First off doing paid online surveys is a very easy way to earn money at home. It is without a doubt one of the easiest ways to earn money; it takes very little effort and is quite enjoyable.

When I first started looking for income sources on the Internet, surveys were the first I came across in the search engines. At that time I really was naïve in that I didn't realize you could get paid for doing surveys. I signed up for a few of the free surveys companies and not long after my email was full of offers for free stuff for filling out a survey. I was offered prizes, free trips, free meals at my favorite restaurants, and best of all free entry for a GRAND prize. I dutifully filled out the free surveys with the information sent them in by deadline, only to get an email that I didn't meet the qualifications for this survey and to please try the next. I did receive a lot of mail both at home and in my email account offering package trips to places I never heard of, and places that had land for sale. You know they had a bridge to sell me that lead to nowhere.

So you are probably thinking that all surveys companies are the same. Not true. Most legitimate survey companies ask you to pay a small fee for taking part in the survey groups. For a small payment fee you will get access to a database of companies that actually pay you for your opinions, not the survey companies. Your payment will also include industry updates and any additions to the online databases.

Companies all over the world are spending a small fortune advertising their products and services. How do they know where to target their advertising budgets? Through market researches, who do it through surveys! This is the way it works for the corporate world. Taco Bell just started a 'Grilled to Order" in some of their newer restaurants, they first sent out a team of market researchers to ask peoples opinion on the new way of preparing the food. The market researchers had people in various parts of the country fill out surveys! The opinions came back in favor of the new approach and a new product was put in place at the newer restaurants throughout the country.

Why would you want to pay to take a survey? One reason is to avoid the scam companies who are just there to gather your information so they can sell it to anyone willing to pay their price. Do a search on any search engine and you will see ads wanting you to join through their free websites and not to pay for any database. These people are not out to save you money, they are working for each of these companies and they receive a commission if you sign up through their link. They really don't care how much junk mail you receive or if you earn any money doing the surveys.

I signed up for one of these services and within a day my email account was filled with junk mail, I was receiving phone calls from companies I never heard of, my mailbox was full of junk. The "surveys" I was being sent were really poor. When I filled in the initial questionnaire, I put down that my husband and I were retired, and I soon received mailing about property for sale in various parts of the world. These were the worst mainly because the ads assumed that we had money to throw away on some get rich quick scheme. If I had money to spend freely, I wouldn't be doing surveys!

Paid online surveys require no special skills to take part. You can complete when you have time, as long as you complete them before the deadline. You can do a short survey in as little as 5 minutes. I have received free samples of everything from a 5-pound bag of dog food to toilet paper.

Paid online survey companies pay their members various ways. Some use Pay Pal, some pay by check once a month, gift vouchers, some have point systems where you earn points that you save up and redeem for either products or cash.

I have found that the cash payments for taking part in online surveys is small, but if you want to earn good money doing surveys you need to join a large number of paid online surveys. The easiest way I have found is to join one or more paid online survey database companies. This way you get access to a large database of reputable paid online survey companies. Since most surveys only take a short time to fill out, you can do several each day and build a steady income stream.

I highly recommend paid online surveys as a way of making money from home. The one time fee, which you will earn back in a very short time, for access to their database is worthwhile when you consider the junk mail you will not receive plus the added benefit of actually getting paid!