After publishing the "Complete Guide to Online Survey for Beginners" post, I started to receive a lot of emails from new friends who visited this site. (Great knowing all you guys!) Aside from thanking me for sharing my insight on how to make money online in Singapore, tons of emails (I may have exaggerated) that address to me are all about the problems they faced with online surveys.

It seem like lot of them are having a hard time trying to make just pennies from online survey sites. And to my surprise, some of them have actually been actively taking part in surveys for more than a year now without any success.

Guys, I heard you and I do shared your frustration as I have also faced the same problems when I first started. But I think my stubbornness has brought out the best of me. As I always believe that there will definitely be a solution to any problem. We just have to look deep enough to find it. I know most people will just go to the internet, read about about how other get their big payout every month by filling up online survey questionnaires and do nothing. But without putting all those knowledge into action and constantly testing out on new methods, it will be hard to see any results in a short period. You have to make enough mistakes to realized what do works for you.

Having said that, I still agree that to get paid with online survey is still one of the easiest ways to earn extra cash in your spare time. And of course with some help, you will be sure that your time spend are not wasted. So lets get on with it.

I want to share with you some of the tips that I have found during my testing days that have proven to improve my success with taking online survey. However, understanding the mechanics of how online survey sites operated will aid you in doing your own test in the future. Because making money online is all about constant testing with different techniques to gain better result.

So here's a short explanation about how to online survey works.

Online Survey sites are created by research companies to help their clients which are mainly big consumer products and services providers, to gather valuable information from their customers. The information collected will be studied to understand the market demand, which will greatly affect the companies as it help to improve, create or even discontinue product lines to meet the future product demand. Thus online survey sites are build with a very precise screening system that will help identified the right participants for each survey. With respect to the screening system, each and every member of the online survey site will be put through 2 screening process to select those that best meet the requirements of the survey created.


The initial screening will be conduct through all the member profiles in the online survey site database. The selected members will then receive an invite to take a screening survey that determines if they will be qualify for the actual paid survey. The screening surveys are in a form of survey questionnaires that cover questions related to the details of the member profile and also their relation with survey topic in question. And only by qualifying through these 2 screening processes and completing the survey, will the member be rewarded for their time in participation. But there is exception where some survey companies will still reward even if you are ineligible for a survey that you are invited.

It may seem very difficult to get qualify for a survey at first. But trust me, it is actually very easy and with the following tips that I going to share, you will surely score with online survey and earn extra cash with less effort.

Choosing the Right Online Survey Site for You
With over hundreds of online survey sites and panels on the internet, choosing the right site to join can really be a chore. So for most people, joining the sites with the highest reputation seemed to be the right thing to do. However, every survey sites has different criteria and target markets. It is a must to ensure that the site you intend to join, do support the country you are located. As being located outside the survey company key target location will reduce your chances of getting survey invites. Furthermore, the survey companies might not be able to make payout to members that are in countries which are not supported.

Using the Right Email for Sign Up
I not saying there is an email service provider that are specially for doing online survey. What I mean is that you use a new email account for the purpose of signing up with online survey companies. To make sure that you don’t miss any survey invitations, use only one email account. So you only need to check one account for all survey invites from different companies and that will help you to cut down time on checking with multiple accounts. And ensure that you whitelist the online survey companies email addresses, so that your survey invites don’t end up in your junk folder and get deleted.

Managing your Member Profile
In all online survey companies, the member profiles are the most important factor that determined the quantity of the surveys you are going to get. After signing up with a survey company, fill out the member profile as quickly as possible. With thousands of survey process each day, you can be sure that only the member with the most complete profile will be invited for a survey. So fill out your profile as detail as you can, caused it will also help to maximum your chance of getting survey invitation.

Ensure Your Member Profile is Fully Completed
Neglected to answer the question related to your personal and household income will reduce the your chances of getting survey invitation. Simply because it is a vital question for most online survey. So ensure you have all the questions in the member profile answered and to have them updated every few months. As most of the companies will give credit to the profile that is updated regularly.

Completing the Welcome Survey
Some online survey companies will assign a set of welcome surveys to gather more information from you, so as to better understand your lifestyle and background. Completing them will increase your chances of getting more survey invites as the more information they have from you, the more information they can use to match the available surveys that can be assign to you.

Don’t Wait to Accept Survey Invitations
I always have a habit of checking my email for survey invitations whenever I can. Once in the morning and another time at night to guarantee that I wouldn't miss out on any survey invitations. As all surveys will only be open for a limited period of time, they will be close once targeted number of participants have reached or they have expired. So don’t wait to accept any survey invitations.

Getting Qualify for Online Survey
After accepting the survey invitation, the second screening process will begin in a series of short questionnaires which you will be directed to. They will come in a form of a short screening survey or in the first few questions of the main paid survey. Which ever the case, the choice of your answers will decide if you are the ideal candidate for the survey. In order to know what kind of questions you can expect, just think in the view of the companies. To ensure that their clients received the best services and by that I mean getting high quality opinions from customers who have used their products or services and are not from someone who is in anyway related to the marketing research company or the online survey company. So to increase your chances to qualify for each survey invitation, spend some time on the screening questions and make sure you answer them honestly but smartly.

That all I have up my sleeves right now. I hope I didn't scare you away with such a long post. I will be checking out some new surveys sites and will be testing some new techniques on them. But I wouldn't discuss them until I have seemed some positive results. So for now, understand the techniques that I have gone through above and apply them to improve your online survey income. If it didn't work out for you, don’t give up just keep testing. Thing will turn out right for you as long as you persist.

All the best and until next time.