Free or Fee-Based Paid Survey Sites - Which One Do I Choose?

You see them all of the time, "Get paid thousands to take a paid survey". Are they legitimate, do they really pay what they say the pay? Well, Yes and No. What I mean is that some of them pay you and some don't. You just have to find the right one. OK, so how does someone know if a paid survey website will pay or if they even have surveys to send me?

Paid Survey sites got their beginning, of course, with the development of the Internet. Before the Internet, many survey companies were conducting paid surveys in the mall. I am sure you have had people come up to you in the mall asking if you would take 5-10 minutes to fill out a survey and get paid a small amount of money. Well, those survey companies, just like other companies, saw the Internet as a powerful tool. Now they could get surveys out to thousands of people all over the world without paying employees or rent for space in the mall.

Thousands of Paid Survey websites started to pop up all over the Internet. Some had claims that you could make $10,000 a month to take surveys. Others were more realistic and let you know that you could make good money, you just had to work for it. You see, I hear a lot of people say they want to make a lot of money, but they don't want to put in the work. Could you make $10,000 a month taking paid surveys over the Internet? Maybe, but you would have to work 50-60 hours a week and sign up for many paid survey web sites. You would also have to take every survey sent to you.

Today, there are both paid survey sites that are Free and those that you pay to join. Which ones are best? It depends on your goals. If you want to get gift certificates and coupons, then go with the free paid survey sites, and if you want to make cash, then go with the ones you have to pay a fee to join.

Free Paid Survey Sites - These sites are free to join and have more than enough surveys to take. They usually offer small gift certificates or coupons to mane brand products. I would suggest these to you if you only have a few hours a month to do surveys.

Membership Fee Paid Survey Sites - These sites usually have a one-time fee of $34.95 to $79.95 and pay cash when you take surveys. Some surveys offer sweepstakes entries, but you can choose only the surveys that pay cash.

Why are some paid survey sites free and others require you to pay a fee? Well, that is a good question. Free paid survey sites charge the company that wants to submit a survey a fee. Because of this, most companies decide not to pay money (since they just paid a fee to the free survey web site), and instead pay in gift certificates and coupons. Gift certificates are just like cash, but only if you choose surveys that give you gift certificates to products you actually use. If you get a gift certificate to a company you don't need, they can be given as gifts or you just wasted your time.

On the other hand, the paid survey sites that charge you a fee do not charge the companies submitting a survey anything. Therefore, these sites usually have more surveys, and in addition, have more surveys that pay cash. I could see you earning a living on these sites, but only if you treat it like a job. That means you could make $25-$50 an hour, but you would have to put in 40 hours.

There you have it, Paid Survey sites are here to stay. If you want cash, pay the one-time fee and get to work. If you want gift certificates or coupons, sign up for the free sites. It is your choice. Happy Surveying!

For more information please visit: http://www.paid-survey-reviewer.com

Jeremy Noland is an expert on Paid Surveys. He has many years of experience making money of these unique websites and runs the web site Paid Survey

Does Size matter? - How many questions is too many in your online survey?

Surveys are all about collecting information. To get the right information you need to ask the right questions. While 'the right questions' is covered elsewhere, here I am going to discuss the number of questions as an aspect of design.

As with most things the answer is "it depends". However with online surveys a good rule is the fewer the better. How many times have we seen a great focussed survey get a poor response because every person in the approval chain has decided to add another question? The logic being that seeing we are asking people questions I would like to add just one more. This inevitably will be somewhat off topic and with each additional item the integrity of the survey dies a little death.

Rule 1 - Focus the survey! As soon as you wander, even slightly, the respondents will start to question why they are responding at all. I must say the most successful surveys are the 'front of mind' type topics with up to ten questions. The questions follow a logical progression to help the user think about the answers in a logical way. For example you may ask about? 1. what they thought the process was like before 2. did they feel involved in the problem identification process 3. did they feel all problems were identified 4. did the upgrade plan make sense to them 5. was there sufficient communications during the upgrade 6. did the new system live up to what they expected 7. What could have been done better Can you see how the questions followed a rational order, in this case time/process based?

Rule 2 - 10 minutes is an inconvenience, 15 minutes is an investment. When you ask users to respond to a survey you are asking them to spend some of their hard earned time for you. - What are they getting in return? For many surveys it is little if anything. Most people will spend up to 10 minutes out of charity. Anything over this and they will be expecting something in return. It may be as basic at a raffle ticket or as complex as a detailed analysis of their response against a broader population of respondents. Either way it needs to have value to them and be clear at the outset.

This brings me to my next point: No matter how long your survey is, there must be an introduction that states what is expected of the respondent and what they are going to get in return. This is usually put as how long the survey is expected to take (don't lie!) and what if anything they can expect in return. Eg. "?will take approximately 10 minutes and will help lead us to devise a system that works to your best interests."

Rule 3 - Trapped users don't care. We have all done these sorts of surveys, where you start and it seems to go on and on. You get lost as the questions seem to repeat and you are getting no closer to the end. In frustration you then start selecting the mid range response without really reading the question. Not I! I hear you saying. Can I tell you that statistics imply that this starts to happen to some extent after the first ten questions! With only limited investment users can quickly turn to prisoners looking for a way out ignoring you hard thought questions.

I want to make a last note here. A short survey is five questions of a multiple choice type, say radio button or checkbox. A long survey is only 20 questions. Think about why your respondents are investing the time. If you have come to the lower limit of your questions and you are still well over twenty, you might consider putting the more critical ones towards the front.

If you have any topics you would like covered please mail me at SteveWrightMail@gmail.com and I will include them in my growing list.

cheers Steve

Hi, after years of designing survyes I am collecting together some of the key lessons. http://surveysurvival.2leadership.com

Survey Determines Which MLM Companies Have Most Loyalty from Distributors?and Which is Actually the Best and Why

Hi, I am Gary Konigsberg of Los Angeles. I wanted to confirm that my chosen multilevel marketing opportunity was indeed the best of all the competitor internet and offline-based multilevel marketing opportunities before I gave it a full go at building it. So I decided to go to the top mlm online forums and survey the people there as to which companies had captured their loyalty and why.

I left the door open to be corrected in case anything truly exceptional came across his plate. The results of his postings at the top mlm forums can be found at http://myfavorite-mlm.com After taking a good look, I didn?t find anything more exceptional near my "plate" than my healthy coffee opportunity.

After getting many answers in different locations I ams now more confident than ever that his healthy coffee business is the best home based business ever.

It seems that the most popular at these forums are Success University and Usana. They are great programs I am sure but they don?t have the numerous advantages offered by healthy coffee. Most notably, their market is smaller and the response that you get when you try to promote the programs to people is one of unfamiliarity. So you have to do a lot of enlightenment. Whereas the market for the Healthy Coffee biz has the following advantages.

World?s second largest traded commodity second only to oil

Our coffee tastes better than oil. :)

Actually it tastes great.

All the other nutritional juice companies and such offer great health benefits from their product but they are all competing for a share of that same market.

Our market is pretty much everyone you meet.

And there is no sales resistance.

People are delighted to find out that there is coffee that is good for them.

How good? Our coffee has less caf than decaf,

It gives a nice energy boost that lasts throughout the day, not just until the next cup and without the jitters. Also promotes better sleep and? balances the ph of the body so that all systems and organs of the body get optimized.

Our compensation and bonuses plan is great and you can be a business associate for $100.

And we have had over half a billion in North American sales in our first year alone.

We have been overseas for 10 years.

We are launching a set and forget system in one week?s time so anyone can make money whether they are pro marketers or not."

I invite all who are seeking a fun and lucrative home based business with real benefit to all to help make a better world through healthy coffee. He further invites current business associates of other home based business companies to match up their present home based business against what they currently have. Take an honest look and be willing to make a change if anything better comes along. Such as healthy coffee!

Of course the real story here is that there is now such a thing as healthy coffee. With many Americans poisoning themselves with caffeine loaded coffee 2-5 times/day (one top chain has 300 mgs of caffeine in a single cup!) this is exciting news indeed! What makes this coffee healthy is an herb that has been used in Oriental medicine for 4000 years! Known as the King of the Herbs or Reishi (latin name ganoderma lucidurm) this amazing coffee has less caffeine than decaffeinated but still gives a great energy lift - one that lasts a whole day, not just until your next cup but without the jitters! It also has many tests showing it is beneficial to all conditions, systems and organs of the body? circulatory, digestive, elimination, respiratory, nerve systems all benefit, results have been obtained in treating high blood pressure, high and low blood sugar, prostate, liver and even mental health conditions. It normalizes the entire system and optimizes performance across all areas of biological function. It even detoxifies and promotes a good night?s sleep. This is why it has been known as the king of the herbs for 4000 years in the Orient. So this is exciting news for one and all.

To join me in my quest to make a better world through healthy coffee visit http://myfavorite-mlm.com where you will also find out the incredible health benefits that this healthy coffee does offer.

Gary Konigsberg Garko is on a mission to make the world better through healthy coffee! Join him! http://myfavorite-mlm.com.

Surveying Clients About Your Website

In a previous article, I talked about determining when and if a website should be redesigned. One of the suggestions I made was that to help you determine if your website should be redesigned is to send a survey to your top fifty clients or so.

I thought I would go ahead and list some sample questions that could be included on such a survey. Keep in mind that this survey can be used not only to determine if your website needs to be redesigned, but also to determine generally how effective your website is.

I suggest the following comments/questions be answered on a 1-5 scale, where 1 means strongly disagree, 3 means neutral and 5 means strongly agree. An N/A option could be included as well. You should also include a section for comments at the bottom.

* I find it easy to navigate the website. * The content on the site is appropriate. * I find the site's content interesting. * The site's design looks dated. * I like the site's color scheme. * The site should be more interactive. * The site design is appropriate for the subject matter and content. * The title of the site is appropriate placed on each page. * The header of the site is an appropriate size. * The amount of space the navigation takes up is appropriate. * There are too many images on the site. * The site takes too long to load. * I will visit this site again.

In addition to those questions, the following may help as well.

* I visit the site: A. Less than once a month B. 1-2 times a month C. 2-5 times a month D. 5-10 times a month E. More than 10 times a month F. I have no idea

* I have recommended or talked about something on the site to: A. No one B. 1-5 people C. 6-15 people D. 15-30 people E. More than 30 people F. I have no idea

* I spend the most time in the following section of the site: A. Section 1 Name B. Section 2 Name C. Section 3 Name ... Z. I have no idea

* List five other, similar websites to ours that you frequently visit.

* List five things you'd like to see on our site.

* If you had to eliminate one section of our website, what section would it be?

* Where did you first hear about our website?

* Have you ever clicked on an advertisement that was displayed on our site?

There will probably be questions that are specific to your website that you should also ask. An arcade might ask whether the survey taker prefers arcade games or redemption games. A news publication might ask if the survey taker also receives a hard copy of the newspaper or magazine.

If it is possible, you should send out paper copies of the survey, but also make an online version available. Make sure you have the same questions and options in both places.

In addition to sending the survey to your clients, readers and/or customers, give them incentive to fill it out. Tell them they will be entered into some sort of drawing for filling out the survey. Make sure you include space for their name, address, phone number and email address so you'll know who turned in what survey.

Once you get the surveys, use Excel or a similar program to gather and analyze the data. Then you will know some ways in which you can improve your site.

Tim is the owner and senior web designer at T&S Web Design. His company has developed and maintained website for dozens of small businesses and organizations. Tim also maintains a blog with free website advice for small business owners, GetASiteOnline.com

Manufacturing Optimism Survey by TR Cutler, Inc

Every two years the Manufacturing Marketing firm, TR Cutler, Inc. conducts a national survey about the optimism of manufacturers throughout the U.S. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported the survey results at: http://www.jsonline.com/bym/news/dec05/380879.asp

When last conducted, November 2003, the manufacturing sector was coming out of a long-term slump. Indeed the economy of the manufacturing sector has improved drastically in the past two years. Among the 2429 privately-held manufacturers surveyed, optimism was stronger in almost all geographic sectors, with few exceptions. The most optimist geographic regions are:

With a rating of >70% saying 2006 will be better or much better than 2005

Louisville (77.1%) Dayton (76.9%) Dallas (76.3%) Cleveland (76.1%) Milwaukee (75.2%) Kansas City (75.0%) Atlanta (74.1%) Nashville (73.6%) Memphis (73.1%) Tampa (72.2%) Charlotte (71.8%) Cincinnati (71.6%) Chicago (71.4%) Orlando (71.2%) San Antonio (70.8%)

According to Cutler, "Milwaukee has really rebounded since we last conducted this manufacturing optimism survey. The mean age of the manufacturing CEO's was considerably younger than two years ago and apparently some of this "fresh blood" has really impacted the overall enthusiasm and optimism for the manufacturing sector."

Thomas R. Cutler, who founded the consortium in 1999, has grown the participation from 300 journalists to more than two thousands key clients, journalists, editors, trendsetters, and key business leaders worldwide. Cutler has authored more than 1000 articles for a wide range of manufacturing periodicals, industrial publications, and business journals including most of the leading monthly trade publications. TR Cutler, Inc., (www.trcutlerinc.com), is the nation's largest manufacturing marketing and public relations firm, based in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

TR Cutler, Inc. www.trcutlerinc.com Thomas Cutler 954-486-7562

Disappointed with Paid Surveys Programs? Read this

Have you noticed the tremendous amount of websites promising lists of Paid Survey companies that will generate a good amount of money only for filling out their surveys?

This Membership website usually charges from $19.99 to sometimes even $39.99 in order to have access to these lists.

The problem with most of this websites is that their lists are sometimes outdated or the paid surveys companies do not accept more aplications, etc, etc. I know plenty of people that paid a lot of money joining these sites and never gain a return for their investments.

The good news is that you don't have to pay ever again for these paid survey companies and the truth is that you can really get paid for filling out surveys online, go shopping, go to restaurants, try products, etc. I've been doing this for more than 2 years and it really works. Just a short amount of time is invested, and you are paid for your opinion.... isn't that terrific!! I encorauge you to look for information on this. I personally have information avialable in my Newsletter that you can use to start making money with these programs and it's FREE!

Something to keep in mind:

It can take a few days or even longer to start receiving paid survey invitations. A lot depends on your demographics. Please keep in mind that you will not qualify for every online survey. Some paid surveys are targeted to to specific details, such as your gender, the zip code you live in, etc.

This is one of the reasons I highly recommend that you get registered with multiple survey sites. In doing so you'll receive more survey invitations and thus you'll be able to do more paid surveys online. But most important of all: Never Give up! This is really happening out there, why not get a piece of the pie?? I am makeing a living with this program and you can too, just keep looking for Free information. Good Luck!

Ngullen Rivera ngullen@gmail.com

Ngullen Rivera publishes the acclaimed Advanced Paid Survey Review & News blog. A professional blog with a refreshing perspective and a strong focus on no-cost Paid Surveys List. http://paid-surveys-review-news.blogspot.com/ FREE Tips, Tricks, Tools, Resources, eBooks, and More!

How To Conduct Effective Online Surveys

Although they are inexpensive and product fast results, online surveys still need to be conducted properly to be really effective. The key steps for conducting effective online surveys are:

• Identify your objective

• Decide what information you need

• Develop a questionnaire

• Conduct the survey

• Analyze the responses

• Recommend a course of action

* Identify your objective

Online surveys are conducted to find out the characteristics, behaviors, opinions, and knowledge of a particular population. No matter what the subject matter, all surveys are conducted with an objective, to gather information relevant to a specific problem or situation. And the key to a successful survey is clearly identifying that objective upfront. To do that, ask yourself "what problem am I trying to solve?" The ideal objective has a narrow scope and can be clearly stated. The wider the scope, the more complex your survey and the less meaningful its results. Always remember, your survey is only as good as your understanding of your objective!

* Decide what information you need

Once you have defined your objective, identify the information you need to gather to achieve your objective. If the objective is clear and narrow, the information you need to gather will be apparent. Be specific and avoid the temptation to gather "extra" bits of information that are "nice to know" but not relevant to your objective. Once you have identified the information you need, you should explore the possibility of gathering it from existing data sources. With an abundance of information available from corporate databases and public information sources, you might gather the information without even conducting a survey!

* Develop a questionnaire

Developing the questionnaire is undoubtedly the most important part of conducting a survey. The quality of the questions will determine the quality of the results and the effectiveness of your survey. Get tips for developing an effective questionnaire.

* Conduct the survey

Once you have developed the questionnaire, you need to test it on a few people to determine if it is clearly written and can be understood by people representing your potential respondents. Testing the survey might take several iterations, but it is well worth the effort. Once you are satisfied that your questionnaire is clear and unambiguous, you are ready to conduct your survey.

If you are going to distribute your survey through email, make sure that your email message is clear and compelling. A boring message will not get the attention of your potential respondents and decrease your response rate. Additionally, you should also remember the following things:

• Address emails to a single person whenever possible.

• Always use the blind carbon copy (BCC) if you must send a single email message to a group of people.

• Include a valid email address in the "From" field or the recipients will consider your message as spam.

• Provide the URL that will take people directly to your survey, if you are inviting them to the website to take the survey.

• Tell recipients how to contact you if they have a problem or concern.

• Identify the source of purchased email addresses so recipients know who to contact if they want to be removed from the list.

• Ignore the "flame" or "hate" messages you might receive in response to your email invitation. A small percentage of the recipients always take offense to something or the other.

If you are going to distribute your survey from your website, you need to consider how will get visitors to take the survey. If your site has just enough traffic, you can probably place a hypertext link on your home page through which visitors can reach your survey. If you have very heavy traffic, you can use a program on your web server to randomly deliver your survey to some of the visitors. However, if your website doesn't have enough traffic, you should consider sending invitations by email or other traditional methods.

Once you have sent out notifications, responses will begin to come in immediately. For online surveys that invite individual participants (email or postal mail), most people will respond within 72 hours of receiving your invitation. Surveys that rely on passive participation (clicking on website links or responding to indirect advertising) generally take much longer. In either case, you need to decide how long to keep your surve active based on your target audience and how many responses you need to collect. If you are surveying a known group of people (e.g. customers, employees, students, etc) you might need to send out reminders to remind some people to take the survey.

* Analyze the responses

You can begin to analyze the responses as soon as you receive them. Unlike traditional methods, online surveys make it possible to analyze responses without human intervention. Responses are received in electronic format and immediately added to a database. Once in the database, they can be manipulated with a variety of tools, including the survey software, statistical packages, spreadsheets, and presentation programs. The key to proper analysis of online surveys is no different than that for traditional methods. You must be able to filter the data and display results in a variety of formats for effective analysis. And always remember to relate the analysis back to your objective.

* Recommend a course of action

The last step in conducting effective online surveys is to recommend a course of action. With your objective in mind, you should be able to recommend specific actions as a result of your survey. Your recommendations can vary widely depending upon the nature of the problem you are trying to solve. If you cannot identify any actions as a result of your survey, then it is highly possible that your objective was too broad, your information needs were incorrect or incomplete, or your questionnaire was poorly written. In these cases, your recommended action should be to conduct further study.

© Web Based Survey Software (http://www.web-based-survey-software.org) 2004

http://www.web-based-survey-software.org.

webmaster@web-based-survey-software.org
nick@web-based-survey-software.org

Maximize Your Online Survey Profits

One of the most common questions I get on this website is "Peter, how do I make the most money with these online survey opportunities?" There are a couple of extremely easy ways to add to your bottom line in the survey-taking world.

1) Apply to as many survey and market research sites as possible. When you join a Survey database, you will be given anywhere between 350 to 550 different survey companies. This may sound insane, but at some point, you will want to have had applied to ALL of them on the list. Don't try to knock them out all in one day, but go for 10-20 a day. The more survey companies you join, the more people who will want your opinion at some point and will come looking to pay you for it.

2) Decrease the amount of repetitive work that you have to do. When you're joining survey sites, they all ask basically the same information when first getting started. You don't need to put in the same info manually every time. Instead, use a tool like RoboForm. Using RoboForm you can fill in your information once, and when prompted on subsequent sites, fill in ALL your personal information with the press of a single button. This is a HUGE time saver. Saving time means having more time to fill out surveys for cash.

3) Many survey sites will offer you opportunities to complete sections that reflect your own personal information. There may be a section on your finances, what kind of car you drive, your travel habits, etc. Whenever you see these, FILL THEM OUT. This will give you access to surveys that the other 99% of the people who don't fill them out won't ever get to see.

4) Cash is good, but points aren't bad either. Many survey sites pay you in "points" and when you accumulate enough of them you get to use them to purchase items. Don't avoid the sites that pay in points. I don't know about you, but a $250 Wal-Mart gift certificate is as good as cash to me because it will definitely get used.

5) Don't avoid the drawings either. A lot of times, particularly on short surveys, market research companies will offer an entry into a cash drawing for your participation. There's no reason not to take the time to fill out a 3 minute survey for a chance to win $1,000 in addition to many other smaller cash prizes. Your chances of winning something are actually not bad because a LOT of people do not complete these surveys at all! They just wait until the cash surveys fill their box.

So basically the name of the game is to maximize your exposure. Join as many companies as possible, give them as much information about you as possible, and take as many surveys as possible. Those are some of the ways you can maximize your online survey profits! But you're not going to get anywhere if you haven't taken the first step. Click the link below to go back to the survey list page and get started!

Peter Dimas is the webmaster of http://www.surveysthatpaybest.com