Survey Tips
If you ask around enough, you’ll find that many people you know have tried making money with online surveys, decided it was too tough, and gave up. You’ll probably also find a few people who are doing okay with surveys, and a small group who are making a nice side income from paid surveys working only a few hours a month.
The key to making good money with paid surveys is to do them well and do them right. These may sound like two ways of saying the same thing, but actually they’re a little different.
Doing surveys well is a matter of how many and how often you do surveys and how seriously you take it.
Doing surveys right is doing what the survey sponsors ask so that they’ll use your responses and invite you to take more surveys.
The following tips will help you do surveys both well and right and make a good part-time income.
1. Set up a separate email address for your survey job.
Whether you consider yourself to be working a part-time job or running a business where your product is completed surveys, it is essential that you take it seriously.
You need a separate email address so that you can keep all your survey mail in one place. Free addresses don’t always work; some filter email too much.
Gmail works pretty well for a free address, or you can ask your Internet provider to set up another email account for you. This is usually free. As long as you can receive all your email without interference, the domain of your email address doesn’t matter. But you must have a reliable way to get email related to surveys.
2. Check your email as often as possible.
If you’re working a day job, you may not be able to check email during the day, except at lunch. Make a point of checking, at a minimum, first thing in the morning, at lunch, and right after work.
If you’re able to check your email throughout the day, make a point of checking it every couple of hours. If you are in charge of scheduling your own time, try to set aside at least two times during the day when you can fill out surveys for a few minutes.
If you can take time throughout the day both to check your email and spend time on surveys, you’ll make more money, and you’ll get invited to fill out even more surveys because of your responsiveness.
Even if you don’t have time to do surveys several times a day, make a point of checking your email and responding to anything that requires your attention, several times a day. The more you stay on top of email, the more money you can make in this job.
3. Use a form-filling tool to speed the process.
Roboform has a great form-filling application that does not contain ads or spyware. There are probably other good tools. You can do a search and find several to choose from. Make sure they don’t have spyware in them, and that they come from reputable companies.
The point of a tool like this is that you can fill in commonly used forms in this tool, and then have it fill them in on surveys. You can even set up profiles for various survey sites and fill out the information they ask for, in their profile.
If you don’t have to fill each form by hand, you can save two or three minutes per survey, and over the course of a month, that adds up to several hours you’ve saved just by not having to manually fill forms. That can really increase your ability to build your income with surveys.
4. Check as many interests and hobbies as possible when signing up.
You should always be honest about what you’re interested in when you sign up for survey sites. Even being honest, though, people tend to check too few boxes.
When they ask about your interests, they don’t mean just things you do on a daily basis. If you have an interest in golf, for instance, but don’t have the time or means to play as often or well as you’d like, you should still check it.
Survey companies are looking for people with a basic knowledge and interest. If you have an interest in something and know something about it, definitely go ahead and check it off. You’ll get more survey offers and make more money.
You’ll also help your survey sponsors with your knowledge.
5. Do surveys that don’t pay cash, as well as those that do.
Most people who do online surveys refuse to do surveys that don’t pay cash. They won’t do surveys for sweepstakes entries or points.
This means you have better odds to win the sweepstakes these folks don’t enter, just for starters. It also means that survey companies that pay points will not only pay you points, but offer you more surveys because you’re reliable.
You’ll earn more points, win more sweepstakes, and do better overall than people who fill surveys only for cash.
6. Read the terms and conditions of the survey site.
The most important term, of course, involves payment. Make sure you understand when and how you will get paid. If the site pays only by check, do they charge a fee for issuing a check? How much money do you have to earn before they will issue a payment? How often do they pay?
The next most important term is the privacy policy. The only acceptable privacy policy is that they will not share your information with anyone for any reason, ever. The exception would be if they are required by law enforcement, but that’s not likely.
7. Read the survey rules carefully.
Some surveys have specific rules about who can respond, when to respond, etc. These rules are usually very simple, but if you don’t follow them, your survey responses won’t be accepted. Don’t waste time; read the rules first.
If you follow these simple tips, you will be much more successful with online surveys and find that you can make a nice part-time income with surveys.