Making money with a blog using donation buttons

Whenever I want to write about donation buttons, I always think back on Wikipedia and the way it monetized on their online resource by including a donation button. Wikipedia does not really sell anything yet it has made millions of dollars from the internet. This drives me crazy and goes to show how people could still make money online from the generosity of online users.
Wikipedia is an online resource that allows people to share knowledge in an intelligible way. Unintelligent people can hardly add content to Wikipedia because of the way it was built but the funny thing about it is that, like a wiki, everyone can change it and its content may not be exactly correct.

Why the long discussion about Wikipedia and how does it relate to making money with a blog? Well it stems from the experience you must have had with it when you go there and get a message popping out saying "Special message from the founder" - showing that an appeal fund is in the works.

Wikipedia created a system that allowed people to donate to the company and it netted more than $6 million! It shows that content is money and there are various ways to monetize it

So in order to make money with a blog that may not really want to sell something, what you may need is an appeal fund and the best way to set this up is with a donation button.

There is a blogger I know who makes some serious money from donation buttons and it is quite an interesting idea as I'm thinking about it:

http://www.stevepavlina.com/donate.htm

But wouldn't adding a donation button a website look like you are begging for money? Wouldn't it amount to Cyberbegging? Seriously, a lot of people would feel that it belittles their personality to ask for donations. Why not sell something at least that's more responsible. Well it seems that people will ultimately want to assist websites that they maybe have benefited from but I think if you are going to include it, don't make it too visible.

Well, here are some reasons why I think adding a donation button on a blog could be successful or why people will ultimately want to donate:

- Your website content is great and resourceful:
People feel they owe you if they are able to get something meaningful and helpful from your blog. In some way they would want to contribute either by comments or even cash.

- You are probably not making any other source of income form the site:
People are smart and my consider you to be greedy if you are making money and still running an online appeal fund, except it is for and extraordinary course and maybe would not last for long.

- The donation system is simple and trusted:
The payment system you use in setting up donation buttons also matters as readers are more likely to support you if they are on the same network or would find it easier and quicker to be on that same platform to support you.

- People may just want to do a small test to see how your system work:
Yes, people may just want to test if your donation is actually working and perhaps how it works. It could be fellow webmasters or curious bloggers. It may also even be pessimists who think you may be fraudulent and so they may all want to do a small test like donate $1. It could even be fellow competitors who are fascinated by your donation system and want to know a bit how it works. In essence, not everyone who donates to you just because of the cause.

- You have a loyal and large pool of readers:
The more readers you have the higher your chances of getting some donations on your blog. Having a good readership really pays off for a lot of reasons and one good way to capture your readers is by publishing feed content on your site and using Google Feedburner to email them once updates are made. Perhaps, on out of 100 readers may very well donate and if you had like a thousand readers, then probably 10 or more would donate.

- Your friends may just want to donate:
So if you've got many online friends, the better for you. Same too if you have a huge fan base

Should I include donation on my Blog?
If you have a website that draws an appreciable amount of traffic from returning visitors and you are not yet satisfied with the income it currently generates, maybe you would ave to answer this question yourself - Should you setup an online appeal fund?

So whatever kind of website you have, if you really want to add value to it, you need to be people friendly if you really want to have return visitors everyday. I have seen a couple of websites that I prefer not going to even though they mostly come out in tops on Google search results. Ranking high on search engines is one thing, but sustaining your audience should be more preferred and would help your blog make consistent online income. A blog or website without visitors becomes eventually dead so if you want to make money with a blog using donations or any other means, you need to have good content.