If any of you have considered taking online paid surveys for cash or prizes there are a few things you need to know before you get started.
The first and most important thing you should know is that there is no need for you to pay a website in order to take surveys. Websites that charge a membership fee are not what they appear to be. They make themselves out to be the market research firm that conducts the surveys and then compensate the participants, but in reality they do nothing more than provide you with links to legitimate research companies. Some might find this service worthy of the membership fee because of the amount of work it would take to locate all of the surveys that are listed in their databases, but others will do a bit of searching and will be able to find plenty of websites that will give you the same information for free. There are many different websites that have taken the same list of survey companies (that so many websites sell) and have posted them freely where anyone can access them. I created such a site about a year ago called Yellow Surveys.com. I have listed over 500 different survey companies that are willing to pay participants in either cash or prizes to take their surveys. And unlike most of the survey sites that require membership fees, my database is organized by which country you live in and I even provide a small description for each survey site. Trust me if you decide to purchase a membership fee to a paid survey site you will be disappointed, especially when you find a free survey directory that is more comprehensive and informative.
Another thing you should know about taking paid surveys online is the fact that not every company will pay you cash to take surveys. There are probably more survey companies that will pay you in drawings, prizes or points. This isn’t to say that they are not worth signing up with because many people have won great prizes and large drawings from these sites. I myself have won an Ipod Mini from one survey site. But for those of you only interested in cash surveys be sure the survey site claims to pay you per survey in cash.
An important tip for survey taking is that the more survey sites you sign up with, the more survey invitations you will get. When you register with a survey company they will ask you a series of questions about your demographics (sex, religion, location, age, likes, etc.). They will record this information and when they get a contract from a client that wants only the opinions of say someone of a certain age and sex, they will send survey invitations to only those matching the specified criteria. Each survey company has different clients and they are all looking for different kinds of people, so the more of them you register with the greater your chances of getting survey invitations. Also another way to increase your chances for invites is by doing profile enhancers. These are surveys that you usually won’t get paid for and are just used to get to know you better. Once they know more about you, you may be able to qualify for more surveys.
Taking online surveys is a legitimate way of making money online. But you shouldn’t believe all the hype you read on membership survey sites. It is true that you can make up to $150 an hour because of the fact that you may qualify for a $25 dollar survey that may only take you 10 minutes to complete, but those surveys are few and far in between. You probably won’t be making $5,000 a month taking surveys, but serious survey takers could make enough to notice a difference in their finances.
Article written by the webmaster of Yellow Surveys.com, a free directory listing over 500 paid online surveys.
