To understand the nature of paid surveys, you have to first have a decent understanding of how taking surveys online works. Anytime a new product is developed, there are teams of people hired to study and evaluate the target market (or segment of the buying public) the product will be sold to. For instance, let's say you have just invented the world's first automatic putter. You know that golfers are more than likely the people that will be purchasing your putter. So you hire a marketing company to create an advertising campaign for your putter with the golf industry as your target market.

Now it's their job to seek out golfers and question them about their buying habits, preferences, etc. This is where you (and the general public) come in. You have previously joined a survey panel because your friend told you about them. After you registered, they may have asked you a series of questions, one of them being "do you golf?", and since you answered "Yes", you check your email inbox and see that a company putting out a new putter is conducting a survey. Do you take the survey? Well, that is up to you; if you do, you may get to try the putter and keep it when you're done. Or maybe you'll earn a couple dollars for taking that survey, or points that you can redeem for cash or merchandise.

Okay, now you should have a fair understanding about paid surveys. Now you see how you can earn money online taking surveys. The previous example showed how you can get emails inviting you to take a survey, sent from one market research company. The whole key to success is understanding that it's all a numbers game. Being on that particular research company's survey panel gave you the opportunity to earn a little bit of money, or a free gift. Now, think about what would happen if you were registered with more than that 1 survey panel...you would increase your chances of participating in many different surveys because remember, you're very unique as an individual. You may golf, mountain bike, read, swim, eat corn, drink milk, use a certain type of hand lotion, drive a certain type of car or buy a specific brand of shampoo. Understanding why your single opinion is so valuable is key to understanding how paid surveys work.

Now that you're hip to the market research game, you may want to sign up for a couple panels and try it out. You can do so by going to any search engine and typing in "paid surveys" or "taking surveys online" and find thousands of links to various websites, some containing valuable information and some with ads and links to other pages. As long as you remember that it's 100% free to join any survey panel. Do not ever pay to give your opinion. However, there are paid survey programs that charge a fee to access their paid survey panel directories, and understanding how these work is important, too. Basically, these companies have created listings of *almost* all of the survey panels available. I say *almost* because there are always new and emerging companies that have survey panels being added all the time. Anyway, they charge you a one-time fee, usually around $35, for unlimited access to their list. Between the convenience and the low price, a lot of people have turned to this type of service rather than search around on their own. The legitimate paid survey programs will have a money back refund gaurantee and update their list frequently, so if you do choose this route, make sure to look for both of those things.

And now the biggest question - Are they scams? If you put in "paid survey scams" in any search engine, you'll find many comments about these programs being scams and how people got ripped off. I would say that if someone felt ripped off, it's probably because their expectations we're high and the knowledge about what they were paying for was low. They wanted to make money for doing nothing. So many people think that they are paying to sign up for every panel on the list, when in fact they only bought the information on the list. They still have to go through the registration process for all of the panels, and most people don't realize that. The confusion leads to feeling ripped off, etc. If you go into it knowing exactly what you're getting, you won't be disappointed.

Well, there you go. A crash course into taking paid online surveys. If you do wish to sign up with a paid survey program, the best one seems to be Survey Sun. It's the one program with the least amount of refund requests. They also have other work at home opportunities listed that they include, for free.

Good luck and have fun!

This article was written by Gus Garcia, owner of PaidSurveyChoices.com, a free to use website featuring paid survey information and resources.

Please visit the website for more paid survey information and links to the top 3 paid survey programs.