Making Money through Online Surveys

Introduction

The idea here is much like the idea with trial sites. People are willing to pay for your opinions on products, because it helps them get a cheap and easy to figure out what is desired and what is not. By signing up with these survey websites, you'll get an email every day or two from one or more of the clients of these sites, who have crafted a survey for you to fill out. Most of the time, these surveys will be unpaid, but there are also a lot that are paid opportunities that you must first qualify for. While there can be a lot of disappointment along the way, but every time you fail to qualify for a survey, the site will further update qualifications for you, and you'll begin to qualify for a much higher percentage of those sent to you.

Signing Up

There are a number of additional choices for you out there, and I suggest you do your own research to find some, but these are the most commonly used paid survey sites. Again, remember that because you'll be getting a lot of messages from these sites, that you should create an email address specifically for the purpose of receiving survey invitations. Here is the list of sites I recommend:

Survey Savvy
Survey Spot

There are hundreds more, but many are by invitation only, and others don't pay you, so I recommend using just the ones I've listed above. You can click them to be sent directly to their home page. Now just make sure you're checking your email early and often.

Unfortunately, one of the only ways to determine how good any one site is going to be is to actually sign up. For myself, Survey Spot sends me the most surveys, but they are also the lowest paying. Survey Savvy, however is quite good at sending the higher paid surveys, especially as you continue to do more profiles. Unfortunately, in order to get those surveys, you need to keep checking back on their site. I suggest signing up with all of these sites as you can as its free to do, and you can cancel them at any time. Most of these sites pay you via check, though many will only pay through Paypal.

In order to start this process, all you need to do is sign up with these sites, fill out any profiles they give you, and wait for the invitations to come in. If a site offers you any additional profile surveys along the way, make sure that you fill them out. These will often give you a money bonus on your next survey that you complete, and make sure that the site won't waste your time with any surveys you automatically don't qualify for.

Taking Surveys

Of course, there is no way for these sites to know in advance whether or not you're qualified for a survey, so you'll get a lot of invitations that you cannot complete. Always try, and don't give up, even if you start to get a lot of surveys you are ineligible for. Also be aware that in the beginning, you're going to get a lot of the $1-5 surveys and very few that are over that amount. There is very little you can do about this, but I've noticed that over time, you being to get higher prices for your opinions, and more importantly, you begin to qualify for more surveys. Some also have the opportunity for follow up surveys, so you get paid twice by the same company.

In addition to the paid surveys, you'll also get a lot of invitations for unpaid surveys which enter you into a drawing for prizes. While many people simply ignore these, thinking them a waste of time, be aware that not many people actually fill these out. This increases your chances for winning the money, and more importantly, shows that you're interested in contributing your opinion in as many ways as possible. By filling out these surveys, you're earning your invitation into many of the exclusive invitation-only survey clubs which are often run by the same companies as the regular ones. These invitation-only sites give a lot of special surveys and more high-paid opportunities. Yes, I have been a winner on two of these drawings, though only for $50 each time.

You can fill out more than one survey at a time, and in fact, I recommend it. Each survey has an “expected time to complete” and they make sure that you come fairly close to that time, or else you don't get paid. What I like to do is to click the answers to one question on one page, then switch to the next survey, click some answers, and then switch back again. This way, it looks like you're seriously considering each answer and reading each question very carefully, all things that the survey sites like to see.

Also, do NOT sign up for any sites that want to install their own software on your PC for you to take these surveys. They may be paying sites, but that software monitors your computer usage and lets the company know if you're telling the truth or not on their surveys. Not only will this disqualify you from many opportunities and force you to complete only one survey at a time, but it slows down your computer immensely.

Making More Money

If you want to make surveys into a more lucrative business, then you'll need to expand beyond the reaches of these freebie sites. The fact is, these sites are taking a cut from the profit of every survey you take (i.e. they get paid say $500 for a 100 person study. They'll pay each person $3 and keep the $2 for themselves). Pay sites don't do that. You make 100% of your profits because you're paying to keep your membership, and that's where those sites make money.

Besides that, the good paysites have more surveys to take. I've had the most success with this program. Try it out for a month or two, and see if you don't like it too.