As your become more advanced in your Internet Marketing efforts you are going to need to put a PayPal button on one of your pages. It is not hard, but some of the pieces are hidden in places you are not used to looking. Here’s what you do…

NOTE:

Actually before we get too far into this, let me make a statement. Some might argue, but not many 🙂 The typical Sales Funnel (or List Building Funnel as I prefer to call it) involves a free giveaway and a one-time-offer that you sell. The money from the one-time-offer is NOT profit. It is designed to offset the cost of the advertising that drove traffic to the free offer squeeze page. The majority of your sales come from your list AFTER they have subscribed. That is why you treat them well and work to build a good relationship with them.

Back to Setting Up Your Sales Page

Note: This post talks about selling an info product – something your purchaser can download. You would have to make some changes if you are selling a product you need to ship to the customer.

There are lots of articles about how to create an effective Sales Page. I’m not going to go over that here. I do like to use a plugin called “WP Hide Post” to make Google ignore the page and to make it invisible when people search my site. (Choose the option to Hide the Post and uncheck the option to “Include in searches”. After you install this plugin, its option will appear in the right sidebar as you edit your Sales Pages.

I also like to use the plugin “Toggle The Title”. The option for this plug also appears in the right side bar when you edit a page. You can tell WordPress NOT to display the title. That lets you put a descriptive title on the Page that never is shown on the Internet. I use something like “NT Aweber Unleashed (long sales page with no download) – no blog header.” The NT stands for NO TITLE. I will often have other copies that include a download link and include the blog header. This title makes it easy for me to decide which-is-which when I want to edit one. (BTW I use a third plugin called “Clone Post” to make these copies.)

Near the bottom of your post you are going to insert HTML code that you get from PayPal. This is just like inserting the Sign Up Form HTML code that your use on your Squeeze Pages. (See Building a Basic Squeeze Page.) You will click the “Text” tab on the upper right side of the editor to show the HTML code that makes up your Squeeze Page, find the right place and insert the code. You can then click the “Visual” tab and go back to WYSIWYG editing. (Tip – you can place something like “XXXXXXXXX” on your page where you want to insert the PayPal button. This makes it easy to find when you are looking at the HTML code that many people can’t read. Erase the X’s when you are done.)

Getting the HTML Code From PayPal

Get a Premier Account

The first step is to get a Premier PayPal Account. These are free, they just require that you jump through a few more hoops to prove that you are you. Usually this is under the “Products and Services” tab. If you don’t see it, use the Search Button.

Create a Buy Now Button

I’ll be honest, I sometimes can’t find this section by following PayPal’s menu system. They change it now and then and things move. I search for it in the upper right corner and bingo – there it is. Right now it is under a large tab called “Merchant Services” and there is a large area (that actually a button) called “Create Payment Buttons for Your Website.” .

Create Payment Buttons Menu Option

Click on the large blue “Create a Button” button.

“Create a Button” Button
After your click on the Big Blue Button a new page opens with three steps on it. The first step is usually open. You can open and close each of these steps by clicking on the little blue arrowhead at the left of the step name.

Show the Three Steps

The first step is where you describe the item and set a price. (Note: It is a common practice to have a product listed in several places. The full retail price is used is some places and discounted prices (One-Time-Offer Prices) shown in other places. Use a title that will tell you where you plan to use this button.

Step 1 – Price and Description

#1 – Leave this as “Buy Now”

#2 – Title for the button (describe where you will use this button – in this case RETAIL price)

#3 – Enter the price.

#4 – Use the ID number option – even though PayPal’s help says your email may show.

Click on the little blue arrowhead beside Step 2 and open the second step.

Step 2 – Save the Button at PayPal

Leave the default and click the little arrowhead beside step 3 to open the third step. You will need to change some of these from their defaults. (For example, we do not need a physical address to download an info product.)

Step 3 – Options

#1 – No we don’t want the customer changing the quantities – an info product come in quantity 1.

#2 – I usually don’t feel a need for the customer to give special instructions on an info product.

#3 – We don’t need a physical mailing address.

#4 – You can create a page that customers go to if they cancel and order. I usually don’t. For a high selling item I would.

#4 – CRITICAL – This is the Thank You/Download page. You send them to a page on your blog where you have a link to download the product. You say THANK YOU and it is a good idea to offer them something else while they are there.

Copy the HTML Code

This is where the highlight and copy the HTML Code. Press the “Select Code” button and all of the HTML code is highlighted. You can press Ctrl-C or Cmd-C or Right Click–> Copy to place this code in your PC’s clipboard.

I paste this code somewhere that I can find it. (Like Evernotes). Do not paste it into a word processor. They will add codes to the HTML code and you will have a mess.)

This is the code you will paste near the bottom of your Sales Page.

ADVANCED TOPIC – Subscribe the Customer to a Special BUYER’s LIST

Internet Marketers learn that a “buyer” is a special person so it is nice to keep track of them and be able to make special offers to them. (Perhaps send them a free copy of your product when you revise and upgrade it.)

There are two steps to getting AWeber and PayPal ready to subscribe your buyer to a special list and one step that is done for each button you create where you want the buyer put on a special list.

STEP 1 – Prepare AWeber

At the top of your AWeber page, select “My Apps” and find the PayPal App.

PayPal App in AWeber

Once you have clicked on the APP button you will see this screen.

Get AWeber IPN Number

#1 – AWeber tries to give you instructions about what to do in PayPal

#2 – Highlight and copy the code in this box. This is a URL and code that PayPal will send to AWeber when payment has been completed. It is called the “Instant Payment Notification Number”

#3 & #4 – Again AWeber is trying to show you what PayPal will look like.

#5 – We will come back to this section later.

Step 2 – Prepare PayPal

Profile Summary

Here I searched for Profile Summary and clicked on a button to show the summary. Part way down the right hand side is the Instant Payment Notification Code setting We will click on the update button.

PayPal – Insert IPN Number

#1 – Paste the URL/number we got from AWeber here.

#2 – Make sure the “receive IPN messages” is checked

#3 – Save

These setup steps need to be done ONCE. You will not need to do them each time you create a new button. However you will need to associate each button with an AWeber list.