Times are getting tougher with the economic downturn. The recent credit crunch is one of the most serious financial crisis in recent times, and that has gotten many people worried. Employees are worried about losing their jobs and not being able to meet their mortgage payments or meet their bills. Business owners are worried about nose-diving profits. Entrepreneurs are worried about not being able to raise the capital that they need for their start-ups. After all, banks have gotten a lot more cautious about who they lend their money to these days.

Fortunately, in times of crisis, there are still abundant opportunities available. For example, someone losing a job may be able to spend time upgrading his or her skills. The individual may even come upon a new opportunity that may help replenish the loss of income.

Online surveys.

Online surveys are regularly conducted by established companies and institutions. This is an opportunity for anyone who would like to make some extra money to get over the tough times ahead. An online survey may be conducted by a government agency to get opinions, or it may be conducted by a business to get consumer feedback. Such surveys are usually outsourced to professional survey companies who specialize in conducting surveys. These companies are also known as survey panels.

Getting to know survey panels.

There are many survey panels available online. When you join a survey panel, what actually happens is that you join their database of consumers. You will be required to reveal some personal information about yourself such as age, gender, and country of residence. When the opportunity arises, and your profile matches that of the survey requirements, you will be asked to complete a survey online.

Every survey will have its own rules and instructions. Be sure to be clear about the instructions before proceeding. You will be paid a sum of money, usually in the range of $20 to $80 for completing the survey. The amount depends on several factors such as the length of the survey and the number of participants. For example, if you belong to a high income group, you may be paid higher, since it’s more difficult to obtain opinions from people in that income group.

How to complete surveys.

Read all questions carefully and give honest answers. Some questions may be optional, so you may skip those if you like. If you fill in bogus responses for the survey, you may risk not getting paid. Usually, there is no time limit for completing a survey. A survey can take up an hour to four hours of your time. You can make a guess as to the amount of time required to complete a survey based on the number of questions.

Beware of scams.

This is unfortunate but some websites offer bogus survey sites that do not actually pay you. These are sites that you want to avoid. The best way to determine if a site is legitimate or not is to search for reviews on community sites. If reviews are positive, you may then wish to join as a member and earn some extra income.

Photography is indeed a hard money-making profession. With the horizons of Internet now open to selling your best photographs to online buyers, it has given tremendous boost to young photographers to take the lead and use Internet as a potential money-making platform. However, considering the competition, there is no space for an amateur photographer to thrive in this online photography selling business. So, if you are confident on your proficient photography skills, here is a lowdown on the sites where you can sell your photographs.

First and foremost, look for stock photography sites. These are popular sites who invite young talents to stock their best art pieces and photographs with them. Now these photographs are viewed by potential visitors belonging to varied walks of life like, web designing, interior designing, editing, advertising et al. If they are impressed by the photograph, they download it for free. The main advantage of these sites that entice a lot of art lovers is the free download option which enables them to search and save the best piece of art for them. However, the site seeks around 50 %-70% of commission as compensation against every download.

Some of the most visited stock photography sites include, iStockphoto, Stockexpert, Fotolia, Crestock and Dreamstime. iStockphoto is one of the most popular pick by many photographers owing to its great reputation ever since its existence in 2001. It boasts a higher traffic due a vast stock of fascinating photographs and pictures of experienced photographers. This means that stocking your photograph on this site would ensure it being exposed and viewed by a wide belt of targeted audience like web designers, advertisers etc.

Stockexpert is yet another sought-after site visited for its reputable stock of photographs. The site is popular owing to its considerably low-priced photographs open for sale for both the stockexchange team as well as the wide-spread online consumers. The rest of the sites have the same underlining function, however, their terms and modes of payment to the artists may vary. All these sites just offer you a free sign-up form to access its membership and apart from free downloading options, some facilitate the option of reviewing photographs by online visitors.

Other than the above mentioned sites, there are some other sites that offer entertaining modes to market your photographs. Sites like Cafepess, Phototrade give you the opportunity of embedding your pictures on mugs, T-shirts and other accessible items to sell your photographs in unique and attractive modes. You may also come across sites that seek membership payment from you and in return access viable marketing tools to attract hits from targeted visitors across the globe. Shutterpoint is one such paid site that demands a requisite member fees ranging $19 to $49, depending on the kind of membership availed.

However, one most imperative point to remember before you take this plunge is that stock photography would not lead to instant success. Also, you have to match the level of art theses sites have maintained so as to seek their membership. Your art has to be indisputable, there is no room for casual family clicked photographs in this arena.