With the growth of internet, online services and tools – most jobs have already moved online since past two decades. But as Covid-19 hit the economies and businesses this year, many more offline & traditional jobs have also moved online like education, governance, consultancy, medicine to name a few.
More & more businesses around the world are now finding ways to work & hire online. Businesses like thesis writing service have always been online, but for thousands of companies this is a great challenge. Working online from home is now the new norm considering present situation and companies now use online collaboration & productivity tools to make this possible.
Companies & HR departments around the world have moved to online hiring for different skill sets and many people are now able to work online remotely & make money online due to this. Online work and money making online is now more common and is taking over offline jobs.
People looking for jobs in Kenya are also finding ways to work online and make money online which can be seen with surge in the number of web searches for the terms “Make Money Online” and “Online Jobs” that have grown by 50% post Covid-19.
Many of you might be wondering on how you can start working online or make money online.
To make things easy for you, we have researched 6 most popular ways that you can work and earn money online in Kenya:
1) Freelancing and Online Jobs
Kenyans can earn money by offering their skills online, there are jobs available in almost all kinds of areas like –
a) Coding – One can easily learn coding skills and most coding require basic math & logic to write algorithms & codes. There are many free courses available online on programming languages like Java, JavaScript, PHP, Python etc. You can Build Apps, develop a Software, Code a Website using these skills and there is lot of demand for such skills since everyone is looking to go online or on mobile these days.
b) Data Analysis – Using Python, R & Math skills one can analyze large sets of data, these skills are in high demand in IT, Bioinformatics, Finance. You can learn data science online from websites like Udemy, Coursera, MIT OCW, edX. OCW and edX have free courses to start from.
c) Financial Analysis – People with Finance background can offer their skills to Finance startups in analysis & charting.
d) Customer Support – Many companies are looking for remote support professionals online. There are support jobs in different categories – IT, Sales etc.
e) Writing – Internet is based on content that is well researched and helpful. If you are an expert on a topic or you are good at researching and writing on a topic, then you can offer content writing services to websites and publishers.
f) Digital Marketing – Since everything is now on internet and people search for shopping & content online, as a business you need to promote your App or website for which Online Marketing skills are required like SEM, SEO, Social Media Marketing. You can learn these skills for free online from websites like Moz.com, Google Forums and offer these services to businesses.
g) Video Making & Editing Jobs – If you are good in Video Editing, there are many jobs for you in advertising, online content creation.
h) Artist, Animation & Graphics – You can use these skills in Gaming and Animation. These sectors have huge demand for work force.
i) Photography – If you are a photographer, you can earn money by selling photos on Stock Photo websites like 123RF, iStockPhoto, Shutterstock.
j) Education/Teaching – If you are skilled in any industry, have knowledge about topics like Science, Math, Languages, Engineering, Technical Skills etc. There is a lot of demand for online education these days and you can earn a decent money by educating others online. You can educate users online, sell courses, books on websites like Udemy, edX, Coursera, Chegg, Skillshare, Tutor.com, Amazon Kindle, Scribd etc.
k) Designing Skills – You can offer graphic design & web design services to businesses. There are free courses for these on W3Schools.com, Tutorialpoint.com
l) Others Skills – There are many other skills like Translation, Transcription, Writing Reviews online, surveys, data entry that are in demand.
Many companies are offering online jobs these days for above skills & much more. You can either search & apply for these jobs on job search portals like: Brightermonday.co.ke, Indeed.com. Or you can work as a freelancer on Fiverr, Upwork or Freelancer.com
2) Online Celebrity or Influencer
These days viewership of Social Media & Online Content Platforms like YouTube, TikTok, Instagram has surpassed television & print media. Billions of users see online videos, content online on these platforms. And billions of dollars of advertising and products are sold through it.
You can also create good content that people like to see for example gaming, parody, educational videos or anything you like and get a fan following and earn money by selling items to your followers or earn from endorsements of advertisers on your channels on these platforms.
3) Selling Online through E-commerce
You can earn money by Selling Goods or Services online on own e-store on WooCommerce, Wix, Shopify or Bigcommerce.
The goods can be anything that you can make yourself or even sourced from others. Like you can sell electronic goods, clothes etc. Some sellers online even source goods from manufacturers/suppliers in other countries and these suppliers ship them to customers in your name using drop shipping.
You can even sell online through marketplaces like Jiji, Jumia, Amazon, Ali Express, Ebay instead of setting up your website. These marketplaces will handle store setup for you and even shipping in case of Amazon & Jumia.
4) Blogging or Start your own website
You can earn money by writing on things you love or on what people like to read and earn money from Advertising, Adsense, Affiliate Marketing with traffic you get on your website/blog. You can also sell services or goods or courses on your websites to earn money.
5) Online Investing
You can also earn money by investing online through trading/investing apps. Investors like George Soros, Warren Buffet have made millions/billions of Dollars from investing in right stocks & instruments.
Due to Covid-19 many big stocks & commodities like Oil lost up to 50% of their value from what they normally are. This led to flood of new investors who wanted to cash in on cheap markets, when markets rebound some of these stocks & commodities got back most of their value as a result many people become millionaires during this period. While some lost millions during this market crash as they could not predict the markets properly.
According to Trade Forex Kenya, “Investing in the financial markets is a very risky business and it requires highly specialized skills & a lot of experience (years of it). It is a very risky way to earn money for beginners and sometimes even for experts.”
These days almost all investing is available and done online. Online investing apps have made it accessible to ordinary people with little capital.
With online investing apps and platforms, you can invest in various instruments like Mutual Funds, Shares, Commodities, Bitcoin & Forex Trading.
There are many investors and day traders in Kenya that invest and speculate online on shares, commodities & Forex and some of them are also successful. There are around 70,000 traders in Kenya. During Covid-19 this number has grown even more as online investing got a lot of attention from new investors.
6) Selling Domains & Collector’s Items Online
Many people pay high money for rare or premium items like antiques, wine, vintage cars, paintings, even premium domains. If you already have a hobby of collecting antiques & valuables then you can turn it into business.
Or you can start collecting rare coins, stamps, antiques or things that collectors find valuable. These items can fetch thousands or hundreds of thousands of dollars if sold to the right buyer. There are online marketplaces like Craigslist, Ebay where people list such items, you can research what sells and for how much and you build a business on it.
Even premium domain names can fetch from $1,000 to whopping $1-2 million dollar in marketplaces like Sedo, Flippa, Dan.com, Sav.com, Afternic etc. Domain is like a piece of virtual real estate and you just need to register a right cool domain that people would want to buy then you can make money from it.
