Add A Tip Jar To Your Lens

My opinion:

Tip jars are a personal choice. Some people prefer to sell their information by charging beforehand for an eBook full of "secrets" or a "$7 Report". Some give away stuff for free but benefit from the distribution by including their ads, backlinks, or other viral component. Others prefer to deliver the information first and let the reader decide if and how much they voluntarily want to pay for it.

Surely, not every bit of content warrants remuneration, especially not on revenue sharing sites like Squidoo. But if you provide something of tangible value that saves your readers time and/or money I think there's nothing indecent about providing a tip jar. Even Mr. Squidoo himself thinks that tipping is a way to acknowledge and stimulate great content, although in his post he'd rather have an advertiser pick up the tab (a minor faux-pas, I'm sure).

In order to be able to accept tips you will need to have an account with Paypal, or any other service that accepts micro payments. PayPal's fees make it a bit inefficient for very small amounts and I'm looking into other, cheaper alternatives. But since many people already have an account there I will start with them. I'll post new services once I've checked them out.

So, begin by logging into your PayPal account.

To create the necessary code for a payment button or link, direct your browser to this page:

https://www.paypal.com/us/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_donate-intro

If you'd rather navigate your way to the page follow this path:

• Within your PayPal account, click on the tab Products & Services.
  
• On the right, look for Ways to get paid and click on Website Payments Standard.
• Under "Option 1" look for "There are also buttons for donations and gift certificates." and click on donations.
  
• Then click on Create your button now. In the next screen you can fill out the details for a new button or access previously saved buttons.

Fill out the form with your desired information. Choose whether to use the standard PayPal Donate button with or without Credit Card logos, or upload another image of your choice. I noticed that my own button image does not display, but if you're sure that the location is correct it will show up on your finished link.

For the quick and easy method, grab the code for "Email". To utilize a widget, grab the code for "Website".

Ok, assuming that you set up PayPal and got your payment code it's time to create an appealing tip jar.

If you want to go with the standard "Donation" PayPal button that's the easiest option. But if you want to be a bit more creative you'd probably like to come up with a visually more appealing version.

Step 1: Pick a graphic you'd like to use and upload it to your favorite hosting place, like Photobucket. If your image states what it's purpose is then skip the next step.

Step 2: Get the "Email" version of your PayPal link as described above.

Step 3: Tell your visitors specifically what you'd want them to do. "Buy Me A Beer" or Coffee, Tea, etc. is a whole lot easier to say than "Give Me Money". And probably more effective as well. You could also state a goal that you would like to achieve.

Here's an example of a simple box with a picture, linking to your PayPal "Email" code. See "More Sample Images" for some pre-made images you can use.

Did you find something useful?

Add to my Tip Jar
:)
(PayPal Donation)

Get your own Tip Jar

And this is what the HTML code looks like. Get creative with your own graphics, text and style formatting. Or grab the code if you prefer (just don't forget to substitute your own URLs as indicated by the red parts. Also, you may need to play around with the height and width settings if your text/picture is larger).

<p style="background: #F7F7F7; height:110px; padding: 10px; border: 1px solid #CCCCCC; "><b style="float:left;width:160px;margin:0 -1px -1px 20px;padding:1px"><a href="https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=XXXXXXX" target="_blank"><img src="http://your-image-url-here" width="100" /></a></b><b style="color:#046381;float:left;width:275px;margin:0 -1px -1px 0;padding:1px;font-weight:normal;font-size:large;text-align:center;">Did you find something useful? <br /><br /><b style="color:#FF9900; font-weight:normal;font-size:medium;">Add to the Tip Jar<br />:)</b><br clear="all" /><b style="font-size: x-small; font-weight: normal; color: #aaa;">(PayPal Donation)</b></b></p><b style="font-size: xx-small; font-weight: normal; float:left; color: #aaa;margin:0 -1px -1px 0;padding:1px">Get your own <a href="http://www.squidoo.com/tip-jar">Tip Jar</a></b>