With the Simple Payments button, the opportunities for selling on your site are endless: collect pet adoption deposits and membership dues, or sell dental conference tickets and music festival t-shirts. Here’s what you can do to make the most of this WordPress.com Business and Premium plan feature.
Tip #1: Place your button strategically
D.C. Basketball Events, the website of the Dream Catchers Basketball program for girls in the US Pacific Northwest, promotes the upcoming 4th Annual Winter Jam with a can’t-miss image on its front page. Underneath, they display a contact form and payment buttons for basketball teams to register and pay.
The site also has a payment page for future events, but the bold homepage promotion of this weekend’s Winter Jam makes it timely and prominent. So if you want your readers to see something, place it front and center.
Science journalist Leonid Schneider, who writes at For Better Science, has a different approach for getting his payment button noticed: he displays it alongside donation messaging at the bottom of every blog post.
When you create a payment button for a particular item, you can insert it into more posts or pages on your site. It’s a great way to promote what you’re selling — or in Leonid’s case, to regularly ask readers to support his work.
Tip #2: Effectively sell your services with high-quality images
Tom Bol has led photography workshops for over two decades. At Tom Bol Photo Workshops, you can sign up for group trips and private lessons, including a summer excursion to Badlands National Park in South Dakota and a fall trip to a classic car junkyard in Georgia. Tom’s participants can register and pay for each workshop on the signup page, which includes thumbnails of his stunning photographs from these destinations.
Uploading an image next to a payment button isn’t mandatory, but it’s an effective way to sell your product, event, or service. Original, high-quality images like the ones on Tom’s site are ideal, but in general, an image that accurately and clearly represents what you’re selling is key.
Tip #3: Display a “Shop” tab in your main menu
Located in Minnesota, North Winds Wilderness School offers classes in wilderness survival and primitive living skills. The website’s menu includes the essentials, like About and Contact pages, as well as a Shop. The shop is small and currently sells two types of stickers and two kinds of gift certificates, but establishing this dedicated page for merchandise early on allows the store to grow over time. Using a clear label like “Shop,” “Store,” or “Buy” in your main menu makes it easier for visitors to discover the page.
Tip #4: Promote your products visually on your site — and beyond
When you do all of the above, customers will come. Right? Well, not necessarily. There’s always more you can do to promote what you sell or offer. Consider Shanny Kiss at The Mind Body Spirit Tribe, who offers three types of tarot readings. Shanny displays imagery on her site that represents her style and practice — from cards to crystals — and uses her own custom images next to payment buttons to visually reinforce her brand.
The instructor at Morning Dew Creations also uses custom images across her site — check the top of her Classes and Workshops pages for examples. These custom banners nicely package and promote her services (and are fitting to share on other social channels, too).
If you don’t have design experience, sites like PicMonkey and Canva provide free image editing tools. Our tutorials on creating image widgets and custom headers might inspire you as you make your own payment button images and banners.
Not ready to create your own images? Try these styling options for your Simple Payments button.
Upgrade to the WordPress.com Premium or Business plan to enjoy the Simple Payments feature — as well as advanced social media and customization options, unlimited access to all premium themes, and more.
Fantastic, an article on this! So so good!
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I agree!
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I was thinking the same thing!
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Reblogged this on Robert Varga Freelance Office Services and commented:
I think this is extra useful for many of us.
WordPress is a great platform for everything; from literature and visual art blogs to do serious business and go independent entirely.
And that just became so much easier, more convenient.
Very good on them to create a guide like this, with handy tips accompanied for a complete tutorial.
And it is not just for Business Plans, it’s for the Premium Tier as well!
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Glad that this is helpful to you! We published two other posts on the Simple Payments button, in case you’d missed them:
https://wordpress.com/discover-wordpress/2017/09/12/payment-button/
https://wordpress.com/discover-wordpress/2017/09/20/more-ways-to-sell-on-your-site/
Thanks!
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Wonderful, thank you so much!
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Fantastic! Can the payment button be added with me using my iPhone!
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Hi there — at the moment, I don’t think you can add the button from the editor in your iOS app (only photo options at the moment).
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This explains it all really well! I enjoyed all the examples the most.
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this is very useful thanks to explain clearly
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This article was helpful. I’ve been trying to learn the ropes as it relates to monetization.
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It’s such a puzzle, isn’t it?
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Thank you! This will be very helpful when my novels are available.
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Some very handy tips, I’m more into posting reviews of movies currently but you never know what the future may hold! Thank you WordPress!
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This article was really informative
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It’s good to have more and more ways to receive money–thanks!
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Thanks!
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Thank you 👍👍
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This is helpful.
I upgraded my account this year and I do a lot of diy projects I would love to be able to sell them on my site I need to look into how to do this for real
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Get started by following the steps here: https://wordpress.com/support/simple-payments/
(Basically, when you’re drafting a post or page, click the “+ Add” button and click on “Payment Button.” It’s the same dropdown menu you go to when you add or upload an image from your Media Library.)
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Cheri thank you for sharing all of your amazing knowledge! I’m going to try this ASAP
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It’s great when you have a passion. and turn it into a business idea. You feel excited along the way and that’s how you know you’re on the right track.
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I am a beginner, i wanted guidance on this. Thanks!
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Platforms like this are excellent for beginners with all the support and guidance you can receive.
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This article is fantastic
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Thank you for providing such valuable info! I’m thinking about adding a donations page to help cover expenses.
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I suggest WordPress should develop feature ‘Subscription’ in payment button, like $10/month or $99/year, It would be more amazing for writers and bloggers here.
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Yes, the ability for writers, authors, and others to promote their work while building a base of paid readers and subscribers would be great.
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Hahh, superb suggestion.
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This proves to be very helpful, thank you very much.
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Many thanks. Really useful for the future…
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“On Point”,”I Likey”. Thx Cheri R.
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Wow this is great.
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I am thinking of upgrading to Premium, your post came in the best moment 👍
Thanks
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I upgraded to premium & it has opened more doors for my business. The cost is reasonable & certainly worth it.
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It will open many doors for you and you will love the new freedom. Best to you, I can’t wait to hear about all your success!
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This article is very useful,thank you!
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Solid advice. I’ll consider adding a tip jar.
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Thank you so much
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Thank you for this article! Very useful tips!!!!
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Thank you Cheri, this is helpful. Will it provide Amazon affiliate link for payment? and do I need to upgrade to Premium to get that service?
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On collecting payments: you don’t need an existing PayPal account to start collecting payments; you just need to specify an email address that you have access to. Then you’ll register that email address with PayPal, if necessary, to access the payments. This is how the payment system currently works (other services like Stripe are on our wishlist).
Here’s more info: https://wordpress.com/support/simple-payments/#collecting-payments
Here is a separate support page on how Amazon affiliate links work on WordPress.com sites: https://wordpress.com/support/adding-amazon-com-affiliate-links-to-your-wordpress-com-site/
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Thank you for providing quality information.
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Thank you! It was very helpful!
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How can we sell if the customer does not have a paypal account?
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To clarify, you readers don’t need a PayPal account to make a payment. They can pay via credit card or some debit cards.
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Thank you! this is very useful
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Great article.
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Fantastic one💕
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Thank you😊
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Useful post. I’ve been finding the best way to strategically place a pay button in my blog. This post has enlightened me.
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Great tips
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Thank you for all the responses and feedback. The beautiful thing is that we are all a help to one another.
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where is it madame???
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When you’re drafting a post or page in your editor, click the “+ Add” button (the same one you use to upload photos) — there is the option to add a payment button in the dropdown menu. This is available to Premium and Business users.
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Thank you for this Cheri 🙂
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What plan is this for? I have the personal?
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As mentioned in the post, it’s available to people on the Premium and Business plans.
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Thanks for the info
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Very detailed 👌
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thank you for helpful tips.
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I learn something. Thank you
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