There are a lot of "points" programs on the web that promise you prizes and benefits beyond your wildest dreams - and most of them never seem to pay off in reality. Well, I can now officially say that swagbucks is actually worth the small amount of effort it takes to get setup and use it.
First, Sign Up (click this banner, note that I get bonus points for referring you):
Next, I highly recommend setting swagbucks as your homepage. If you are a die-hard Google user like me, it might be very difficult for you to make something other than Google (or iGoogle) your home page, but I am telling you it's the best thing. For one, their homepage has a search box at the top that you can use to do Google-ish searches. Technically, it combines results from Google and some other search engines. They present the results a little differently than Google, and in general I don't like the search engine as much as I like pure Google searches - but, it's worth it! Even if you just do a few searches each time you open your browser, you will start winning a few Swagbucks here and there, and before you know it you will be able to cash them in!
The final thing you "need to do" (in my opinion), is add the swagbucks toolbar. Now, I can tell you, I hate toolbars. I generally use the Google Chrome Browser, and I love how simple the UI is. I have sat down at other people's computers and literally cringed at the site of their Internet Explorer browser with 5+ toolbars that took up almost half of the screen! Aghhhh! So, here is what I did: I installed the toolbar on Internet Explorer. It's the only toolbar I have installed, and it's still not my primary browser, but just by having it, whenever I do happen to open IE, I usually get a few free swagbucks. I'm not kidding, I just launch the program and there is a pop up telling me I got 3 Swagbucks. And I'm like "Cool, thanks!" Having the toolbar also gives you access to messages from "TSG" which are generally time-sensitive bonus codes that you input on swagbucks.com and receive more swagbucks.
How does it work?
Mainly, you just use their search engine and you will randomly win Swagbucks, which are points that you can accumulate and then cash in for real prizes. My favorite thing to do is cash them in for Amazon.com gift cards. A $5 gift card is 450 Swagbucks. If you only use swagbucks rarely, like I do, it will take about 4-6 months to get to that level. $5 in 4 months may not sound like much, but I try to look at it this way: how much time did I actually put in to this, 10 seconds here, 15 seconds there, if it's even 20 minutes total over the 4 months, I'd be shocked. My point is, for almost no work at all, you are getting $5 free every few months. And, if you really work at it: get referrals, take surveys, etc (there are a lot of ways to earn free points) then you can earn a lot more!
Watch for Codes!
One of the best ways to get extra swagbucks is to enter bonus codes on the swagbucks.com homepage. The codes come from various sources: their twitter feed, facebook updates, blog posts, the toolbar, etc. There are some other coupon bloggers who will also post when there is a new swagcode out and tell you where to find it, so the easiest way to get the codes is the just keep reading your usual blogs, assuming one of them is an active "swagernaut." (Yes, the folks at swagbucks.com have about a million swag- terms, pretty silly, but it makes it a little fun :)
- Mister Deals
PS my swagbucks referral link:
http://www.swagbucks.com/refer/misterdeals
