Taking online surveys is a method of making money online that requires hardly any skill, and therefore it's the easiest method to start with. The only things you need are computer, internet connection and basic typing skills. There are no chances of becoming rich with online surveys, but there could be a possibility to honestly maintain yourself, or have some extra money. You may be satisfied with that or you may use it temporarily for maintaining yourself while learning the required skills for having a more profitable online business. 

Here are some important things that you should know before starting making money with online surveys:  

First thing is that you don't want to pay in order to take a survey – you want to be paid. There are some online membership sites that offer you a one-time or a yearly paid membership in order to take surveys online. They generally do not stand behind their promises and they are not the companies that pay you anyway. These membership websites only have a data base of survey companies that you can get to by yourself with a simple search on a search engine. They actually don't save you any time with their database, because you will have to check every survey company by yourself, whether it is from their data base or with your search results.Therefore save your money and use free search engine.

 Second thing is to open a special email address only for the online surveys purpose. It will be easier for you to work in this way, having everything in order in one place. Moreover it will protect your private email address in case the survey companies will share your email address with some third parties. 

Third thing, there are four questions that you would like to answer before subscribing to a survey company: First question is how the online survey company pays for taking a survey. Some pay with checks, some through paypal, and some in other ways. See if the way the payment is processed fits you. The second question is how much the company pays for taking a survey.  Some have more or less a fix price for taking a survey or participating in a focus group, others will only give you a chance to participate in a draw, and still others will offer you a prize instead of payment. Now, when you see a survey membership sites, they tell you that you will be paid something between $5-$25 or so (some even advertise higher payments), generally the survey companies will offer you much less. Don't think that you got to the wrong place, that's just what it is, and whoever tells you differently lies to you in order to get you to sign up. The third question is if you are a legitimate subscriber. You can find the answer for that in the terms of use or Frequently Asked Question. The last question is if there are geographic or other limitations on participation. For instance there are websites that offer surveys for participants from the U.S. and Canada, others are more limited, just to a certain region, others are only for professionals of a certain field, others are only for parents etc. Most survey companies are limited for residents of the U.S. and Canada, so if you don't live there, you may not be offered enough surveys to maintain yourself by taking online surveys.  

Subscribe to as many survey companies as possible, but see that you fit for their requirements and that they fit yours. Last thing is that in order to be profitable, you have to develop a method that will help you to take the survey as fast as possible, so that you can take as many surveys as possible. There is software that keeps your details (like Roboform), but if you don't want to buy it, then you can keep the repeated details you're asked for in a file on your computer, and then copy and paste them into the survey form. 

As you can see you will have to do some research and preparation work, but after this initial work of researching and subscribing is done, you will be able to make some money just by taking online surveys.