First you must get a list of online companies that are in need of your opinions. This task will take a lot of hard work on your part, some people will start to give up at this point, because they are not yet making any money.
Doing a search on Yahoo for the phrase online paid surveys or free paid surveys will get you a large list of online companies, giving the claims that you can make a lot of money doing surveys online. Wait a minute, lets get real here. For starters, you could be taking a small amount of money paid per survey. You might be getting paid only $1 to $5 per survey you take. Do the math. What is amount of surveys you need to do to make thousand or even just hundreds of dollars. If you are looking for fast cash online, this is not it.
Then why would anyone do them? While this is not a way to get rich, you can still make money doing surveys. You can schedule to do them in your spare time. Doing surveys will allow you to pick what surveys you want to do. If you are in it for the long haul, you will learn and the ups and downs of the industry. This takes time, but again you control your schedule and the harder your work the more you will earn.
If you want to get started faster, find yourself a reputable database company. With a little research, you can see how long they have been in business. If time is not an issue for you, find your own companies online, to do surveys for. All that is required is a internet connection and some investigating. If you don't want to waste any time then use a database company like survey scout. Like any business they want to get paid themselves, the small one time fee is a small price to pay for all the information you will be provided.
Let's finalize, we have talked about whether you can make money and how fast doing paid surveys. It comes down to effort and skills like any business. Mostly online surveys are not hard to complete. Actually getting them and getting started can be.