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Are you looking for a new source of revenue to add to your work-from-home income? Have you exhausted your possibilities when it comes to things like online surveys, drop shipping, affiliate marketing, and blogging? If so, get in on the ground floor with free online competitions, a growing work-from-home field that is likely to continue gaining popularity over the next few years. If you get involved now, you could become one of the pioneers of the field, which will help keep you earning for years.
The idea behind this revenue source is simple: by involving yourself in a large number of contests and competitions, you can position yourself to earn cash, gifts, and other rewards just for putting your name in the running. And while there are some great competitions that require some kind of entry fee, there are also hundreds for which entry is free. By figuring out where the competitions are and knowing where and when to enter yourself, you can become a professional competition participant and earn some handsome rewards.
The strategy
Online competitions are similar to online surveys; there are companies that need your participation, whether for marketing or research purposes, and they will enter you into high-reward competitions just for doing your part. Some merely require you to fill out a questionnaire, while others might have you give some information, test a product, or install a piece of software.
When you take each competition on its own, you’re not going to have much chance of winning. But you increase your chances as you become involved in more and more competitions. If you’re one of those people who claims never to have won anything, it’s probably just because you haven’t participated in enough competitions. When you get involved with free online contests, your view will eventually change. Sure, it may take you a little while before you win your first competition, but you will feel quite encouraged when that day comes.
There’s not much to the strategy for entering free competitions online. Just find as many competitions as you are eligible for, and do whatever it takes to enter your name. Of course, there are some competitions that can only take entries from specific people. For example, unless you’re a writer, you’re probably not going to be able to enter a fiction-writing competition. Fortunately, there are many competitions that you can enter without having to have any specific skill. And if you do happen to have a specific skill, then you already have a head start with competitions relating to that skill.
As you find competitions and begin entering them, it helps to keep track of what you have done. Keep a spreadsheet with the names and websites of all the competitions you enter. If possible, also track when the winners are announced, and for recurring competitions be sure to note the date when you can re-enter.
Finding valid competitions
The rising field of free online competitions is like any other field of web business in that there are undoubtedly a good number of scams and misleading services. The good news is that after you get comfortable in this business, you’ll become more adept at separating the valid ones from the invalid ones. By looking at things like site design, company information, and promised rewards, you can tell whether a competition is for real.
There are a few common scams to watch out for. For example, if you enter a competition that claims to be “free” but then that company starts hassling you for money so you can become a finalist, it’s probably not valid. This is a common feature of writing contests, for instance; they inform you that you’re a finalist and give you an opportunity to pay for the high-priced anthology where your work is to be published. The idea behind such scams is to get people’s hopes up so that they’re more likely to lay some money down.
Ninety-nine percent of the legitimate online contests will never ask you for an entry fee. You’ll always find a few real, reputable competitions that ask for entry fees, but these are more the exception. As a rule of thumb, only participate in competitions that don’t ask you for money and that are completely transparent in the rewards that they offer. In other words, you need to be completely familiar with how a competition works before you join. And if you want to join a competition that isn’t as transparent as you might like, just be sure not to give any personal or private information.
The best places to find valid competitions are sites likes Work From Home In Australia, where many pre-vetted online competitions are combined into one portal. At least until you become more comfortable with online competitions, relying on experts is much easier than going out and tracking down each competition on your own. | 
