Times are tough, and everyone is looking for ways to bring in a little extra money. It’s tough to figure out which methods work, and which don’t, but we’re here to help you sort it all out.

Contrary to popular belief, you can actually make some money doing online surveys and responding to email promotion offers, just not a lot of it. Small tasks like this bring in small amounts of money, but if you’re just looking to spend a little bit of time every day working towards making some extra spending money, surveys are a great way to go about it. We highly recommend treating small tasks as something of a holiday fund. If you do a lot of surveys throughout the year, and put the money they bring in aside, you might find you have a nice chunk of spending money for your next vacation.

There are a lot of opportunities for an aspiring writer to make some money online. Many sites will provide writing jobs if you can show some proficiency as a wordsmith. You’ll usually have to submit a resume, or a writing sample, so be prepared to show some credentials. Once you’re in with one of these sites, they’ll provide gigs on a regular basis. The pay isn’t always tip top, but if you can turnaround the work quickly, it will definitely be worth your time.

Signing up for Amazon and Ebay affiliate programs can also bring in a nice chunk of change. You’ll need a little bit of web design skill for this one, but the investment in time is worth the yield. Set up a site with good information about a wide variety of products, and place Ebay and Amazon ads for those products on the site. For each person that buys the product, you’ll get a small percentage of the sale. This also works through a twitter account, just be careful not to come across as being spammy.

Setting up a full fledged affiliate site takes a lot more time and research than the above-mentioned Amazon and Ebay method, but the yield is worth the work. By doing some research on what companies have high paying affiliate programs, and what questions people have about their products, you can create a highly effective site that markets products to the people that are looking for them.

Some advertisers offer Pay Per Click programs, where (as the name implies) you get paid each time someone clicks on one of your ads. The pay out is usually small, and advertisers often have very specific terms and conditions dictating how you can use their ads. If you have a high traffic website in place already, PPC ads can put a little extra cash in your pocket, just make sure you’re following the rules.

There are other ways to make money online, these are just some of the more popular ones. Before diving into any of the above mentioned methods, or something we didn’t cover, be sure to do some research. Remember, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. If you do your homework, and work diligently, you’ll find yourself with a full fledged second income in no time.