What can I blog about?
The topics can vary from anything to everything. Many people blog about their daily activities and day to day life, though I imagine this would only encourage traffic if you had an interesting life
At this point in time, people using their blog as an online diary account for roughly 30% of the blogs out there. Coming in second is entertainment (tv/movies) with only a small 5%. Third is sports and politics with around 4%.
This should give you a small idea of what all the blogs out there are currently doing.
Many other people write reviews on their blogs. Another good topic would be something you are quite knowledgeable about, perhaps a hobby.

How do I get started?
The very easiest way is to go to a site like blogger.com or wordpress.com and register an account there. That type of site will cover your hosting, and will set up the entire thing for you for free. The interaction with this type of setup is pretty minimal on your part – you will be up and running in no time. If you want a hassle free setup, go for this.
The other way is to set up your own website, and install a custom content publication software suite. Wordpress do a brilliant free one. Bear in mind though you do need a fair amount of technical knowledge to get it up and running though.

Ok, so i’ve written several articles, and would like to start making money off my site. How can I do this?
You need to apply for a type of online advertising, something like google adsense at this point. With adsense for example, they will look at your site, and determine if it is good enough for their advertisements to be displayed. So with this in mind, you need content that is unique, and more importantly it must not be copied off someone elses site, as this will decrease your chances of being accepted dramatically.

What is the best way to keep the traffic coming to my site?
Create backlinks to your site, these are links on other websites that point to your blog.
Imagine you are the reader on your blog, what would you think, and what would you want from the site? Put yourself in the readers shoes, and add other relevant content they may be interested in.
Promote your site however and wherever you can. Look at other blogsites with similiar topics to yours. What do they offer that you don’t?
be friendly, try to encourage replies in the comments as this will encourage people to return to your site again and again. Build a steady userbase, and keep them entertained.
And most importantly add fresh content whenever you can. The more content you have, the more likely your site will be found.

2. The survey I am doing has closed, and said I did not meet the requirements. Why is this?
The companies often target certain people, for example females ages 40-50. If you are not female, and between the ages of 40-50, then you will not qualify for the survey. Generally there is no way to avoid being “screened out”, as the surveys normally do not mention what demographies then are targeting. As a small reward for attempting the survey, some companies will give you a small reward for the effort if you are screened out.

3. I have been screened out after about ten minutes of clicking through the survey. What a waste of time!
This can happen unfortunately, and is very frustrating. The odd survey is like this, and I’m not sure why. Normally if you are going to be screened out, it will be in the first minute or so of the survey. If you are lucky, you won’t have this happen to you too often.

4. The survey is taking forever to finish, is there any way to speed up the process of doing them? Can I click random answers and hope for the best?
Some surveys can take a while. I normally put my headphones on and play some music to keep me entertained. As for speeding it up, there is no way. Companies want your truthful opinion, so clicking random answers is a strict no-no. Many surveys have “quality control”, where they ask you to select a certain answer to make sure you are paying attention. If you don’t select the answer they have defined, the survey will be ended, and you will lose your points for that particular survey.

5. How much money will I earn per survey?
As a very rough estimate, i would say about $1 per 15 min survey. This can greatly vary from company to company though.

6. Is it worth joining up with a reward based survey site? (one that doesn’t pay in cash)
I feel it is. The major ones often shopping vouchers, so most of my monthly groceries are paid off by doing surveys. Other popular rewards include stuff like amazon vouchers, so you could essentially buy stuff off amazon, then sell it yourself and get the cash that way. Obviously it’s not ideal, but it is what I do, and it is working quite nicely.

7. How often will I get surveys?
On average, I get around 12 a day from 7 different companies. So roughly 2 per day per company. If you don’t do them, then the company will stop sending them.

8. Why am I not getting any surveys emailed to me?
Make sure you check you spam folder, as these can often end up in there. Adding the survey companies email address to your contacts should fix this issue. In addition, you should also complete your profile on the survey websites. If you do not complee your profile, then none of the surveys will match your profile!

9. Will the survey companies send spam to me?
No, I have been doing surveys for around 3 years, and have not received any spam in my survey related email box.

Benefits of Joining
Paid in cash which is added to your account balance
Regular surveys
Great Referral program enabling you to earn extra cash
See the results in various publications

Taking Surveys
After registering and completing your online profile, you will begin receiving surveys invitations to your e-mail account. The average amount you will receive for taking a survey at Yougov usually ranges between 50p and £1, this may seem like a low amount but as the paid surveys are pretty regular this will soon add up. You should receive at least 10 – 20 per month on average. Its also possible to earn more money by participating in their referral program, by referring your friends and family to Yougov you will be paid exactly what they earn for a full 3 months.

Payment Info
You are paid in cash at YouGov, each survey will specify what you will be paid to take it and this will show on your account balance once you’ve completed it. Once you have accumulated £50 a cheque will be issued to you.

Requirements to join
Age 16+
UK residents

How can I join?
Click the banner below, and fill out the registration form:

Benefits of Joining
Get rewarded with high street vouchers for taking surveys
Claim you first voucher when you have just £10 in your account
Standard online surveys pay you £1 to £5 each
Specialist surveys pay up to £50 each

Taking Surveys
Valued Opinions realize that your time is precious and will therefore reward you for taking their online surveys. For each one you complete you will be rewarded with between £1 and £5, for specialist surveys you will be rewarded with up to £50 each! Once you have accumulated £10 you will be able to redeem high street vouchers for shops including Marriott, Amazon.co.uk, Tesco, John Lewis, HMV, Marks & Spencer, Boots, Argos, Waitrose Wine Direct, Ocado, Burton, Dorothy Perkins, Evans, Miss Selfridges, Outfit, Topman, Topshop and Wallis.

Requirements to join
Anyone aged 16+

Payment Info
You are paid in rewards, namely vouchers. These are sent to you normally about 2 weeks after you have requested them.

How Can I join?
Click the banner below, and fill out the registration form:

Benefits of Joining
Takes less than 2 minutes to register
Lots of surveys
Earn points for logging into your account and answering online polls as well as taking paid surveys
Get paid in points redeemable for high street vouchers
Test free products, and get to keep them after the survey is finished!

Taking Surveys
Paid surveys do tend to be sent fairly regularly from this site, you may receive up to as many as 70 on a good month worth a various amount of points. Normally you get around 6000 points per 15 minute survey, and 60000 points is roughly equivalent to $20.If you are chosen to test a free product this will be sent through the post to you. After thoroughly testing it you will have to review it via the Toluna site, for this you will be rewarded with more points, and after testing the product is yours to keep.

Payment Info
You are paid in points which are redeemable for high street vouchers or lottery tickets for their regular cash draws. If you choose to take the high street vouchers they can be used in either HMV, Amazon, Sainsbury’s, Lufthansa Miles, CD WOW or many others. If you would prefer cash, you can always put the vouchers on ebay and sell them!

Requirements to join
No specific age to join / any age.

How can I join?
Click below, and fill out the registration form:

Benefits of Joining
For participating in online surveys you will be rewarded with Lightspeed Points which are redeemable for either :
Payments in cash
Gift Vouchers for lots of different high street and online shops including Boots, WHSmith, Next, Amazon and many more.
Music Downloads
Other Merchandise including electronics, appliances and lots more.

Taking Surveys
You will receive Lightspeed surveys via e-mail and you should receive a steady amount of at least one per week. If you miss a particular survey invitation and there is still places available you will be sent a reminder, the particular paid survey will also be in your account which you can view by logging in. The average time it takes to take an online survey here is usually around 10 – 15 minutes. Most surveys pay you around 110 points which roughly equates to $1.50, although we have seen payments range up to 330 points ($5) dependant on the length.

Payment Info
Cash is by paypal. This only takes a few working days. Otherwise you can choose various other rewards from their site such as vouchers or gift cards.

Requirements to join
Age 16+ and resident in the UK

How can I join?
Click the banner below, and fill in your details to register:

Benefits of Joining
Large client base meaning that you will receive numerous survey invitations every week.
Get paid in cash for helping companies develop better products and services.
New Survey Shuttle service so if you don’t qualify for the first survey u’ll be sent straight to the next one.

Taking Surveys
The average amount of time it will take to fill in a questionnaire at GlobalTestMarket is around 15 minutes, the minimum time is 5 minutes and the maximum is 30 minutes. The surveys that you will take cover a wide range of different topics. As they have a huge client base all around the world, you will receive a high number of paid surveys from this site, this can range from 2 on a bad week anywhere up to 10 on a good week, there isn’t many other survey sites that can send you that many on a regular basis.

Payment Info
You are paid in Market points for your participation, these points are redeemable for cash which is sent to you via cheque once you have accumulated 1000 points. 1000 points = $50. On average most surveys pay about 50 marketpoints, so you need to do about 20 surveys to reach that minimum cashout. Even though is an American site is cheques will eb sent to you in your local currency.

Requirements to join
Anyone aged 14+

How do I join?
Click to the banner below to be taken to the registration page.

Benefits of Joining
Payments in cash directly into your bank account, or by paypal.
Frequent surveys, I normally get 3 or so a day emailed to me.This doesn’t even include the ones that aren’t emailed to you, there are normally one or two others if you log into the site and check.
More of a variety of surveys.
Earn rewards for inviting your friends.

Taking Surveys
When Ciao send you a survey to complete, you usually have around 3 or 4 days to complete the survey. If it isn’t completed within this time limit then usually the survey will expire, as enough people will have probably already replied. If you miss a survey, or just can’t be bothered to reply to the survey, then you won’t miss out at all. Obviously you won’t get paid for that particular survey, but you will still be sent other surveys and won’t be punished for not completing the last survey. At Ciao you are under no-obligation to complete any of the surveys sent to you, but obviously if you don’t then you won’t make much money from the website. Most surveys pay around $2 for a 15 minute survey, however I have had some that paid £14 for a hour long survey!

Payment Info
Bank deposit or paypal.

Requirements to join
Age 16+

Where can I join?
Click below, and you will be taken to the signup page.

As you can imagine, there is no major income potential here. If you do them regularly, then they will build up to quite a nice sum after a bit of time.
So how do the surveys work? Generally you get an email stating that a survey meeting your profile is available to you. You click on the link in the email, and follow the questions. The majority of the surveys are multi choice, and you use your mouse to select what you think.  Survey topics are quite varied, the vast majority being about alcohol, food and technology. They can get a bit boring after a while, but for the most part they aren’t too bad.
A big upside to this is that some of the companies want you to test out their new products, so these get mailed to your door, and you get to test them out, and keep them when the survey is complete! This is quite rare though, but always a treat when you get something new and exciting to test

Below are links to some of new favourite survey sites:

Ciao-Surveys
Globaltestmarket
Lightspeed Panel
Toluna
Valued Opinions
Yougov

If you have any queries, please see the Survey FAQ located here.

Unfortunately this is a common occurrence on the reward sites. The best thing you can do after completing every offer is to clear your cookies. This effectively deletes your browsing history, which helps your offers to get credited. Please check which browser you have below, and follow the instructions.

• Internet Explorer 6 : Click on “Tools” at the top of the screen, then click on “Internet Options” in the drop down box. Look for a “Delete Cookies…” button near the middle of the next window, and click it. Click “OK” on the pop up box. Once you have done that you can go back to the reward site and complete another offer.
• Internet Explorer 8 : Click on “Tools” near the top right of the screen, then click on “Internet Options” in the drop down box. Look for a “Delete” button near the middle of the next window, and click it. make sure the four top boxes are ticket, then click “Delete”. Once you have done that you can go back to the reward site and complete another offer.
• Firefox 3.x :Click on “Tools” at the top of the browser, then click on “Clear Recent History…” in the drop down menu. You can select the time range, and this will depend on how long the previous reward took you to complete. Click “Clear Now”, and then you can go onto the next offer.
• Opera 9 & 10 : Click on “Tools” at the top of the screen, then click on “Delete Private Data” in the drop down box. Click the “Delete” button on the next menu. Once you have done that you can go back to the reward site and complete another offer.

2. The offers on the reward sites take so long to complete. Isn’t there an easier way to do them?

Yes there is, although I am not 100% sure if this method is approved or not by the reward sites. As far as I am aware, there is no way to tell if a person is using automated software or not.
Download and install Roboform on your computer. This is a automated form filling software, which will fill in all your personal details at the click of a button. It greatly speeds up the process of doing reward offers.
Roboform works with Internet Explorer and Firefox. It does not currently support Opera or Google Chrome. All it does is install a toolbar in your webbrowser, and when you come to a form that requires your personal details, you click your roboform button, and it does it for you. Very nifty!
You will of course have to fill in your personal details when setting up the program, but this is a once off thing.
You can find the program here.

3. When doing a offer, I have the option of signing up, or skipping them. Must I sign up for every single offer for my account to be credited?

No, certainly not. Generally the way the offers work is like this:  you get a startup page (which you must complete), then you get x amount of “additional” offer pages. You do not have to sign up for any of the additional offers, though i generally do 1 or 2 to be on the safe side. Normally the is a “skip” or “not thanks” button at the very bottom right of the page.