Making Money on the Internet - It's NOT all Hype

By: Steven Walters

There has never been a better time than now to start making money through the internet. The opportunities are vast and you can take advantage of many of them easily. No matter if you are a student, a stay at home mom or an entrepreneurial spirit looking for a second income there are ways for you to make some money in your free time.

I'm sure you've seen all the ads claiming you can make money doing data entry from home. The claims are that you can make hundreds of dollars a day doing simple typing and data entry from home. I've seen claims of up to $1200 a day! When you think about it you just know that no one is going to pay you that kind of money just to type for them? If you look deeper you'll see that most of these websites want you to pay for an ebook that explains how to use Google AdWords to place ads and make money selling affiliate products. They are trying to take advantage of you!

Don't let them take advantage of you this way. There are legitimate ways to earn money from the web without paying anyone or even giving up your email address. If you have a little time to invest you can create a nice little stream of income right from the comfort of your own home.

There are plenty of companies out there willing to pay you for getting involved with them. You can get paid for all of the following activities:

• Get paid to accept offers
• Get paid to read emails
• Get paid to take surveys
• Get paid to play games
• Get paid to shop

I know that these strategies work because I've been using them myself to make a nice little additional monthly income for the past year. Many online businesses want you to visit their sites and use their services. They are often rewarded for their traffic by advertisers and they pass along part of that money to you.

Of course some of these ideas work better than others.

If you want to get paid well to read emails or play games you should have a large list of contacts you can recruit to do the same as the majority of your money will be made through referring others.

You'll find that the same is true for getting paid to accept offers. Often you are required to get others to also sign up and accept the same offer before you can get your incentive so it helps to have a large contact list to recruit.

If you like to shop and live in the right area then a mystery shopping company may be the right online job for you. I live in a medium sized city and the volume of offers is sufficient to make some good money. Of course you have to enjoy shopping and you have to have transportation to get to the shopping sites.

Personally I have had the most success and the most fun by taking online surveys. The best strategy is to sign up for as many of these companies as possible so you receive the most and the best offers.

Basically, companies need to know what their customers think of their products and services in order to improve them. These companies have known for a long time that the best way to get information is through consumer surveys, however in the past they were very expensive to conduct.

The internet has made it much easier and cost effective for companies to conduct consumer research through surveys and focus groups. This has led to the creation of online companies whose sole purpose is to create the surveys for other companies and distribute them. The online survey company gets paid for collecting information and they share part of this payment with you for providing the information. A true win-win situation since you are both making money.

So, don't waste your time with data entry or similar work at home schemes. While you are trying to beat out the professional AdWords marketers you could be making a good income today by voicing your opinion. Many of the survey companies offer cash bonuses just to sign up.