Online Surveys - a simple work at home opportunity

Online surveys take quite a bit of work to get started with. You need to track down suitable organisations, examine the details and payment methods, register by completing an often lengthy sign-up form, and monitor your email frequently.

You can see that although this is a simple way of making money on the interent, you need to put in effort upfront if you hope to make a good income.

There will also be some delay before you start receiving cheques. You usually have to wait until the survey results have been tabulated by the survey firm and they have received payment from their client.

Some people claim they earn $30,000 to $50,000 a year. To do this requires pretty much full-time personal effort and registration with around 300 - 400 separate organisations. That means a lot of work in keeping track of what you are doing, following up your payments, and locating new opportunities for yourself.

How online surveys work

All sorts of organizations carry out surveys - universities doing research, marketing and advertising agencies, newspapers, magazines, consumer groups, shopping centers, and a myriad of firms that want more information about their existing and potential customers.

Rewards such as shopping points, gifts, or a lottery entry among those who complete the survey with three or four cash prizes, are often given instead of a payment per survey.

How frequently you receive survey invitations depends somewhat on your country of residence as well as the number of survey organizations you belong to. Some firms restrict their participants to USA residents only. Residents of countries where English is the national language (such as the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand) usually have no problems in getting sufficient numbers of invitations. 

Getting started

You can actually make a business just out of referring others!

There is a fairly high turnover of active survey participants. A lot of people start off enthusiastically but drop out once they discover the grind involved. So some survey firms are prepared to pay you $1 or $2 per survey completed by people you refer to them, as they are constantly looking for willing participants.

You can quickly make a few dollars for yourself by referring friends and relatives as most people will complete at least a few surveys just to see what what is involved.

Here's a joining link to SurveySavvy. Once you sign up and complete your profile you will be eligible to participate immediately in their referral program.  

The best and fastest way to get started yourself is to join SurveyScout for online survey information. This will save you a lot of time and work and is well worth the initial outlay. You will be given up-to-date details on over 450 of the better survey sites that you can join. Their information is reliable, and your lifetime membership means you are always kept up to date with the best new programs. You get lots of useful tips and information that will help you maximise your earnings. 

Quick tip

If you use Mozilla as your browser, this comes with an auto-complete feature which saves you retyping your personal details as you join new sites. You can download the Mozilla suite here. It comes with a built in html composer. Very handy for producing quick websites.