Creating and Adding a Paypal “Donate” Button to your Worpdress.com Widget Area

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After noting more than 9000 visitors to my website, 90 daily hits and lots of positive feedback, I thought I better create an option for people to show some love.  I think I tried it early on, but was under the impression that WordPress.com did not like Paypal buttons in it’s widget area.  I don’t know if that has changed or if I just did not research hard enough back then, but here’s how ou do it:

OK, first, this help Support Thread does an exceptional job walking you through the process with enhanced screen captures and all.  No need for me to reinvent the wheel.  But I will supplement it with a couple of things.  First, I’d like to give you an overview of the strategy.  Then, I’ll mention a couple of pitfalls.  Here’s the general process they outline in the thread:

  1. Go to Paypal and create button in your Paypal acct under “Merchant Services,” not “Receive Money.”
  2. Copy the GIF image of the button you like from the bottom of the thread (you can also create your own).
  3. In a blank Post or Page, click on the “Text” tab and paste in the GIF code.
  4. Click on the “Visual” tab.
  5. Select the button image and add a link to it by clicking the Link button.
  6. From Paypal, copy the button code and paste it into your WP link.  Now, the button links to Paypal.
  7. Publish the Post or Page if that is your final intent.

In my case,  I wanted my Donate button to be contained in a widget.  To do this there are a couple of extra steps.

PITFALL ALERT:  First, before you get all ahead of yourself and skip reading the Support Thread, note that when you go to copy your code, don’t take it from the intuitive “Website” code box.  Widgets don’t like that code.  Take your code from the completely non-intuitive “Email” box.

  1. In the Post/Page, click back to the “Text” button and copy your new code.
  2. Go to APPEARANCE > WIDGETS and select a TEXT widget.  Add to the appropriate place .  Title if you wish a title to appear above your button.  Paste in your code.
  3. Save.
  4. Check for effect
  5. Consider “testing” my new “Donate” button.

This is all really logical.  I thought there would be some other weird things that needed to happen because of the security restrictions of both WP and PP.  But, after getting the guidance to get around the pitfalls, it was rather easy!

 

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