As with every other job, some guidance for taking paid surveys successfully is a bonus. Even though paid surveys are easy to take and require minimum time, you should know how to find the best survey sites and make use of the opportunities that they provide.

There are thousands of survey sites that offer paid surveys online and various other incentivized survey offers. You should be able to locate these survey sites and subscribe for them, as survey sites are usually based on membership. The best way to locate such legitimate survey sites, if you have no previous experience with taking surveys, is to search for a survey site that offers you a database of many survey sites. That does not mean finding a link farm, because if a site simply contains links to survey sites, it does not mean these are legitimate. You should find a survey database that has some description of the resources it contains, and that you can use effectively to take paid surveys for more than a few companies. Such survey sites are usually intermediaries between the research companies that actually collect and analyze the consumer feedback, and the consumers - the surveys respondents. These sites must have clear membership policies and functional customer service. The legitimate survey sites also have well-functioning websites that contain lots of information about how to navigate and really earn through the paid survey opportunities that are featured.

Many paid survey sites require subscription. Actually, that is logical, because you mostly get survey invitations by email. You need to also provide some personal details, such as your age, gender, name, address, so that - first, you can be identified as a consumer within a particular consumer group (i.e., the consumer group of those aged 18-25, 26-30, etc.), and second, to be able to claim and receive your future earnings. Then, the survey companies can identify which surveys are suitable for you and which are not, because products and services have target groups - particular consumer audiences that purchase these products or services. Providing an accurate consumer profile is essential, because you can enjoy more survey invitations, and, therefore, more opportunities to get cash and prizes.

A very important issue is whether you should pay to subscribe to a survey site. If you are a beginner and are taking paid surveys for the first time, you may decide that you should pay to access resources that a survey sites claims to be exclusive. However, beware that many survey databases contain identical resources that can also be found by you if you were to take the time to search survey sites one by one. However, since that can take you forever, survey site databases exist with selection of survey sites that saves you lots of searching time and effort. The moral of the story is that you should either waste a lot of time searching survey sites one by one, or subscribe to a survey site that contains lots of resources and is FREE to join. Do not be beguiled by survey sites that claim they have unique resources, because that's virtually impossible. Even though there might be thousands of survey sites, there are much less real market research companies that do the math with processing consumer data. Therefore, these market research companies, that are the ultimate user of your survey responses, are well known in the industry. Your opinion finally goes to one or more of them, so that most survey sites ultimately collect opinion for them. Therefore, a free survey site works for these market research companies as much as a paid-membership site. You need not pay to take surveys when you actually can start earning immediately for free. Besides, it's only fair when you are given opportunities to earn cash and prizes without having to pay for it, right?