as PayPal for payment processing. PayPal is a trusted brand and is recognized worldwide as a secure and convenient method for sending and receiving payments. By using PayPal, your organization can give donors the option to pay with a credit card or bank account, and the donation will be deposited directly to the organization's PayPal account. There are no set-up fees for PayPal and the only cost involved is a small percentage deducted from the donation. It is important to not overwhelm or exclude potential donors by exclusively using payment processes that require an account (such as Google Wallet) or are limited to specific regions of the world. Consider the needs and circumstances of your audience and choose a platform that is flexible and accessible. Once a payment processing platform has been decided upon, it will need to be integrated with the website and donation button. The method required to integrate payment processing varies depending on the platform and the hosting of the website. Typically, for any platform, an account will need to be created and additional code will need to be inserted to link the button with the payment service. Any action taking place after a donor has clicked the button will need to be done on the website hosting account, as opposed to the payment platform's site. This means that for best results the donor should never have to leave the site in order to make a donation. Always refer to specific instructions or tutorials for the given platform in order to ensure proper integration.

3.4. Placing the Button on Your Website

The non-profit website's access, the donate button is a necessary means to receiving financial support. The donate button is important because it will make it easier for people to find your donation page and the easier it is to find your make a donation page, the more likely it is that someone will donate money to your cause. A donation button should be put on every page of your website to make it easy on the potential donor. This way, if they are convinced to donate to your cause while reading about what your organization does, they can click on the donate button and go straight to a page where they can make a donation. This tutorial will show you how to create a PayPal donate button and add it to your website's sidebar using WordPress. Now that you have created a PayPal donate button, it's time to place the button on your website. To do this, you need to get the HTML code of your button. There are a few steps to placing a donate button on your website. The first thing that you need to do is save a copy of the HTML code of the donate button in Notepad. Now, log in to the backend of your website. If you use WordPress, you can navigate to 'pages' and create a new page. Give this page a title like 'Support Our Cause' and publish the page. Then, click to view the page. In the body of this page, you can paste the HTML code that you pasted into Notepad. After you have pasted the HTML code, simply publish the page and your donate button should appear.

4. Best Practices for Optimizing Donate Buttons

Clear Call-to-Action It is important to use clear text on the donate button to show the user what is to be expected when the button is clicked on. A simple "Donate Now" would suffice, but users have seen it every now and then on the internet. Make it interesting. Instead of the normal text, use text like "Be a Hero" or "Change The World" or "Feeling Generous?". Text like this would definitely draw attention and increase the probability of the button being clicked on. A good example would be the first thing you see on the homepage when you go to Wikipedia with text that says "Please Read: We Do Not Run Any Ads". With the amount of information we're getting from Wikipedia, that text is definitely compelling. Step it up further and make it into a button.

A donate button is something that is added on a website in anticipation of enticing users to click on it and donate. Creating a convincing donate button may sound simple, but it isn't. It involves creativity and strategic planning. The logic here is simple. It has been studied and proven that changing the color, shape, size, and text of the button will affect its outcome. So, a button that has been tested wouldn't really be a high-converting button in terms of donations. To make things easier, below are some of the tested and proven methods to help increase the effectiveness of the donate button.

4.1. Clear Call-to-Action

One issue that isn't so clear is whether or not the button should be personalized (e.g., "Donate to Greg Johnson"). Gregory Ciotti of HelpScout has an article on ego-verification, with one the main points being that conversion rates can increase by making people feel good about themselves. One way of doing this is reassuring them that they're doing something right. Though the article gives the example of increasing sign-ups with an ego-verification headline, it could be argued that making a personalized button could have a similar effect by confirming the donator's identity and the act being done. This is something that could be tested with A/B testing and more research with target demographics.

Example: Wikimedia did a multivariate test on their CTA and found that using the button text "Make a Donation" increased their donations clicked by 21% as opposed to "Support Wikipedia – a non-profit project".

Make sure the CTA stands alone; users should know what is being asked of them as soon as they see your button. Everything else on your page should support this objective. A great way to test this is the squint test; have someone take a look at your webpage for 5 seconds. If they can't immediately tell you what you want them to do, you need to make your CTA more clear. Finally, keep the CTA above the fold. Time is of the essence for many people and it's crucial that they don't have to spend time searching to find out what you're asking of them.

A call-to-action (CTA) is a prompt to the reader to elicit an immediate response, such as "Buy Now," "Opt-In," or "Click Here to Register." "Donate" is a verb, and your donate button is nothing more than a CTA. Your donate button, or call to action, needs to clearly communicate what you want your visitors to do. In this case, the objective is simple: you want your visitors to make a donation to your cause. So your donate button needs to clearly tell them that. A classic study by Small and Verrochi (2009) found that user support increased by 700% when a simple change was made from a general CTA ("support cancer research") to a specific CTA ("click here to donate to cancer research").

4.2. Eye-catching Design

Your CTA (call to action) should be located within the button. Studies have shown that having donation forms that are accompanied with a small linked or unframed "click here to donate" text have significantly lower donation success rates. It is said that having an actual button raises donation rates by nearly 30%!

Size matters. But what is "best"? Results are inconsistent with different sources. Smashing Magazine suggests larger buttons will gain more attention. However, KISS Metrics uses eye tracking data to support a moderately sized button. This conclusion is that very large buttons may risk coming off as obnoxious and less genuine, and a button that is too small may be overlooked. The KISS Metrics article provides an accurate generalization which is that the button should be "just the right size" and easy to find. This is difficult without doing A/B testing on your specific website, so for now I will leave the decision making up to you.

However, if the color of your site or the page your button will be on already has a lot of green or yellow, you may want to lean your button more towards the opposite color spectrum. In this case, orange is another good choice, as it is linked to enthusiasm and creativity, and is used to express emotions from fun and excitement to warmth and energy.

Selecting the correct color for your donate button is critical, as color directly impacts human emotion. This article provides a good reference for what emotions are associated with specific colors. In the case of donation buttons, you want to inspire people and instill a sense of positivity when they see your button. For this, green and yellow are great color choices. Green inspires feelings of growth and harmony, and is known to be relaxing, and yellow is an attention-grabbing color that is associated with happiness and energy.

4.3. Mobile Responsiveness

Mobile responsiveness is essential to email in comparison to other broadcast platforms. Litmus observed that 53% of email is now opened on a mobile device. If the donate button is clicked in the email and the user is taken to the website, the donation process is a click away from ending. If the user clicks the button in the email and nothing happens, the action is interrupted and the user may not return to the email to click the button again on a different device. This is why adding a donate form on the landing page as well as in the email can be so effective. In a study, Marketing Sherpa found that adding a form to the landing page increased donation conversions by 41% compared to driving traffic to the website's existing donation page. This way, a user that has clicked the donate button in the email and been taken to the website will not need to search for the donation page to complete the action. This also helps to convert email users that have clicked the button but may not be familiar with your organization. A user that is compelled to donate after reading the email, but is unfamiliar with the website or where to find the donate page may give up and not continue if the process is not simple and straightforward. With the increase in smartphone usage, tablet and mobile users also make up a significant portion of traffic to your website. In the same study, Marketing Sherpa observed that traffic from mobile and tablet devices now accounts for 20-25% of traffic to the average website. A potential donation should not be hindered by a user's device. The landing page and donation form should be designed to function and display properly across all devices. This will ensure that regardless of how the user reached the website, the donation process is consistent and easily accessible.

4.4. Donation Amount Suggestions

For first-time donors or organizations who don't know what levels will work best, donation amount suggestions provide a useful starting point. They often act as the default donation amounts. Donors can choose one of those amounts or enter a custom donation. By suggesting the amounts you need the donor to provide, you are actually segmenting your donors and asking them to self-identify with a donation range. This is a tactic that has proven to increase donations, particularly among new donors. Here is an example of donation amount suggestions from National Public Radio's donation form. In this example, you can see every donation suggestion has a descriptive label telling the donor exactly what the impact of their donation will be. This is a very effective way to encourage larger donations and it also eases any doubt that the donation will have real impact. Remember that your top donors or recurring donors may still want to donate a larger sum, so always include an option for another amount or custom donation.