Surveys can be a great way to earn some extra money online, while also helping businesses to improve their products and services. If you enjoy filling out surveys to earn money, then there are other ways you can use the internet to either make or save money. Here are some great ideas for you.
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Cashback Sites
Cashback sites are an adapted concept that started in the early 2000s. “Get Paid To” (GPT) sites sprung up all over the internet, many using the same Cash Crusader software. The concept was that advertisers would pay the site to send them traffic, and you could earn a share of this by clicking on a link that paid you $0.01 in exchange for viewing the site for around 30 seconds.
Most of these sites are now gone, as most people didn’t bother signing up or buying any of the products offered by the advertisers. Cashback sites, on the other hand, offer users the opportunity to earn more money and have value for the advertisers.
There are usually two ways you can make money here. The first is to get cashback (a rebate) on products and services you buy through the site. Many major online retailers offer cashback as part of their marketing, including major sites like eBay and Amazon.
The other way is more similar to surveys. You can be paid for signing up to websites, filling out surveys, or even completing a comparison search on sites that help you save money on flights, car hire, and insurance.
Free Entertainment
The internet offers endless ways to be entertained for free, whether it’s playing games, watching videos, or listening to music. If you need to save money, these free alternatives to other paid services are a great way to slash your monthly spending.
If you enjoy playing games and want to try something new, why not pick a free-to-play game instead of buying one? There’s a broad range of games that you don’t have to pay for, including the massively multiplayer online game World of Tanks which lets you control a realistic tank and battle others. Alternatively, there’s PokerStars, a free-to-play poker game that lets you take on other players in games and tournaments from your mobile or computer.
For music lovers, there are plenty of streaming services, including Spotify, Deezer, and Amazon Music. While there are paid versions, most offer ad-supported free accounts with less functionality. You can also find a lot of music for free on YouTube.
Then there’s also video streaming. Companies like Netflix offer cheap subscriptions that allow you to watch as much of their content as you like, for a single monthly fee. Plenty of these platforms also offer free trials, so you can jump from one to the other, using the free trial as you go. When you run out, there are still platforms like YouTube that have plenty of free content you can watch on almost any device.
Start a Blog
Blogging is a popular hobby for many people, who often use their own website to discuss their favorite topics, their travels, or other personal stuff. For some, running a blog is just a fun way to document their life. For others, it’s a business.
If you can build up enough traffic to your website you can begin to monetize it by placing ads on pages, publishing sponsored posts, or including affiliate links that earn you a commission every time someone makes a purchase.
It’s a lot of work to turn a blog into an asset that turns a big enough income for you to live off it, but if it doesn’t grow that much, it can still be a great side hustle that supplements your income from other work.
You may not make a lot of money, but you may find that some brands will send you free products in exchange for featuring them on your site. If that is the case, then you could keep what you receive, or you could sell it to get some cash.
If you’re not very technically minded, you could use social media instead, although you may be more limited to your monetization methods this way.
There are plenty of ways we can use the internet to help our finances. While none may ultimately be huge money-spinners, they can still help.