Online Paid Survey - Global Test Market

Globaltestmarket is one of the older paid surveys sites. You will receive a regular stream of survey invites. For Indians, they have some surveys in chaste hindi too. I have not seen this with many other paid surveys sites. They reward points for completing surveys, typically from 5-100 ‘Market Points’ for surveys taking 5-30 minutes. And the best thing is, even if you get screened out, you still earn at least 5 points for attempthing the survey. Thats really excellent. You can redeem your market points for cash when you reach 1000 marketpoints, which is equivalent to 50 US dollars. A cheque will be sent to you which you can encash in your bank. And remember the basics of online paid surveys that I wrote about in the post.

Go to paid survey site Global Test Market...

oDesk Freelance jobsite

oDesk is one of the best freelance sites and helps small time employers hire, manage, and pay freelance workers as if they were working for them as office employees. There are lots of employers and business seeking skilled workers, and a global work force of service providers, oDesk is changing how the world works. oDesk is free to join. Providers are looking for looking for web developers, writers, graphic designers, call-center staff, data entry professionals, marketing experts, business consultants and more. You can set your pay rates. The first job is always the hardest. It takes patience and persistence to build an impressive profile and acquire your first job.

Fixed payment projects: Fixed payment projects are those which pay you a fixed sum for completing a project or a part of a project. If an employer has posted a job and wants a website built for say $200 or an article written for $20 ,this is called Fixed price projects. You have to make a bid with your price and when you get the project ,you will get either get paid something upfront (rare) or on completion. During negotiation you can ask for an upfront sum like say 20% to protect yourself from getting scammed like not getting paid for the work, or being made to do more work to get paid, etc. This is my suggestion which you can try out.

Hourly basis projects: These type of projects are helpful if you have a fixed working schedule that you would like to stick to. This payment mode enables you to charge Employers/Buyers on Hourly basis like 10$/hr, 20$/hr and depends on your skills, qualifications and experience.

Tips:

- Install the oDesk software on your PC. This software is used by oDesk to track and record your work and hours while working on client assignments.
- Create your profile and give as much details as possible. Be honest about the information you provide. Don’t give false information.
- Compulsorily take the oDesk readiness test. It can be retaken.
- Take as many tests as possible related to your interest area. But carefully read through the test details. Some tests are one time, some allow re-test but after a period of time. Take such tests if you are confident you will do well.
- Go through the job descriptions carefully
- If you decide to apply for a job posting, make a good cover letter and contact employer.
- Look at the Employer activity details and bid accordingly. Check the rates that other applicants asked for. Look at the average rate and the employer's preference rate. Check out what is the average bid price of those applicants whom the employer has interviewed. Set your bid a little more or less than the average rate. Also see if employer has already set an hourly maximum rate for the job.
- Check whether the employer has a verified payment method and offers an hourly payment. Fixed payment aren’t guaranteed by oDesk only hourly payments are. So, it's up to you if you want to do hourly job or fixed price job.

- Be professional and deliver quality work within agreed timelines

- Begin with small jobs, build your profile, get good feedback, and then move on to bigger jobs.

Go to oDesk:

Mylot : Fun way to earn money

Mylot is a social website which pays users for having fun. You can make friends, have your queries answered, search for information, discuss on topics of interest to you, answer others’ questions, add images and videos and get paid based on their unique algorithm to calculate value of your contributions. You can also refer your friends and get a portion of their earnings.

Joining Mylot is free and instant. You can start participating, posting and earning from day one. There are loads of content there so you don’t have to worry about whether you will find something of your interest. There’s something for everyone.

More on how to earn from Mylot:

1. Start a discussion
Pick an interest group and start an interesting discussion. Every time somebody posts an answer to your questions you will earn money. After starting a discussion don’t forget about it. Keep replying to what others post and keep participate in the discussion that you have started.


2. Participate in a discussion
Participate in discussions started by others. Be as descriptive as possible. Your posts should not be lesser than 4-5 lines.

3. Refer other people
Referrals is a very good way of multiplying your earnings on Mylot. E.g. if you have 100 friends you have referred and each earns $1 in a day, you will earn $25 per day, in a month $750. Even a third of it is $250 plus your own $30.
Make sure to review and rate your friends’ and referrals’ discussions and postings, and some of them will do the same for you (I do the same). That way you will help each other earn more.

4. Post images and videos
Post images and videos, include them in your discussions and you will not only make your discussions more interesting for others to participate, you will also earn more.

5. Post links to your other websites
If you already have a website, affiliate link, blog, posted articles, etc. then post links wherever appropriate to drive traffic, presell and sell. You can include links in your profile too. Your friends and other mylotters may check out your profile and follow your links.

You can even ask other mylotters how to earn more in mylot!

Join by clicking on the banner below:

Points to be kept in mind...

To make money online can be an arduous task since there is little guidance and an overload of fake and legitimate opportunities, with websites screaming money making techniques. Most are aimed at hoodwinking innocent people and gleaning a few quick bucks. At the end of the day you might end up empty handed and disillusioned if you don’t go about earning money online with a definitive plan. Having said that, there are genuine and legitimate ways through which you can earn extra money working from home. I have already discussed in earlier posts under the Label ‘Basics’ about the most common online money making ideas and concepts.


Here I write about some broad tips to help you in your quest of making money online from your home!

- Look for free opportunities – Always be wary when you are required to pay up to join some money making program. Serious companies that offer online jobs shouldn't be asking for money before they recruit you. Neither should you be spending your hard-earned money to buy e-books with titles like "get rich quick", "becoming rich online", "make money", "free money" or any other similar topics. You can get all the information you need for free on sites like this and thousands of others. Also, forget pyramid schemes and programs which claim that you can invest a dollar and get five thousand back; they are scams and they just don't work. Finally remember that there is no such thing as free money. Be realistic, nobody is going to give away money but you can still earn some decent amounts online!- Use Electronic Payment Systems – Keep your personal money separate from the money you make on the internet. There are many safe online payment systems like Pay-pal, Alert-pay and E-Gold. Open an account with one. I have already posted about Pay-pal earlier.

- Launch Google - Before joining any program that is offering you an income, research the program well. Check with our good friend Mr. Google. Type the program name and scam and see what results you get. Check whois details of the owner, put in the domain name (eg yahoo.com, amazon.com, etc, without 'www.') in the text box on SpamHelp and choose Whois (Domain).

- Gone in 60 seconds - Many sites make a quick buck and disappear. Don't be surprised if you invest or join something and the owners vanish off the face of Earth. Always be cautious. Always weigh the pros and cons wisely before investing. Decide whether it will be okay if you lose the amount you are putting. Don’t bite more than you can chew. See whether you can afford it. Don’t gamble. I don’t recommend paying money upfront to join some program or for some benefit. And don’t be taken in by promises of big money. As a rule, “the bigger the promise, the bigger the scam”.

- Spread the word about scams - If unfortunately you do get duped, don't be afraid to report it. Remember that reporting a scam site will help a lot of innocent people from getting ‘scammed’. And your action might just help shut it down. Don't let scammers get a single red penny of your hard earned money. I will put up a post later on this topic. Get back to me if you need more information on scams.

- Keep away from adult websites - Adult and pornographic sites are hotbeds of spyware, advertisments and popups. Stay away from them.

- Safeguard your Identity – Be very careful while transacting money online, or providing passwords, card details etc for ID verifications. Think before you do. There are many sharks out there to get a bite of your hard earned money. If you do have to make a transaction, look for SSL certificate of the site.

- Safeguard your computer – There are truckloads of malwares out there on the internet...viruses, botnets, worms, keyloggers, rootkits, trojans and what not. A lot of them might creep in to your computer without your knowledge. Install a firewall, antivirus and popup blocker and keep them updated with the latest patches. Use your browser’s pop-up blocker or that of the Google toolbar.

- Safeguard your email - Never post your email address in public forums or websites. There are softwares which are sent to crawl websites and register anything that includes @. The addresses found then become prime spam targets. Also there are some who make a living out of selling these email addresses as lists.

- Get separate email addresses – I had mentioned this earlier in one of my posts. For your money making endeavours get separate email id’s. It will not only help you get organized, but will also protect your privacy. Never use your personal email address. It is very likely that you might give away your email address somewhere and you start getting spam mails. Best to keep them getting mixed with your personal mails. Never respond to spam or better still, don’t even open a mail if you think it is spam. Use the unsubscribe option that comes with many unwanted or unnecessary mails. These links are placed in small font at the bottom of the mail. It might just help you get a few mails less.

- Don’t hurry with subscriptions - Whenever you opt to use an online service, you are asked for your email address. And just before the submit button there will be a set of checkboxes regarding subscriptions to newsletters and the like. Most of the times by default these boxes are already checked, and many people fail to read and unselect these options. I expect you to be more careful unless you have the patience of cleaning out your mailbox every few hours!

Freelancing - use your expertise to earn extra cash

Do you have a skill? Are you professionally trained at something? Have you developed a hobby like graphic designing, website development, writing, search engine optimization, etc. that you want to use to make money? Making money online is not exactly easy but if you are sincere and have the quality then this category of earning can provide an actual salary, and enough live on. I was discussing with a friend the other day when he was complaining that his salaried job is too stressful and he feels the salary at the end of the month hardly justifies the hard work that is required to be put in. That started me thinking that actually what he is earning today, he could earn as much working from home at his own comfort and utilizing his professional skills (he is a software programmer by the way) by freelancing. But though he doesn’t have to literally go to office to attend work, he will still have to work almost full time while freelancing. So, as they say, there is no replacement for hard work.


There is a vast range of real-world skills that finds takers on the internet, ranging from technical skills like software designing and hardware and networking to sales and marketing, accounting, writing, administration, project management, etc.

Let’s discuss a few of them:

-       Virtual assistant
I like this term Virtual assistant and it reminds me of a typical Hollywood sci-fi flick with AI, super computers, robots, etc. But the actual job is not as fancy. A freelancing VA’s job includes typing documents, taking calls, helping boss by providing information, documents and work he needs to help him in his job and make it easier and efficient.
-       Data entry
The most popular work on the internet (or at least in people’s perception). Its more of form-filling: entering data from a spreadsheet to a database through online forms and filling application forms from raw text data.
-       Transcription
Transcription means to listening to an audio and putting it down on paper (or computer). As a freelance recruit you will be given an audio file which you have to type and send it to your employer.
-       Translation
Next is translation which in the freelancing world is a very broad term. It might be actually translating a document from one language to another. Or it can be a complete website to be translated for an MNC to a different language to cater to different viewer in another country. If you know two languages well then you might just find it happy luck.
-       Project Management
Project Management jobs would require you to take up entire projects or sub-projects (which are part of a bigger project) and deliver results. As a freelancing project manager you will have to manage the projects from start to finish and will take up the responsibility of everything from requirement gathering and team management to meeting deadlines and final deliverables. It’s difficult but also pays well.
-       Technical (IT related) Jobs
I will bunch a few categories under this one because those who can get these jobs already know better than me regarding their field(s) of work. Technical jobs in IT domain covers a wide array of opportunities like designing, graphics and animation, software development, website designing, etc. There are lots of these freelancing opportunities out there waiting to be grabbed with both hands...provided you have the necessary skills and know-how to deliver the goods.
-       Sales and Marketing
This category of jobs include simple jobs like calling prospects and fixing appointments for sales teams to very high-end skill/knowledge based work like designing marketing and business strategies, and in between, covering Telemarketing, Sales, PR, Media relations, Copywriting, Social Media Marketing, Market Research and stuff. So if you are a marketing buff...well...good for you.
-       Writing jobs
Finally I come to the most sought after and my personal favourite. I have already written a post on how to make money by writing articles and put in a few lines about freelancing too. Here I explain more. There are plenty of writing jobs available out there for freelancers. It could be content development for websites and blogs, promotional articles for products/services/business, creative writing, technical writing, etc. There are even jobs available for screenplays and ad scripts. You need to be proficient in English. You have to churn out pieces of work at a steady pace. Good vocab, grammar and punctuation are must-haves.

Tips for future freelancers:
-       First of all, to enter in the freelancing world, create an online resume highlighting your skills, experience and previous projects if any.
-       Create a small free one/two pager blog where you put up your profile with credentials, name, contact details, photograph and basic details. Needless to say that as and when you take up and complete freelancing jobs, you should update the blog.
-       Do a little research on the job role and prospective employer before applying.
-       Deliver quality and on-time so that you have employers hooked. This ensures repeat income and reference.
-       Learn time management.
-       Apply to jobs as early as possible (many jobs are first listed on Monday mornings)
-       Keep updating your skills and try to be at the top of your game.
-       Social media (twitter, facebook, etc.) presence is important.
-       Be completely professional.

Payment
Payments for freelancing jobs can be up-front (very seldom), bid-based, on completion of job or on per hour basis, depending upon the nature of the job. You will have to decide on a rate for your service. You might have to get involved in negotiations. So be prepared.

If this post has ignited the interest in you to explore freelancing opportunities and make money, you can go to the Freelancing page of this blog. Or you can go to the Detailed Project Board. The best jobs available on the web from various websites are compiled in these job boards.

Also, I will be putting up more free resources for you to download which you surely would find helpful.

Website Flipping...earn smart cash

We all know how people invest in properties and real estate. They buy properties, hold on to them for a while, renovate and spruce it up a little and put it up at the market. Ultimately they make a neat profit out of the whole deal. Website flipping applies a similar concept, albeit in the virtual world.

I was in a bit of a dilemma whether or not to include this concept of website flipping here since this is for people who are already aware of how the internet works, how webpages are built, domains bought and hosted with a service provider. And not just that, website flipping in itself is a very vast topic requiring hours of study and there’s so much of information available out there that one will get buried under all this data. But then I thought that Onlineaamdani isn't just about basics. Ideally I would like to believe that everyone, regardless of his/her proficiency with the internet and, more specifically, knowledge of money earning opportunities on the www, should be able to find something of use in the blog and take away something worthwhile. This prompted me to include the concept of Website Flipping in our discussions, though I will keep it to basics for now. So lets jump right in.

Website Flipping as a concept, refers to buying a website, updating and improving it, and then selling it. In other words, buy at a low price, enhance website and sell at a higher price.

Now, some of us will confuse Website Flipping with Website Selling. But there’s a slight difference. Website Flipping doesn’t include buying (a new domain name, hosting services from a service provider), creating (content) from scratch, and selling a website. So website flipping ideally means working on existing websites and not on Greenfield/turnkey projects.

Also, website flipping isn't the same as domain flipping which involves buying key domain names with potential and sell at a profit. There is no work done with the domain, not even proper hosting.

Website flipping involves the following steps:

1.    Buying: First of all you have to find a website to buy. This is the most difficult part though some might not realize it. Some might think, “I have the money to pay for it so let me purchase it”. But that's not how it should be done. This is business, and any investment needs to make business sense and scope to make money. To be ideal for flipping, the site you buy has to have some potential to generate some income for you. There are a lot of considerations to be made before buying and bidding for a website, like, how much is the current average traffic to the site, which niche of the market it is catering to, what is the cash inflow it is generating, what is the competition. Ideally it should cater to a niche which isn't yet fully tapped, which people are interested in but the competition is still low. Its difficult but we have to try and find the right balance of these factors and the price that is to be paid. To purchase websites, SitePoint, Warriorforum and Flippa are some websites which you can explore. I will share some free resources for you to learn more about buying websites.
2.    Optimization: Now that you have bought a website, you have to choices – do nothing or work on it to make it better. Sometimes doing nothing is okay, but there is always some scope to enhance the website, optimize it and make it better. Intention is to give it a boost of traffic and to increase the revenue it is generating. Higher the traffic your site is attracting, higher is its value. More the revenue your site is generating, more is the value of your site. So traffic and revenue are the two most important factors that will determine how much money you can make from a website. If you don’t attend to a website it will start losing traffic and the revenue will start decreasing. Trick is to make the sale profitably before this phase starts. Or otherwise work on improving your website with things like search engine optimization, PPC (pay per click) ads and article marketing where you post articles relating to your website’s niche in article directories like Hubpages, squidoo, ezinearticles.com, articledashboard.com, goarticles.com, etc. Do some social marketing using facebook, twitter, orkut, etc. and bookmarking in sites like dig, del.icio.us, etc. You can also create a blog to support the website. These are just some of the ways to increase a websites popularity and visibility. Read up on ‘Google page rank’, SEO, backlinking and ‘Article Marketing’. I will soon put up free resources and ebooks on these concepts here so you need not pay for such resources.
3.    Selling: The final step is to sell the website. How much time you hold onto the website depends upon your strategy. Whether its short term, medium term or long term investment you are targeting. Normally, if you don’t want to work too much on the website that you have bought, then use it as a short term investment and sell as soon as you get a good price. Otherwise if you can tinker with the website here and there and can increase the traffic and/or income it is generating then use medium term strategy. And if you think that you can really add value to the website and take it much beyond what it is today then it makes sense to hold on to the website for the long term. Once you decide that the time is right to sell it, go back again to Flippa, warriorforum, sitepoint etc. and put it up for sale. Keep your fingers crossed...God willing (and with some smart work) you will be able to make a neat profit out of your investment and effort. Of course, like any other art, ‘Practice makes man perfect’.

Advantages of website flipping are manifold:

One, financial entry threshold to this market is very low. With a relatively low investment you too can be part of the market (but first get your basics right).

Two, in most cases as soon as you make the investment you will be able to start making money. Once you buy a website which is already generating revenue, you have the luxury to earn money even while you are working on it to improve your asset, the website(s).

Three, you have the flexibility to choose your investment strategy, short, medium or long.

Four, even an average internet investor can be a part of the website flipping bazaar.

This concept has immense scope in the coming years. To the readers this is my suggestion, learn the ropes of website flipping slowly. Take 6 months, 1 year even, and get your basics in place. And by the time this concept gathers momentum you will be well equipped and well entrenched in the market. The marketplace is going to heat up. 

All the best! I will bring to you more free resources shortly and if you become interested in website flipping you will find them quite helpful.

Articles, Discussions and Freelancing

Did you know that you can earn money by writing articles on internet? Can you write in correct English with proper grammar, punctuations and spellings (though spell-checks can help you here)? Are you good at something? Do you have a special interest that others too would like to know more about? If you answered yes to all the questions (leave out 1st question), then you will find this post handy.

If you have knowledge about a particular subject, topic, field, etc. that others might be interested in, then you can write articles and submit to websites which are looking at freelance writers like you to provide them with content. Your interest/knowledge can be in Photography, Pottery, Paper cutting, Internet security, Networking, Search Engine Optimization, Yoga, Pilates, Management Topics, Personality Development, Time Management, etc. These are just a few things that came to my mind offhand.

How this works? Multiple ways. For one, websites need content...good and quality content. For them to hire content writers full-time can be costly. And one content writer can write on a limited number of topics. So to put up content on a variety of topics, these websites/portals will have to hire a huge content writing work-force. Why go there when there are millions of internet users out there with expertise on thousands of topics? If they tap into this huge work-force, they will never have to worry about content, leave alone cost-saving. There will be an endless supply of content at a fraction of a cost of hiring full time employees. They only have to select and edit relevant and good submissions. Thus, they pay these submitters whose submissions are selected.

And there are websites which offer freelancing jobs where you can offer your writing services. These sites, of course, have many other freelancing job opportunities.

Payment can be either fixed or variable. Fixed payment can vary from $.50 to $15 per article or sometimes more depending on the content. Variable payment works on a different model. This kind of model is dependent upon the popularity of the submitted article. The more popular it becomes, the more you will earn. Revenues come from the ads that are displayed on the page where your article is put up. So the more traffic your article generates more is your chance to earn money from the article. Website will pay you a part of the revenues generated from your article. Its as simple as that
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There’s a third way of earning money with articles. Its called Article marketing. Its an indirect way to earn money where the primary intention is to draw traffic to another web destination like a blog or a website. For example, if I write an article and submit it to such a website and include backlinks to this blog, it will not only help draw traffic to this blog, but also help in google rankings of the blog. Payment for the article itself is a bonus. We will discuss about Article Marketing again later.

Advantages? Many. For starters, you can work as per your convenience, when you want, from wherever you want. Secondly, you can write about what you know and passionate about. Thirdly, no previous experience is required. And then there’s the money.

Also, there’s another related way to make money online. Discussions. There are websites which pay you to participate in discussions, to respond to other’s discussions, to start a discussion topic, etc. There are hundreds of topics and interests that you can choose from and then start participation. Essentially, you get paid to have fun sharing your thoughts and opinions, putting up your questions, helping others with their queries, etc.

I will be reviewing a few of these websites and post some of the best ones to help you too earn money online at your own convenience. So keep reading to find more online money making opportunities.

Affiliate Marketing

So we have heard about Affiliate marketing a lot and how it helps internet users to make money, but what is affiliate marketing actually? How does it work?  Where does the money come from? How much can one earn? How tough is it? How is it done? Are there any criteria to become an affiliate marketer? And most importantly, can I make money too?

Patience people...I will try to address all these questions and more. Let’s start at the beginning...

Affiliate marketing, quite simply, is a way of making money online, where, as a publisher you are rewarded for helping a business promote its product(s) or service(s). These businesses want you as an affiliate marketer in closing a sale and they will reward you for each customer or visitor (differs from program to program) brought in by your own marketing effort. So the merchant will pay you for your referrals that generate a sale (Cost per Sale or CPS) or perform an action like sign-up, subscription, completion of a survey, etc (Cost per Action or CPA). It has different variations, but more or less its your marketing initiatives and your own network building (referrals) efforts that the concept is reliant upon.

Another spin to the concept of affiliate marketing is that the ‘merchant’ pays commission to its affiliates for sales and/or visitors (So that is where the money comes from). Commissions can either be direct commission as part of each sale or even multi-tier commissions for your referral network (similar to Multi Level Marketing or MLM of the real world). No...this is not selling, in the sense that you don’t have to ‘sell’ a product in the traditional sense of the term. Here you don’t knock on doors, but you knock on computers. Pre-selling is more like it. Publishers like you promote the merchants’ product/service by posting links to the Advertiser’s site on your own websites or blogs or through banner ads, text ads, e-mail campaigns, or any other media. You can also spread the word within your friends, family, colleagues, etc. and increase referrals. J

How much can one earn? There are loads of money to be made waiting for you to tap the right opportunity and with the right approach. There is no limit to how much you can earn....from Zero to Thousands! Technically, all sales / activities are tracked through unique links that affiliates are provided with and which they have to use to promote the affiliate program. So don’t you worry. No one else will enjoy the fruits for your efforts.

Is it tough? Well...depends on a lot of factors like the working model of the affiliate program, on the product/service, on your efforts. In general, multi-level marketing based affiliate programs are easier for beginners to start earning money (because they typically different methods and modes of earning money where you can earn either/both through your own actions and/or through referrals) than trying to earn direct sales commissions. Its not very tough if you get the hang of it and put in some effort.

Promotion can be organic (with the people you know or your existing network) or inorganic (with an audience that you don’t know personally or outside your existing network). There are various ways of promoting through each of these two methods. For organic promotion you can use word of mouth, involve some friends who in turn refer their own friends and so on, use your facebook/twitter/orkut/... friend lists, your mail contact list, etc. For inorganic it can be by planting the link in different places on the web like discussion boards and forums, writing articles, advertising, etc.

As to who can be an ‘Affiliate Marketer’...answer is ANYONE...and yes! That includes YOU too. You just need to be comfortable with internet basics. Spend some time on the internet regularly. Build a good friends/followers network on social networking sites. Discuss with friends and like minded people you come in contact with. With persistence you can make it work and earn money with affiliate marketing.

For demonstration purpose I have created two affiliate marketing instances with one of the more popular Affiliate marketing programs, Clickbank (we will discuss more about Clickbank later). You can click on the links and see what an actual affiliate program works. The products are packages/material on affiliate marketing.

The complete affiliate marketing handbook

Superman Affiliate

** Note: These are actual affiliate links. Going ahead with the purchase of the items is solely the viewers' wish and is not mandatory in context of this blog post. Intention of this blog post is not to promote the individual products but to demonstrate the concept of the topic.

We will be discussing more on affiliate marketing in subsequent posts when we discuss on related concepts, tips, do’s and don’ts of affiliate marketing, etc. and as when start working on actual individual affiliate programs. I will review quite a few of them...some pure affiliate programs and some hybrid. If you have any questions please feel free to comment and discuss. Also feel free to discuss on others’ questions also and share your thoughts. I will also try my best to address your queries.

( I believe that you now have a good idea about Affiliate marketing after reading through this post. But if you still want info on Affiliate marketing and the different types of affiliate websites check out the article on Wikipedia by clicking here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affiliate_marketing)

Paid to Read, Paid to Surf

Paid to Read / Receive programs are similar to Paid to Click programs. Paid to receive mails and paid to receive sms’s are again ultimately advertisements delivered through different media to the end customer. PTR websites act as the go-between to make this happen.

In this kind of programs you will have to register your email ID and/or cellphone number with the website and they will then start sending you the mails and sms’s. In case of paid to receive / read mails programs, you have to click on the links provided in the mails that you receive from these PTR websites. Some programs deliver the links / ads to your mail inbox, some require you to log in to your account on their website where they provide an inbox, and you have to do the needful from this inbox within the PTR website login. Some of these programs even ask whether they can send you surveys by mail (for which you get paid more to respond), what are your interest areas, etc. to customize their response as per your preferences. Similarly Paid to read / Receive sms’s programs are also customized as per your preferences by incorporating your responses during sign up like – whether you are willing to receive voice calls for surveys / promotional offers, what time period of the day you want to receive sms’s, what are your interest areas, etc.

PTR programs pay anywhere between 25 paise to Re. 1 per mail / sms (basic). Apart from that there are some Paid to Subscribe offers that come along where you have to subscribe to the advertisers’ offerings and you will be paid more than a basic mail / sms. That will depend whether you want to go ahead and subscribe or not. As a thumb rule, the basic amount is anyways credited, to your account when you click on the link. Also allow you to take up affiliate memberships and bring in referrals. They will pay you for the activities of your referral members.

We will look into some of the websites that have sound PTR programs. So keep visiting.

Paid to surf: Since we are into discussing a similar topic, let’s look into Paid to Surf programs also.

Pay to Surf websites pay you for spending time on the internet and run a computer program as you do so. This computer program can be in the form of a plug-in to your web browser, a toolbar, or a software that runs in the background. Advertisers' banner ads are then displayed while the member was browsing the web. Since the computer program tracks websites that the user visits, the pay to surf company is able to deliver targeted ads for their advertisers. Advertisers pay the pay to surf company a small amount (typically US$0.50) for every hour of a member's surfing.

Members are usually given a minimum requirement on the amount of time per day / week / month for which they would be paid to surf. Typically it would vary from 20 hours to 75 hours per month. Also, again pay-to-surf companies pay their members for each new user referred to the company (typically US$0.05 - US$0.10 per recruit). Thus, it is profitable for a member to garner as many referrals as possible.

I have spent some time doing some knowledge gathering about PTS programs. I have some reservations with these models of online money earning methods though and I have not yet tried out PTS programs. But I intend to do some more research on this and check out some renowned ones in some time. I will keep you posted.

Paid To Click (PTC)

Paid to Click is an online business model that works by getting online traffic from people who want to work from home and earn money on the internet. Paid to Click programs are ones in which you have to click on links or banners on the site (these links are mostly ads), then view the sites that pop up with each banner clicked. Everytime you click on these links or banners, you get paid a certain amount of money depending on the website you are on. There might be a countdown timer which you will have to wait out before closing the window.In addition, most PTC websites offer a commission to its members for signing up new members (similar to many affiliate programs online, which we will be discussing in future posts). This is called a 'referral'. Referrals help you multiply your earnings from PTC programs. Its an easy way to earn money on the internet if you spend spend some time on the internet regularly anyways.

Paid to Click websites thus, basically deliver advertisements to consumers, the advertiser pays for displaying ads on the PTC website, and a part of this payment goes to the viewer when he views the advertisement.

Some websites pay you less than a cent, some pay you more. Some have lots of ads and links that you can click, some have fewer. Some of these websites offer more ads and links to paid members than to free members. To become a paid member you have to pay some money and 'upgrade'.

But there have been online scams too in the guise of PTC programs. Some websites vanish after making money from ads, upgrades and direct referral sales. Some websites simply go down owing to unsustainable business models. We need to be careful and steer clear of these PTC websites.As a thumb rule therefore, I prefer free PTC websites. As you use the program for some time you will get more idea about the website and then can decide whether to upgrade or not. We will shortly be reviewing a few of the Paid to Click websites.

Paid Online Surveys

Business corporations need data all the time...customer preferences, opinions, experiences, competitors’ data and stuff. This helps them in improving and tweaking existing product/services and in new product development. Now there are two types of data, Primary and Secondary. Online survey is a new method of gathering primary data. As internet penetration is increasing everyday, online surveys are becoming more popular with market researchers as a relatively time and money saving tool to gather data. It works out to benefit both ways I must say. The researchers get the data they want in a short span of time relatively cheaply without moving a single data gatherers arse out on the street. And responders like us get the money and our opinions shape future services and products.

So, we can earn money for completing surveys on behalf of companies that value your opinions. Market research firms conduct surveys online by getting people like us to give our opinions, and get paid to survey. Mode of payment could be Paypal, or by cheque or points which can be redeemed for cash or gifts, it depends on the company. They analyze the data compiled from the answers of you and their other respondents, and this is how they can understand the feelings of consumers.

You can get into legitimate survey sites with no money out of pocket. Others may charge you a small one-time fee, though I will be giving you only the free ones (‘FREE’ is my theme). You may also do focus groups, where you and other consumers meet up to discuss products and services that your opinion is needed on.

 Once you register at survey sites, you'll find many companies who want people like you to complete paid online surveys. Paid surveys can be interesting, and they are usually fairly simple, you just need to understand the language. Nowadays I have even seen (and completed) surveys in pure chaste HINDI!. As long as you have the Internet and email, you can pick and choose which studies you would like to participate in.

 Before I start giving out survey site reviews, tips and details, and before you start joining these sites, there are some important stuff you’ve got to know. Get the basics right and create a good game plan and strategy before you start out. It will be helpful if you go through the following points and keep them in mind:

-          Firstly, there are a lot of bogus sites which promise you lots of paid surveys and money if you ‘pay up’ and become a member. Don’t fall for these. They will only give you a list of survey sites (lot of which don’t even exist anymore). Dont waste your money. I will be giving you this for free. And of course later on as you get a hang of it, you can be ‘out on your own’.

-          Secondly, you need to search on google by typing the suvey site name and ‘scam’. See what comes up.

-          Get organized. Set up a separate email account only for surveys. Trust me, you will need this. Keep a list of the sites you join and keep updating. You might make mistakes and join sites which are not very beneficial. You will need to unsubscribe and keep your ‘paid surveys inbox’ uncluttered. You can eliminate some sites if you find that they only give you reward points or entries in contests. If you'd rather have cash, concentrate on the market research companies that offer cash for your opinions.

-          When you set out to get paid to fill out surveys, don't close any doors. Join as many survey sites as possible. Joining 2-3 sites won’t serve your purpose since they don’t send you surveys everyday. Depends upon how frequently and how many projects they get. And then, not necessarily you will qualify for each and every survey. They need specific data according to their target market/audience.

-          Keep your common sense around you while filling these surveys. Experience will teach you to respond intelligently.

-          Join sites which are relevant to you. For example, if you are from India and you join a site which comes up with surveys only for users from US and Canada, it won’t serve your purpose. So make sure you join India specific survey sites, or global sites which have India specific content and surveys to offer. Of course, I will be helping you out with quite a few of these.

-          Be sure to complete your profile at every survey company. They use those profiles to determine who gets sent the paid surveys.

 If you spend a lot of time online anyway, might as well make some extra money and get paid to fill out surveys? Not too many people get rich by filling out surveys. But it will sure help you make some extra money on the internet.

RoboForm

When you take the path of earning money online, you will need to fill up many forms...registration forms, subscription forms, personal details, etc. Also, managing Usernames and passwords will become very critical. So whats the deal here? Well, the deal is RoboForm. This small piece of software is a very handy tool that will be a lot of help for you. Not only it helps filling up forms (most of it, if not all fields of a form) at the click of a button, it will also help you remember usernames and passwords by saving them as passwords for particular sites, of course with your permission (though I still recommend that you make a simple word document where you note down all the websites you join and their corresponding Usernames and Passwords. And yes...be disciplined and keep it updated). It also helps generate passwords, bookmarking webpages of interest, etc.

Upon installation it will attach as a toolbar in your browser. Believe me, you will thank me for this one.

Get it here:
For Firefox users    http://www.roboform.com/platforms/browsers/firefox
For IE users           http://www.roboform.com/platforms/browsers/internet-explorer
For Chrome users  http://www.roboform.com/platforms/browsers/google-chrome

Paypal membership

First things first! Get your Paypal membership. This is akin to 'fasten your seat-belts' on your trip to making money online. Many of the sites and programs through which you will be earning money will have an option of payment to your Paypal account. For some programs its even mandatory to have an online Paypal account. Once registered with Paypal members can send money without sharing financial information, with the flexibility to pay using their account balances, bank accounts, credit cards or promotional financing. And Paypal is an eBay venture, so its safe and trustworthy...and its Verisign protected.

Link:
www.paypal.com