Paid surveys are a terrific way to supplement your income and earn prizes, including gift cards, electronics, small appliances and other items. However, not everyone knows how to maximize their income from surveys. This article will give you nine tips to help you get the most out of the time you invest in paid surveys.

Quantity

When you find a good paid survey list, sign up for every possible program that you are qualified for. The more programs you are signed up for, obviously, the more surveys you will receive! Simple as that. Also, keep an eye out for new survey programs and sign up for those too. You can find a good paid survey list at PaidSurvey24.com.

Referrals

Many paid survey programs will offer you the opportunity to refer your family or friends to their program. Often, you'll get points, contest entries or some other type of reward for doing this. You may even get rewarded for any family or friends that they refer! So get referring! This is one of the best ways to increase the rewards you receive from paid surveys!

Reliable Email

This is such an obvious thing, but so many email addresses, especially free email addresses from Hotmail or Yahoo, are not very reliable or have bulk or junk mail filters that may prevent you from receiving survey emails to your inbox. You'll want to be sure that you have a working, reliable email address and that you can receive emails from the survey programs without a problem. You may need to delve into your junk/spam folder to fish out those emails at first and then mark them as not spam or add the domain of the program to your white list or safe senders list. The process of doing this differs with every ISP and email account, so refer to the help or tech support area of your email provider's website.

Family & Pets

When you sign up for a program, they will likely ask you who lives in your household or if you have any children or pets. Be sure to disclose all the other members of your family, including all children, all the pets you have and even any adult friends that may live with you. For every other human or animal in your household that you have, this will further increase chances of you qualifying for, and therefore, receiving a survey. So, remember to disclose everyone in your household!

Accurate Contact Information

You'll also want to make sure that the contact information you give to the survey programs when you sign up is accurate. They need this information to send you surveys, any products for testing and, most importantly, your cash or other rewards! Keep the information up to date as well. It's such a simple thing, but so easily overlooked!

Take Every Survey They Send

Some survey programs will take note if you are taking all or most of your surveys and may increase the amount of surveys they send to you. So take every survey they send, if you can.

Be Prompt

Lots of surveys are time specific, where they may expire by a certain day or reach their quota very quickly. Check your email often, preferrably once a day, and take the surveys as soon as you receive them, if at all possible. Don't assume you can save a survey until later or next week, as the survey may not be available anymore.

Computer Updates

Many surveys require a certain program to be installed on your computer to work properly. The most often required programs are Flash and Java. You should make sure your computer is updated with the latest versions of both programs, so you won't have to download and install any software later on for surveys that require them. Java should be updated when you run Windows Update on your computer, but Flash may need to be downloaded and installed if you don't have it. You can download Flash from Adobe.com.

Helpful Programs

Use auto form fillers such as the one included in the Google Toolbar and Wavget.com's TypeItIn to more quickly fill in your contact and address information when signing up for paid surveys and for surveys that require you to fill in this information again or separately. These programs can save you a lot of time.

Using these tips, you should be able to get the most out of the time you invest in survey taking! Good luck!