Top Online Surveys Review

A while ago I did some posts about paid online surveys and whether or not you can make money from them. Well, I thought it was a good time to have a look at the top online surveys that I've been using and see how they perform.

As some people know, I am a meticulous record keeper. I keep excel spreadsheets of everything, especially things like how much money I make from paid online surveys. I have signed up with two of the top online surveys that I could find, simply from an academic point of view. They were "Paid Surveys Online" and "Survey Scout". After doing each for at least a month, I came up with these numbers:


Let me explain. First, the lowest paid survey for each was $5. I started up with Survey Scout after doing Paid Surveys Online for a few weeks before. This spreadsheet is just for the month of August. My remarks on each of these top online survey programs are:

1. $773 isn't a lot of cash in the states, but I probably spend 2-3 hours doing surveys a day (but usually less). Converted to South African Rands, this turns into R5,411, which was enough to pay for my rent, groceries and household expenses for a month, as well as keep me in the good kind of Jack Daniels.

2. The Survey Scout paid surveys were more boring than the Paid Surveys Online surveys, but they went faster. The Paid Surveys Online surveys were a bit longer, but tended to be more entertaining to complete.

3. The longer you stay with each, the better you get paid. I haven't been with either for very long.

4. They both have bonuses for joining. Paid Surveys Online send you a $20 survey right away, making you back more than half your $34.95 signup fee, while Survey Scout only start charging you after 8 weeks (I still haven't paid them a cent)

5. If you live outside of the US it is possible to make a lot of money doing surveys only a few hours a day. You could easily make this your full time living if you lived in South Africa, The Philippines, Malaysia, India or any other country with a "developing economy"

So what's my verdict on the top online surveys?

Well, as usual I'm a little divided. I say if you have a bit more time and you want to actually enjoy taking surveys online, go for Paid Surveys Online.

If you just want to do a few quick surveys whenever you feel like it and are a little bit skeptical of the whole online paid surveys thing, go for Survey Scout

Technorati Tag:Top Online Surveys

Get Featured to Increase Organic Traffic Free!

Calling all blog owners out there! If you have a blog or a website and you want more people to see it, why don't you put it up on Fechr.com? (Pronounced Feature).

Fechr.com is a new concept in web advertising that is just starting up. At the moment they are receiving a few hundred unique visitors a day, and so having your blog featured on Fechr.com for a whole day is absolutely free. Once they are getting more traffic they will put the price up to $5, $10 or even $15 per submission!

What happens is that when you go to Fechr.com you see a blog - for me it was Bloggrrl.com - with a tiny Fechr.com nav bar at the top. The featured blogs are replaced with a new blog or website every 24 hours.

Now, these sites do have a tendency to become "bad neighborhoods" - networks of sites that basically share traffic and exploit internet users. However, Fechr.com have a human-review system and they reserve the right not to feature your blog or website if it is low quality, offensive or just ugly.

So if you want to increase your traffic and you're not too proud to be featured on a new website, give Fechr.com a try - it's free!

Technorati Tag: Increase Traffic

Write Answers and Build Your Writing Reputation!

If you're looking for a way to build your reputation as a writer and you some time to kill, Yahoo! Answers is worth checking out. First, have a look at Danielle's bit about Yahoo! Answers ( it's the reason I was reminded to go have a look at it).

The deal is the same as the now defunct Google Ask, or whatever it was called, except you don't get paid. There are a few things that make this a really good place to sit and write answers though.

Apart from self-promotion (which Danielle reminds us is not the purpose of Yahoo! Answers), this is a great place to share your knowledge about things you are an expert in. As you answer questions and provide useful information for users, your reputation as an expert will increase.

If you run a business or a blog about a certain subject, or you are a freelance writer, this is where you can really show off your stuff. The pages will be indexed by Google, and you may link back to your site from it, but the links will not increase your Google PageRank.

However, the links you put in will give you some traffic, and if you keyword optimize your answers they will have high Google rankings for a short period of time. If other sites pick up your answers to use as content, this will give you permanent backlinks which will increase your link popularity.

As a writer, this is an excellent place to build your reputation as a writer of some expertise on a certain subject. If you know something about anything and you want to use that knowledge to build a reputation as a writer and an expert, check out Yahoo! Answers

Technorati Tag: yahoo answers

Just In: I Have the Power of Schmooze!

I am proud to announce that WriteNonsense has received its first blogging award!

Danielle at Pinkhatseo.info has awarded me the "Power of Schmooze" award. To quote from her page, the Power of Schmooze award is:

"an award to recognize those people that were exceptionally adept at creating relationships with other bloggers by making an effort to be part of a conversation, as opposed to a monologue"

Thank you very much Danielle, and Mike of Things By Mike who designed the award badge! It'll go up in my sidebar and be treasured forever as my first blogging award!

Speaking of which, go and register at Blogger's Choice Awards to vote for your favorite blogs.

Review - Deborah Ng's Freelance Writing Jobs

There are a lot of blogs about writing, but one of them is actually useful. Deborah Ng's "Freelance Writing Jobs" is one of the elite online writing studios at WritersRow.com. Freelance Writing Jobs started as a blog about the writing life and a resource for writers, but it has grown into its own bustling community.

I first subscribed to Deborah Ng's "Freelance Writing Jobs" feed because of her incredible writing jobs board. What she does is she scans Craigslist for all the best freelance writing jobs that you can do online. She claims to never post any freelance writing jobs that pay less than $20 per article - and Deborah should know because she's one of the most well-paid freelance writers and reviewers around.

Apart from her writing jobs you can also find a selection of blogging jobs, as well as daily commentary on how to write better, make more money writing articles and where all the best writing gigs are to be found.

If you are an aspiring freelance writer or you want to perfect your trade, Deborah Ng's "Freelance Writing Jobs" is essential daily reading.

Technorati Tag: Deborah Ng

Increase Your Technorati Rank & Authority

On the July 24th, 2 weeks after starting this blog, my Technorati rank was 2,312,988. Since then it has risen to 876,360, and it is climbing higher every day. I have also managed to achieve 7 Technorati Authority, which I think is pretty good.

How did I manage to increase my Technorati rank and my Technorati Authority so quickly? Here are my quick tips and tricks on how to increase your Technorati rank:

1. Search Technorati, Find Friends

The first thing you need to do is search Technorati for blogs similar to your own. Find posts that are about issues your blog deals with. Post a comment on these blogs, adding something useful to the conversation. This creates a link to your blog, and is the best direct way to increase your Technorati rank.

2. Favorite Blogs You Like.

This will show up on the blogs' owners' profiles, and they will notice your blog and check it out.

3. Review Other Blogs

Check out my Review of DayJobNuker, then write your own interesting review of a related blog that you like. Drop them a line, letting them know about your review. With luck, they will post a link to it, and this will increase your Technorati rank and your Technorati Authority

4. Post Every Day, Dammit!

You hear it over and over again, but the only sure fire way to get anywhere in blogging is to post to your blog every day. If you just do this, you are guaranteed to increase your technorati rank.

5. Link to Other Blogs

Technorati is all about Link Love. If you want to increase your technorati rank, spread the love. Check out Danielle's Pink Internet Marketing Blog to see the Mistress of Link Love at work.

Please remember to Add My Blog to Your Technorati Favorites. Leave a comment saying you've done so and I'll add you to mine!


Technorati Tag: Technorati Rank

Advice on Writing – 5 SEO Writing Mistakes

Your writing is a product, and the better you make that product the more money you can make from it, and the better your chances of getting a good job writing. Here are 5 common writing mistakes that you need to know about. Focusing on avoiding these mistakes is essential if you want to improve skill. Writing all will-nilly won’t get you anywhere.

1. Don’t Write Articles in One big paragraph

In academic writing you write in long paragraphs. For online writing gigs, nobody cares – write short paragraphs that take less than 10 seconds to read! The average internet user gets bored of what they are looking at after 10 seconds and moves on.

2. Avoid Excessive Formatting

Don’t, just don’t, use bold, italicized and underlined text in the same article. Use simple subheadings in bold or a font size larger, but don’t let the text itself draw attention! It’s the words that are important.

3. Keep Your Writing Business like

If you are writing a blog, you can write with slang. For website writing gigs you need to keep your spelling, grammar and word choice perfect.

4. Clarity, Clarity, Clarity!

If there is one thing Ron Irwin (my writing teacher at varsity) taught me, it was to write clearly. Use short sentences and the simples words you can find. Don’t use big synonyms if a more widely-understood word will do.

5. Try Not to Sound Like a Salesman

Your readers can smell a sales pitch a mile away, and so can clients. The ideal SEO writing strikes a balance between conversational writing and business writing, a mixture of information and praise.

If you have any writing tricks or tips on how to improve your writing skill, post them as a comment!

In the mean time, here are some related posts to keep you going:

- Write Without Sounding Like a Salesman

- Easy eBook Writing System

- Get Well Paid Writing Gigs

- How to Get Into Internet Copywriting

Technorati Tag: Advice on Writing

Review - DayJobNuker

I stumbled across DayJobNuker when I was looking for help. I can't remember what it was for, but I'm pretty sure it has something to do with why my feed sometimes looks funny. Anyway I discovered at DayJobNuker some excellent ways to make money online, and a whole lot besides. Here's what I've learnt from DayJobNuker:

1. Bruce Alan hates his job and he wants to Nuke It
2. The nuking will happen in July 2010, exactly 3 years after he started his blog
3. In order to nuke his day job, he needs to figure out ways to replace his income with his online endeavors

The world of internet marketing is complex, abstract and confusing to pretty much everybody, but Bruce invites us all along to figure it out together. His site is based on readership involvement, and he always answers comments and questions if you have them. He tries all the wacky ideas he puts up himself, so you don't end up getting fooled by scams and unworkable schemes. A lot of his master plots you don't even need to have a website for!

What are you waiting for? Click the button to Nuke Your Day Job

Technorati Tag: Make Money Online

Any Nut can Write a Lucrative eBook!

We all see eBooks all over the place. So what makes eBooks different from regular books that you can buy from Amazon.com? Well, from a reader's point of view an eBook usually offers you some advice or practical knowledge. A lot of them promise to teach you how to "make millions exploiting this crazy loophole" - but they don't work. It takes effort to make money online - but the effort is well worth it.

One of the most sure-fire ways to make money online is: write your own eBook! From an author's point of view eBooks require a little work and research, but once they're done they make money forever. If you write an eBook and sell it for $45, let's look at the numbers.

You will probably want to set up your own site. You don't have to know ANYTHING about web design - simply hire someone. Do what I'm doing: offer them a portion of the profits (say 10-15%). A lot of beginners will do it for a case of beer and the prospect of earning a few hundred dollars a month for nothing. Then you have hosting (say $30 per month). So you basically need to sell only one copy to get your money back each month.

Angela Booth says most ebooks will sell 120 copies, even with minimum internet marketing efforts, within a year. At $45 per book, that's $5,400 turn over, less $360 for hosting, THEN less your webmaster's cut. Your're left with over $4,500 a year, at least! There are no other costs, besides perhaps your credit card processing costs. However, these can be negated if you allow your customers to pay via PayPal. or Moneybookers

But most eBooks that are any good sell a lot more than this, and it is not uncommon for eBooks to sell hundreds of copies a month. I'm expecting my Philosophy eBook to sell at least 2,000 copies.

What most people don't know is that writing eBooks is easy and formulaic, and can be done if you have a week to spare. It requires disciplined time management, but finding an idea and writing a book is ridiculously easy. However, you can't just go out on your own and do it - you need expert advice. That's why I most definitely recommend Jim Edwards & Joe Vitale's book:

"How to Write and Publish Your Own eBook in as little as 7 Days".

It'll probably take you more than a week to write an eBook, but the time is well worth it! Take a few days off work, or spend a bit of your summer vacation doing it and you could be making huge profits from your eBook, long after you've stopped working on it!

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How to Get Well Paid Writing Jobs

We all know they're out there: writing jobs that pay in excess of $50 per article. But how do you find article writing jobs like this? Well, the first thing you need to know is that $50 articles are not exactly all over the place. There is little chance of finding a regular supply of several of these articles a day, at least at first.

The best-paid articles are usually for magazines. These don't have to be famous magazines - I did one the other day on an auctioneer for a lesbian lifestyle magazine. And the best part is, you don't even have to go to the magazines to find the work.

All you have to do is find a client who can get this type of writing work. I found one at GetaFreelancer, but you could look on any of the other good writing jobs sites like WriterLance.

Of course, to get well paid writing jobs you have to prove you're worth the money. Find a client who says they are interested in doing magazine and high profile work, and then try to help them find it. Chances are they have a much better chance of getting the gig than you do as a beginner, and you get the experience and most of the money for your articles in the end.

If you want to try find the jobs yourself, have a look at Deborah Ng's writing jobs board - this is where I scout for high-priced jobs for my clients if I want more of this type of work.

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Remember to sign up with Agloco before the first quarter payout to get paid for your surfing hours in cash and shares of a large cap dot.com company!

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