by Sarah Heller

Created on: October 04, 2009

Providing incentives for people to share opinions about a business's products or services began in the 1950s as advertisers began to assemble focus groups. Today, ads to take surveys online and get paid are all over the internet, and many surveys, research panels and focus groups are looking for members. Taking surveys isn't a full time job, and it won't bring in hundreds of dollars a month, but you can make a small amount of supplemental income off of it.

To start, look for legitimate market research companies. A lot of online advertisements link to pages advertising products or pages that install spyware or viruses on a computer. Worse, some advertisements claim that you can earn a living from taking surveys, or that you need to pay for special training. Legitimate market research companies will tell you to expect to make no more than $10 a month from a single site, and no legitimate company will charge money. If you're looking for good companies, try Greenfield Online, Carol Adams (at mysurvey.com), NPDOR, and HarrisPoll.

Companies will allow anyone to sign up and fill out a demographic survey, but it is the answers on that demographic survey that determine how many and what type of surveys, panels, and product tests you will qualify for. Generally, these companies are hired by clients who want to market their products to young people with a good amount of disposal income. Being between the ages of 18 and 45 with an annual income over $45,000 is usually the group that qualifies to take the most surveys. Being male can help a lot, too. Men typically are less likely to sign up for surveys, making their product tests and info panels more lucrative as these companies try to sign people up. Other specialized groups that research companies look for include Hispanics, people with multiple children between the ages of 6 and 12, and very high income earners (that is, people who make over $100,000 a year).

Legitimate companies have been in business for several years, and have spent a lot of time and money on quality control. In other words, they want to make sure that people aren't lying about their demographic information or just checking boxes randomly on the page. Although these companies are usually pretty quiet about their quality control methods, it is not uncommon to be asked the same questions (phrased differently, of course) while taking a survey. Also expect to have to resubmit your demographic information every time you take a survey. While you are still

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