Don’t want to pay a hefty fee to get access to a paid survey directory? You don’t have to because you can find free paid survey websites at no cost to you using nothing but the internet. By following the steps below, you will be able to find many legitimate survey websites that will pay you cash for taking surveys online.

Ready to grow your list of legitimate survey sites?

Step 1 – Open a blank Word document. If you don’t have Word, just use any text editor that is installed on your computer.

Step 2 – Open your web browser, go to Google or Bing and search for a list of paid survey websites. Start with a query like this: “List of legitimate free survey sites.”

Step 3 – Review the search results and visit a few sites to see which survey panels they recommend. Copy the names of each survey panel that you find attractive and paste them into your Word document.

This should take you between 10 and 20 minutes. Don’t spend too much time on this step because at this point, you’re just trying to see what’s out there. Once you have 20-30 survey companies on your list, you can move on to the next step.

Step 4 – Now, you need to do another search. Take the first survey company on your list and type it into Google followed by the word “review.” Your query should look like this: “ABCSurveys Review”.

You will be presented with websites that have been reviewed by that particular survey company. Read the reviews on some of the sites you find and see what others are saying about the company.

However, don’t take them too seriously because some reviews may be biased or false. What you want to pay special attention to are negative comments. What kind of complaints do you see? Do others complain about the same things? If you feel that the negative feedback outweighs the positive feedback the business received, remove the site from your list and move on to the next site.

Step 5 – If the negative feedback didn’t bother you too much, your next step would be to look for proof of payment. If you saw some recent paid proofs while checking reviews, you can skip this step. If you didn’t, go ahead and write the name of the survey company followed by proof of payment.

You may want to use Google images for this search query for better results. You’re looking for recent pay stubs: checks or PayPal payments that were sent within the last year. A survey panel that paid in 2006 may still not be legitimate today, so look for recent proof of payment.

If you can find any, continue to the next step. If you didn’t find any, please reflect on the reviews you read. Did people say they were paid by this company? Sometimes you may not find a proof of payment, but the survey company sends the payments. Some people don’t post the payments they receive, and sometimes, though not often, it’s against a survey site’s terms to post proof of pay.

In cases where you don’t have proof that they pay, you should use your best judgment to determine if the site is worth trying. If necessary, do some more research on the company. Find out what their BBB rating is by visiting their Twitter profile or Facebook page and see what feedback, if any, the company has received from those who talk about their experiences with the survey panels on the discussion forums.

Step 6 – After searching for proof of payment, it’s time to visit the website directly to check out a few things. When you get to the website, you should see if they have a Terms, FAQ, and Privacy Policy page. If they do, great! Please go ahead and read those pages to see how the site works, how they handle your personal information, and whether or not you meet the member eligibility requirements.

If the site doesn’t have a privacy policy or Terms of Use agreement, you should probably cross that site off your list. You should know in advance how they use the information you provide them and what their terms are. If they don’t release this information publicly, they probably have something to hide and it’s probably not a good thing.

Step 7 – If you have determined that the company is a legitimate survey website worth joining, go for it. Become a member.

Step 8 – Now all you need to do is repeat steps 1-7 for the remaining survey companies on your list.

It’s a long process but you only need to do it once. Once you belong to 10-20 genuine survey companies, you can start taking surveys with confidence and earn money.