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I’ve just been encouraged by my brother to sign up to some online surveys. I’m enjoying them at the moment and so far have tested some products such as a vibrating toothbrush, toothpaste and some lovely new fabric conditioner. I’ve also earned enough points through Ipoints to get a free cd. So if you’ve got a few free minutes whilst you are not blogging, designing or browsing why not try some out! I’ve also recently joined I’ve just joined up to Mylot. Here you get paid to add your comments to posts, so if you are an avid blogger why not earn a few extra bucks for simply adding your comments!

Online surveys
You can make pocket money and have the possibility of winning cash prizes every now and then. However, be careful. As a rule of thumb, the more lucrative or tempting it sounds, the more likely it is to be a waste of time. This is one of the many areas on the net where con-men can operate, making you fill in tedious questionnaires and then ‘forgetting’ to pay, or passing your name onto spammers. So don’t fall for every offer you see.

Most surveys are sent to you via email, and take anywhere from 10-45 minutes. Usually the email will tell you roughly how long it will take. You can make roughly between £20-30 a month plus some vouchers, gifts and maybe a big cash prize if you’re lucky.

IPSOS gives you credits which you can use to spend on a range of brand name websites like Amazon.

Ciao pays smaller amounts on the whole but you can make reasonable pocket money if you do them regularly. Also, you can make £10 a go by being one of the first 500 people to make and upload a video review of any product on the site.

GreatUKSurvey offers the chance to win a large cash prize (currently they have one for £5,000) but of course there is no guarantee that you will win. This is the kind of site to join if you have some time to spare and you’re feeling lucky!

GMI says they really only need people from Scotland and Northern Ireland at the moment. They already have a lot from England.

Valued Opinions pays you in vouchers for shops like Marks and Spencer, Tesco and Boots. Or you can choose vouchers for charities like the World Wildlife Fund and World Vision.

Pickthem.co.uk is another prizes site. Again, there is no guarantee that you will win prizes so only do this one if you have time to spare and you like to have the chance to win prizes regularly.

Toluna has things you can test for free as well as surveys. It also has prize draws and other competitions so there is a lot there to keep you busy.

Panelbase pays cash, and some include entry in to one of their many prize draws where you could win anything from a box of wine to a flashy new wide-screen TV. Each survey pays between 50p-£3.

Also, remember you can make money online through cashback sites. The charity shopping website Giveortake.com earns you money back on purchases and then you have the difficult question of whether to keep the money or give it to charity.

Cashback shopping.
When shopping online, click through to a shop via a ‘cashback’ site and it’ll give you a small proportion (usually around 2% but up to 10%) of what you spend back in cash. These are advertising sites, paid for by providing leads to retailers; to encourage traffic, they split some of their revenue with you in the form of cashback.

How much? Up to £1,000 a year if you’re a serious online buyer.
For further information see:
Top Cashback articles.
Cashback.

Get paid to click
It’s possible to get paid just for clicking links on the internet. This is a by-product of the fact that many advertisers pay websites for sending them traffic (ie. for visitors clicking through to their sites). As noted above, cashback websites give you a share of their ad-revenue; and therefore on the occasions where they’re paid just for sending traffic, you can be paid just for clicking.

How much?
It’s not too difficult to rack up £20 a month just by clicking paid links, as long as you’re consistent with the routine; set passwords on screen to make it easier.

How do I do it?
Full info in the Make Free Cash section of the Top Cashback Sites article.

Affiliate your website.
If you run any kind of website – commercial or personal – you can add affiliate link packages to it and get paid each time somebody clicks from your page. The most popular schemes are Google’s ‘Adsense’ and Amazon’s ‘Associates’ – and don’t cost a penny to install. Of course, if you’re to generate a substantial income through these schemes you’ll need a high level of site traffic, and this can be difficult to achieve.

If you’re sure you can provide site content which will appeal to a substantial number of people then give it a try, but generally it’s not worth starting one up just for the purpose of affiliate linking.

How much?
A niche website with loyal usage could earn £1,000s a year from these links.

Contextual adverts (related to the subject of your page):
https://www.google.com/adsense/ (ads by google)
http://www.miva.com/uk/content/partners/miva_mc/ (contextual and inline ads)

Content advertising:
http://www.omguk.com/
http://www.affiliate-advantage.co.uk/
http://www.affiliatefuture.co.uk/
http://affiliate-program.amazon.co.u…ssociates/join
http://www.tradedoubler.co.uk/pan/cms
http://www.buy.at/
http://uk.cj.com/
http://www.clixgalore.co.uk/default.aspx
http://www.dgmpro.com/
http://old.netklix.com/
http://www.oxado.com/
http://www.tradedoubler.co.uk/pan/cms

Listen to music? Get paid to review it.
There’s a website which pays you to review unsigned music. SliceThePie pays you 5p for each song you rate, but as you build up a reputation you can command up to 25p a time. You’ll need a pretty open mind, as you can’t choose specific genres, but once you’ve found a band you like you can vote for them and even buy stock in them to trade.

The system could also be profitable if you’re a musician, as if your songs get voted for you could be financed for an album. The system’s too complex to describe fully here, so read the site’s tutorials before you start.

A dedicated fan putting in a couple of hours a night could expect around £30/month. Not much, but not bad for a hobby. For a band, the sky’s the limit if you’re good enough.

Online market research.
You can get paid cash to take part in online surveys, which are often short enough to fill in during breaks at work. Try ValuedOpinions, Pure Profile, Pinecone Research, Lightspeed Panel and Toluna.

Some surveys can pay £1 to £3 for just a couple of minutes of your time.

For a larger list visit:
http://www.whichsurveys.com/

Become a mystery shopper.
High-street retailers are desperate to check that their in-store customer service is up to scratch, and contract mystery shopping agencies to do so. These will employ you to visit a specific shop or pub, to rate service quality or the quality of their goods. Some of the most popular sites are TNS Global, Grassroots, Gapbuster, BAI, Frontline Focus and Retail Maxim. Others, including those that you need to phone to apply can be found in the forum. If you fancy a bit of ‘cloak and dagger’ identity, this can be great fun too.

Payment for this type of work varies hugely between agencies. Some pay in gift vouchers, others simply give you free items. Some will pay you cash too but not usually more than £30 a day.

Earn from internet research.
Any Question Answered (AQA), 82ASK, and Texperts are internet businesses often on the lookout for researchers. All the companies work the same way: a customer searching for the answer to any random question sends a text to researchers – you – who reply with the answer.

The beauty of this work is that you can choose the type of questions that you answer, and hence the hours you work. See Issuebits (AQA), 82ASK and Texperts for vacancies – you’ll have to pass a test before you get an interview; the fiendishly tough texperts test is online, so take a look first to see if it’s for you. Vacancies aren’t open all the time, so you’ll need to be on the ball and checking the sites regularly.

You’ll be paid roughly 30p per question, and some can take just a few moments to answer, meaning that experienced researchers get up to £2,000 a month.

Work over the phone and net.
TeleTech is an American telephone support company, which is currently recruiting in the UK. Its major advantage over other phone work is it expects you to work from your own PC at home, using its special software to field calls. Generally, you’ll be offering customer service and technical support; full training will be given. Find out more and apply at the TeleTech website. It depends on which of the company’s contracts you’re involved with, but you should get no less than £6/hour.

About Jo

I'm the owner of Jo's Web, a professionally qualified graphic designer who has been involved in the industry for over 20 years. I have worked as an art editor for London publishing houses, B.B.C , Haymarket and now run Spiral Pixel Design.

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