Blogging with Donation buttons

One of the methods I mentioned by which you can make money blogging in Nigeria is by making use of donation buttons.

My Blog is not a charity case
Why accept donations on a blog? Perhaps your blog may not be a charitable organisation but that doesn't mean you can't accept donations. I mean, after all, Wikipedia raises donations from time to time even though all it really gives to people is an avenue to share information smartly.

You are useful to your audience
Maybe you may not already know it but the more traffic your blog receives, the more people love your blog and this must be because it is helpful to your audience. If people visit your blog regularly, it means they get some benefits using it and they wouldn't mind helping you keep providing such free service. So if your blog provides some benefits to users in one way or the other, even if it just free information, it is more likely to generate goodwill from the public

What are donation buttons really?
Donation buttons are simply clickable web buttons that allows web visitors to donate to your site. Once they click on it, it takes them to a payment processing page where they can transfer funds to the beneficiary.
Nowadays many popular websites use donation buttons to help raise funds for one reason or the other and for a large site like Wikipedia, it is probably their single most reliable source of income as they rake in millions of dollars yearly from it. So your blog can make use of a donation button if users are loving your site.

What kind of donation buttons should I use?
In this area, I am more concerned about which payment platforms you should use on your blog. You need to first of all determine what type of audience you have and what kind of payment platforms that they use. If your web visitors are mostly Paypal account holders, then you should try making use of Paypal buttons. If your visitors use Alertpay, then it's better to use that and if they audience is targeted at users who use Liberty reserve accounts such as most forex traders do in Nigeria, then you should also make use of that. The kind of buttons and payment processors you use in accepting online donations on your blog can go a long way in deciding the fate of your donation campaign.

Transparency is good when accepting online donations
When accepting donations on your blog, it is good to also make public ow much you have collected from users so far. When it comes to money, people have the tendency to ask for accountability.

How about offline donations
Not everyone in Nigeria unlike other developed nations have online accounts where they keep their money. Nigeria is more of a cash based economy so you may also accept cash donations. Now with the growth of mobile banking, you may also start accepting donations by means of mobile phones as there are millions of users in the country.

How to start accepting donations on your blog
You just need to have an account with your payment platform and let people know how to support your blog. Online donation buttons are much more effective than offline donations. Just create a button from within your account and place the code on a prominent part of your blog and you are good to go.