Is Cash Paid for Surveys a Realistic Income Source?
Everywhere you look, there are advertisements telling you that you can make money online. More and more people are turning toward the internet to find an extra source of income. So, how does cash paid for surveys stack up against other methods as a realistic source of extra income?
That question really depends on how much time you want to put into developing that income stream for yourself. Below are a few alternatives for your consideration:
Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing has been called “the easiest way to make money online” by many, but affiliate marketing is anything but easy. To make it, you must have a combination of skills, which include but are not limited to: writing; sales; advertising; and website design.
There is definitely a lot of money to be made in affiliate marketing, if you know what you’re doing; however there is a steep learning curve, and it takes lots and lots of time and energy to be successful in affiliate marketing.
Freelance Writing
If you like writing, like I do, you might take a shot at freelance writing. There is a growing market for freelance writing today, because website owners are constantly looking for new content to provide to their visitors.
The problem with freelance writing is that you have to compete with literally millions of other writers for those ever decreasing job bids, and you usually need to have an impressive portfolio to land the nice writing jobs.
Selling on eBay
From time to time, I also sell things on eBay – usually just my old stuff that I don’t use anymore. I’ve tried to turn selling on eBay into a steady extra income stream for myself, but it’s harder than the experts make it sound (big surprise).
The catch here, at least for myself, was that I could never find enough things to sell. I tried the whole garage sale thing, estate sales, and even Craigslist – scouring for anything that could make a buck on eBay. Nothing that I tried was profitable on a steady basis.
Cash Paid for Surveys
The first money that I made online came from cash paid for surveys and focus groups that I completed. Getting cash for taking surveys is not without it’s own difficulties, though. So how does this compare to the other online money making opportunities?
Simply put – if you can click a mouse, you can make money with paid online surveys. The key is finding many legitimate cash survey sites, signing up for each one, and filling out your profile at each site with as much detail as possible. Having memberships at lots of paid survey sites means you will get lots of cash survey offers.