Make money taking surveys
There
are many companies that will pay you to complete questionnaires -- often giving
your opinion about their new products, etc. Don't expect to get rich doing this,
but do expect some relatively easy work. If you don't mind the boredom, then
online surveys can be a decent way to make money online.
To get started, my suggestion is to check out MakeMoneyTakingSurveys.com. This is a commercial site that makes the whole process very simple and gets you hooked up with surveys very efficiently. It's definitely recommended for anyone who's interested in doing this stuff long term.
To avoid registration fees, check out these sites: OpinionOutpost.com, i-Say.com, SurveySavvy.com, CashCrate.com, MySurvey.com, UniqPaid.com
Because some of these sites will "reward" you for signing up for free trial offers, my two initial suggestions for anyone getting into this business are:
- Create a separate email address devoted solely to survey/trial activities
- Maintain a calendar of when to cancel any trial offers.
Freelance data entry
There's
a lot of demand for data entry, and it's a relatively easy way to make money
online. However, don't expect big money -- skill requirements are low, so there
are many people willing to do it for relatively low pay.
Data entry work can encompass a huge range of projects, spanning every business's needs, and every entrepreneur's ideas. Some examples might include:
- Entering statistics into a database.
- Posting messages on forums.
- Submitting sites/blogs to social media.
- Organizing customer contact lists.
- Etc, etc, etc.
Start by offering your services on sites like Rentacoder.com, eLance.com, oDesk.com, and Craigslist.org. Because data entry is easily outsourced around the world, much of the revenue potential will depend on current exchange rates. When the U.S. dollar was strong, it was very difficult to compete with $2-3/hr data entry operators from Romania/India.
If you're command of English is decent, also consider transcribing audio files. Native English speakers have an advantage for winning transcription work, and such projects can be found on the same websites.
Make money online with Amazon's "Mechanic Turk"
This "get paid to" program is run by Amazon.com, which lends it some credibility. Basically, you get paid for completing any of thousands of different "tasks" that are posted by businesses, developers, etc.
Don't expect to make a lot of money or have a lot of fun (some tasks can be boring and tedious as **** - this word changes with time). But do expect a reliable supply of paid tasks that can be completed from home during any hour of the day.
Get more information about how it works at MTurk.com.
Get paid for posting in forums
The last time you came across a discussion forum with no posts, did you bother posting to it? Probably not. To attract users, a forum needs to at least appear active. That's why forum operators often hire freelancers to post some initial messages that get things moving.
You can find such forum-posting projects on the freelance hubs that we've already mentioned, and also on middleman sites such as ContentCurrent.com (formerly ForumBookster.com).
Although forum posting work is not an incrediblyl stimulating way to make money online, I often find the subject matters and creativity requirements to be much more stimulating than typical data entry projects.