photo by -bast-

This is probably the easiest way to make money online for students or for that fact anyone.

Take a survey get rewarded in cash or credits that you can exchange for vouchers. Sounds too easy, but not all paid surveys sites are well paid. So I thought I would today discuss my opinion of 3 major players within the UK market and how I’ve done.

Toluna

This was the last one I signed up for, but has been the best so far. As well as surveys there is an active community site where you can earn points as well. Generally surveys take between 5 and 30 min’s to complete they are well rewarded and the frequency I am offered surveys to complete is often very good, generally several a week. Even surveys I’m not in the target audience for, often give a small reward of points.

Points can be exchanged for vouchers such as for Sainsbury’s or HMV. For example at the moment 30,000 points converts to a £5 voucher for Sainsbury’s. Hopefully one should be arriving on my door mat in the next couple of days.

Valued Opinions

This one is all in cash, minimum payout is £10 in the form of a voucher, at the moment this includes Tesco, Argos, Amazon plus more. Also you can donate your earnings to charities including British Red Cross and WWF. I receive surveys less frequently than Toluna but they are often better payed. Also pricing is much clearer as there are no points to convert. But unlike Toluna if you are are not part of the target audience or they have as many responses as they were looking for, you are compensated with a ‘prize draw ticket’, a little bit of a drawback. But relative with my earnings for Toluna they’re not far behind.

YouGov

The first I signed up to, also probably better known because their surveys are often used in newspapers and television. Also available to American visitors (the other two I’m not sure about). It works on the same basis as Valued Opinions except payout is £50 but in cash (by cheque). The drawback, well I’m lucky to see a survey every fortnight, the reward is often ok, but at this rate it may take me a year and a half to reach that £50. Unlike the other two it has a referral system, for anyone you refer you earn an equivalent amount to what they earn in the first 3 months. Although it is the survey site I have found to be least effective.

So what happens.

Well you sign up, probably the longest part as you are asked for various details, so you can be asked to surveys applicable to you. This can lead to some being asked to more or less surveys, but that’s the luck of the draw. Once signed up you will be emailed about any opportunities with the amount of reward you recieve, complete the survey and you are away. But don’t expect much, it is best described as pocket money than a serious income, but you may enjoy it!

In conclusion I recommend Toluna although, Valued Opinions are not far behind.

Best of luck,

Martyn.

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photo by Daniel Morris

Initially my plan was to get off the ground as quickly as possible, but as with many new blogs I put little thought into the direction I was taking. In many ways I jumped in with my eyes shut. So learning to blog effectively has been a steep learning curve, but worth it.

Now I have decided to try and push this blog to the next level by modifying a ‘off the shelf’ theme to personalise it, make it unique and most importantly give a professional look to this blog.

But most importantly I am trying to differentiate this blog from the thousands of ‘Make Money Online’ blogs that have appeared over the last 5 years or so, hence this market has become so overcrowd with blogs that regurgitate the same material week in, week out.

For me this is still an exciting experiment and testing ground for future projects, but one thing I have learnt is you are not going to become rich overnight. You also need to put a lot of hard work in to get anywhere / get noticed.

So what’s changing?

• Martyn’s Blog will become Money Making Student, nothing wrong with ‘Martyn’s Blog’ but it sounds to much like a personal blog about life in general. Money Making Student is more concise and to the point.
• Theme is personalised and more professionally looking, although not finalised, I plan to tinker with it over the next couple of weeks, bear with me it could get messy. If you have any suggestions or criticism please let me know!
• Personalised domain name, the current address is clumsy and was only planned as a stop gap. The gap seemed to have got very big!
• More adverts, hopefully I don’t end up giving the impression of a free ads newspaper, but by placing the ‘useful’ stuff on the left and ads on the right, I won’t confuse or mislead anyone intentionally!

Any feedback is most welcome, I discuss the changes in more depth once I have completed them and visitors and me are happy with the result!

Cheers,

Martyn.

photo by jenn_jenn’s

Welcome to the second money making report, it doesn’t seem long since I did the last one.

Still nothing to shout about, although traffic is increasing, so there is potential to earn money. Any income is a plus at this early stage. Especially since I have not put much effort in over the last month.

So my earnings so far -

Adsense

So far earned: $6.72 (approx £3.36) [+$1.14]

Received: $0

Money4Banners

So far earned: £30 (approx $60) [+£5.00]

Received: £30

As you can see money4banners continues to pay. Also Adsense is till ticking over.

I am currently debating whether I should include earnings from online surveys, or whether I should keep them separate due to them not always paying in cash, vouchers being the common reward.

A post about online surveys is on the way, so I should have decided by then.

Best of luck,

Martyn