From the editor:  January 3, 2008

You can make extra money working from home with no experience or special skills.....  Surveys online, panels, telephone surveys, product testing, secret shopping, email reading, submitting offers and data entry will all generate extra work at home income.

Some of the surveys are fun and even if they just enter you into a draw, you might get lucky.  The more surveys you take the more often your name is entered.  

There is also a huge opportunity to make extra money from home by surfing, viewing ads for pay. Furthur down in this article I mention Marketing Pond.  It is a great source of free paid to surf sites.  If there is any difficulty with a surfing company, Marketing Pond eliminates them from their program schedule.  You can also earn by referring new members to many of these companies.  

You have to qualify for the paid surveys. Survey companies base eligibility for surveys on the demographic requirements of the hiring companies.  Some age or income groups may attract more surveys than others.  There isn't any way to calculate in advance how many good paying surveys you will be offered.   Survey takers must check their email three or more times a day because the well paying surveys fill up quickly.  Telephone surveys, panels and product testing programs pay well so register with companies offering those options.  Some survey companies offer mostly sweepstakes entries, and few paid surveys.  Don't waste your time unless they occasionally offer a good paying survey.  In that instance, just satisfy their requirements to keep your account active.

When you register, the survey site will want your sex, age, geographic location, income, type of employment, family members and their ages, and personal interests.  If you don’t give them as much information as you can, you won’t get as many surveys. 

Some survey sites offer listings for freelance workers.  You should check a prospective employer's background before accepting and fulfilling a contract.  Check with the Better Business Bureau and the FTC.  Post queries on forums regarding the employer.

I have been taking quite a few surveys and have found that they are generally in the following categories:

• Survey companies that  pay you $1 to 5$ or more for a 15 to 30 minute survey.  They are hired by another company to get your reaction to their products or advertising strategies.  Infrequently these companies also have special panels, forums and phone surveys which sometimes pay a lot more.  Generally the companies offer a mix of paid surveys and draws for a cash prizes.

• Survey companies that pay with points which can be redeemed for cash, gift certificates or merchandise. 

• Survey companies that only enter you into draws for cash.  Sometimes the survey can be multiple pages, take ½ hour and your payoff is basically a lottery ticket.  I don’t mind entering a short survey for a draw, but I personally prefer cash for my time.  I’ll buy my own lottery ticket.

• Survey companies which pay with merchandise coupons, or special travel deals.  Be sure the coupon doesn’t have some hidden cost attached.  I’m thinking of a classic come on for a free three day vacation.  Those usually aren’t free. 

• Survey companies that require you to download software to track all the web sites you visit as a condition of your registration.  Some even save thumbnail copies of each site you visit.  DON’T DO IT. 

• Sites that pay cash to you for accepting offers.  Be sure that it is something you want or can cancel without penalty.  If you are accepting online offers that require you to submit your credit card information, it would be a good idea to obtain a special card with a low limit and monitor it carefully. You can earn a substantial amount accepting offers.   Read my blog on how to earn income accepting offers.

A word of caution, try to read the fine print, especially their privacy policies and know what you are agreeing to when you register with a survey or email clicking site. 

If you are serious about trying surveys, open a new Gmail, Hotmail or Yahoo email account just for your surveys.  Some companies want an alternate account, so you might need two.

  One of the things that you need to do is download RoboFormsoftware and get very familiar with it.  The limited version is a free download.   The first thing it does is keep track and generate  all of your passwords  and logins.  Every survey company requires a password and some kind of I.D., user name or account number.  The second is to fill in forms for you.  This is an absolute necessity if you are signing up with hundreds of survey companies. You create an identity in RoboForm and it will fill in most of the blank fields in a registration form.  About Roboform passwords, I only use them when I need a very secure password.  You would do better to find a unique user name and password that you can remember and use it for most of your survey companies.