How to Fill Out Surveys for Money

Common mis-and-ill-conceived statements you will hear are; "all survey sites are scams.", "you can not make a living from taking surveys" or similar. As a direct statement from me to you, you can fill out surveys for money, you can make a living from taking surveys and .there are many surveys that pay you. The unfortunate restriction is that a single survey site will not make you rich.

So how do you get paid for completing surveys?

The system for making money from surveys is a simple one, but as usual the theory is easy to understand. Putting it into practice is time consuming and only those who persevere and follow these steps can actually make money online.

Step One. - Find a site that delivers paid surveys worldwide or even just local to you (US/UK/CA/AU/EU whatever).

Step Two. - Start completing the surveys sent.

This is where 99% of people stop and is why they never make enough money

Here is the Secret on How to Really Fill Out Surveys for Money

Okay, so if your one of the 99%. And have completed step two you are probably thinking that clearly surveys that pay you are scams. However, here is the basic mathematics of the problem which is key to success:

The Mathematics of Surveys Explained

If you sign up to one survey site, this survey site will usually have a cap on how much money you need to make before they will send you a check (cheque). The reason for this is mainly due to the administration of paying people. If everyone wanted the money sent at $1 then the company would be flooded morning, noon and night.

That said. because the company does not want to get stuck in all the paperwork from the above scenario they create higher and higher limits before you can request payment. Usually the payment threshold for surveys that pay you is around $20 sometimes more, sometime less.

Each survey will usually pay around $1 to $5 those that state they pay more.... Well they are lying, the chances of getting a survey that well paid and then the company actually deciding to pass on that much when they could pocket the commission is highly unlikely (that's business).

This means you will need to do 20 surveys, which obviously there is not a bank of 20 surveys available, usually you will get 2-3 surveys a week. Taking you around 2 months to make $20. However, that is not two months of work filling out surveys for money. If you counted all the time taken filling in surveys you would actually be on about $10 per hour. or more... it's just that you work in tiny 5 min intervals. .

People who don't understand this are the ones who call surveys that pay you scams.

So how do I beat the system?

Rather than signing up and filling out surveys for money hoping to become rich you need to join numerous survey sites. In fact you need to join at least 10 or 20 the more you join the more money you will make.

This is where the maths comes back in, read each statement below: .

• If you work 15 mins a week and make $10 a month from one survey site then:
• Sign up to 12 surveys sites, work for 3 hours a week and make $120 a month
• Sign up to 24 survey sites, work 6 hours a week and make $240 a month
• Sign up to 48 survey sites (now that's a difficult number of legit sites to find) and earn $480 a month for working 12 hours a week! .

If it's that easy why doesn't everyone do it? .

The simple fact is that spending that much time finding that amount of survey sites is going to take you weeks or months. Because of this people simply give up at the start or think that one survey site will make them rich for simply filling out surveys that pay.

This is where portal sites step in: .

Portal sites are sites are effectively doorways to legitimate survey sites. These doorway sites will always charge a membership fee (because that's how they pay their employees) and in return you .gain instant access to 50 or so survey sites in your country. you can join.

Note you are not paying them to take surveys that they send you. You are paying them to gain access to their list of partner sites which are checked, reviewed and are held to be paying survey sites..

Working with portal sites will cut down your search time from weeks to mere hours. However you can do all the work yourself and actually make real money taking surveys.

The Truth about Paid Online Surveys - A Question and Answer Session

With thousands of people trying to find a way to make some extra money online everyday, paid online survey sites are popping up everywhere. With so many out there (some good, some - well, not so well) it's hard to determine what to believe. In an attempt to clarify the ins and outs, and the myths and realities of paid online surveys, I've composed a series of questions and answers to help you sort everything out. We'll start with the basics and then get into the nitty gritty.

Question: Is this for real? Why would someone pay me to take online surveys?
Answer: Yes, this is for real. There are literally hundreds of legitimate market research companies out there who offer incentives for your opinion. Companies have come to these firms to get public opinions on their products or services and are willing to pay them to find out what you think. They then pass some of that payment onto you.

Question: What are the surveys about?
Answer: Just about anything that you can think of. You may be asked to review a movie trailer for a new movie, what kind of peanut butter you like, what restaurants you frequent, you name it. From barbeque grills to medical questions to appliances to what you had for dinner last night. There are sites for specific age groups, professions, hobbies and interests. The surveys are generally very interesting and these companies are looking for your opinion on how to shape their products.
Question: How does it work?
Answer: Each company works a bit differently, but here are the basics of online surveys. You will sign-up for a paid survey site. You will enter some basic demographic information (age, gender, etc...), and when they have a survey available in which they are looking for someone who fits your profile, they will send you an invitation to take a survey. The invitation will usually contain a link directly to the survey and the incentive they are offering for you to take the survey. Just click on the link and take the survey to qualify for the reward.
Question: What kinds of incentives are offered?
Answer: The incentives vary for each site, but generally the incentives take the following forms: cash, gift certificates (Amazon gift certificates being the most popular), merchandise (DVDs, small appliances, electronic gadgets, cookware, etc...), and charity donations. Each survey site will offer one or several of the above incentives for your participation in their surveys. Some will offer these straight out, for example "get paid $5.00 to take this survey", some offer these in the form of a drawing and others have a point system in which accumulated points can be "cashed in" for the items above.
Question: Will you get spammed by signing up for paid survey sites?
Answer: No, but you do have to be careful. There are some sites out there that are simply advertising firms posing as paid online survey sites. Here's my advise on how to tell the difference. First, if they offer you a chance at a fantastic prize for signing up, such as a car or a boat, I would be a bit weary and do some more research before you sign-up. Second, if the survey to sign-up for the site consists of a lot of questions as to whether or not you want more information on other products, walk away, you're certain to get spammed. Just remember that a legitimate market research firm will not endorse a product or service, they are supposed to be unbiased. Third, read the privacy policy if you have any concerns. The majorities of the sites out there are legitimate and will only email you if there is a survey available or if there is important information they need to notify you of.
Question: Should you pay for a database of paid survey sites?
Answer: No. There are several reasons why you shouldn't pay a dime to take online surveys. First, with a little effort you'll be able to find all of the sites yourself - free. There are a lot of free sites that have pretty good lists and also a few really good free sites out there that have comprehensive free paid survey directories with hundreds of listings. Secondly, market research firms are actually prohibited from charging people to participate in surveys and frown upon anyone who does.
Question: Can I get rich just by taking online surveys?
Answer: I've had so many people ask me if there are going to be able to retire by taking online surveys. Well, that's just not going to happen. Where it is possible to make a decent amount of money by making referrals or by running a survey related website, you're just not going to be making a full-time salary by simply taking surveys. There are a lot of sites out there advertising that you can make thousands of dollars per week or make $45 dollars and hour for taking online surveys (you can actually make $45 dollars an hour for a particular survey, but you won't always make that much and it may only be a 10 minute survey).
Question: How much can I make?
Answer: That's really hard to say. It really depends on a number of factors. How many sites did you sign-up with? How often do you take the surveys you are invited to take? What is your demographic? Etc... But I won't just leave you hanging at that. I would say, if you sign-up for a number of survey sites, take the majority of the surveys you are invited to and are not limited in life experience, you could make perhaps $1,000 to $2,000 a year in cash or something equivalent. Mostly you will get smaller payments ($1.00 to $10.00) for a survey but I've seen them pay as much as $200. Treat this as extra cash, not a career. You can easily make enough to take the family out for dinner, buy a few extras, get a few nice things for around the house or save it all for your Christmas shopping.
Question: So, is it worth it?
Answer: Yes, I think so. Whereas, it's not going to make you filthy rich, it's certainly an easy and fun way to make a few extra bucks. I find the surveys to be enjoyable to participate in and for the time spent, the compensation is pretty good.
That wraps up this question and answer session. Hopefully this article has shed some light on the world of paid online surveys. If you cut through the hype and know what to look for, online surveys can be an enjoyable way to make some extra money. You'll get to see new products before they come out, give your opinion on how to make existing products better and get paid to do so. Not too bad for a few minutes of your time.

How To Conduct Effective Online Surveys

Although they are inexpensive and product fast results, online surveys still need to be conducted properly to be really effective. The key steps for conducting effective online surveys are:

• Identify your objective
• Decide what information you need
• Develop a questionnaire
• Conduct the survey
• Analyze the responses
• Recommend a course of action

* Identify your objective

Online surveys are conducted to find out the characteristics, behaviors, opinions, and knowledge of a particular population. No matter what the subject matter, all surveys are conducted with an objective, to gather information relevant to a specific problem or situation. And the key to a successful survey is clearly identifying that objective upfront. To do that, ask yourself "what problem am I trying to solve?" The ideal objective has a narrow scope and can be clearly stated. The wider the scope, the more complex your survey and the less meaningful its results. Always remember, your survey is only as good as your understanding of your objective!

* Decide what information you need

Once you have defined your objective, identify the information you need to gather to achieve your objective. If the objective is clear and narrow, the information you need to gather will be apparent. Be specific and avoid the temptation to gather "extra" bits of information that are "nice to know" but not relevant to your objective. Once you have identified the information you need, you should explore the possibility of gathering it from existing data sources. With an abundance of information available from corporate databases and public information sources, you might gather the information without even conducting a survey!

* Develop a questionnaire

Developing the questionnaire is undoubtedly the most important part of conducting a survey. The quality of the questions will determine the quality of the results and the effectiveness of your survey. Get tips for developing an effective questionnaire.

* Conduct the survey

Once you have developed the questionnaire, you need to test it on a few people to determine if it is clearly written and can be understood by people representing your potential respondents. Testing the survey might take several iterations, but it is well worth the effort. Once you are satisfied that your questionnaire is clear and unambiguous, you are ready to conduct your survey.

If you are going to distribute your survey through email, make sure that your email message is clear and compelling. A boring message will not get the attention of your potential respondents and decrease your response rate. Additionally, you should also remember the following things:

• Address emails to a single person whenever possible.
• Always use the blind carbon copy (BCC) if you must send a single email message to a group of people.
• Include a valid email address in the "From" field or the recipients will consider your message as spam.
• Provide the URL that will take people directly to your survey, if you are inviting them to the website to take the survey.
• Tell recipients how to contact you if they have a problem or concern.
• Identify the source of purchased email addresses so recipients know who to contact if they want to be removed from the list.
• Ignore the "flame" or "hate" messages you might receive in response to your email invitation. A small percentage of the recipients always take offense to something or the other.

If you are going to distribute your survey from your website, you need to consider how will get visitors to take the survey. If your site has just enough traffic, you can probably place a hypertext link on your home page through which visitors can reach your survey. If you have very heavy traffic, you can use a program on your web server to randomly deliver your survey to some of the visitors. However, if your website doesn't have enough traffic, you should consider sending invitations by email or other traditional methods.

Once you have sent out notifications, responses will begin to come in immediately. For online surveys that invite individual participants (email or postal mail), most people will respond within 72 hours of receiving your invitation. Surveys that rely on passive participation (clicking on website links or responding to indirect advertising) generally take much longer. In either case, you need to decide how long to keep your surve active based on your target audience and how many responses you need to collect. If you are surveying a known group of people (e.g. customers, employees, students, etc) you might need to send out reminders to remind some people to take the survey.

* Analyze the responses

You can begin to analyze the responses as soon as you receive them. Unlike traditional methods, online surveys make it possible to analyze responses without human intervention. Responses are received in electronic format and immediately added to a database. Once in the database, they can be manipulated with a variety of tools, including the survey software, statistical packages, spreadsheets, and presentation programs. The key to proper analysis of online surveys is no different than that for traditional methods. You must be able to filter the data and display results in a variety of formats for effective analysis. And always remember to relate the analysis back to your objective.

* Recommend a course of action

The last step in conducting effective online surveys is to recommend a course of action. With your objective in mind, you should be able to recommend specific actions as a result of your survey. Your recommendations can vary widely depending upon the nature of the problem you are trying to solve. If you cannot identify any actions as a result of your survey, then it is highly possible that your objective was too broad, your information needs were incorrect or incomplete, or your questionnaire was poorly written. In these cases, your recommended action should be to conduct further study.