There is so much hype about earning money online. You can indeed work and earn a good income online. However, advertisers and bloggers oversell the notion to get people to visit their websites or blogs. Clickbait that advertises online jobs as easy or make-money-overnight schemes has shaken the trust of many people who today view online work advertisements as scams or mostly scams. It is a fact that work-online scams have swindled millions of dollars out of people over the years. This happens mostly in the form of paying to get a job, training for a job, or working without pay. But there are genuine ways you can earn money online if you look in the right places.
In this article, I will discuss some ways you can earn money online through genuine platforms with ease. There is no better time to start exploring the online work landscape than during this time. You just have to take the time to learn some skills. You might even be bored out of your mind, idling around the house and doing nothing. After reading this, you should find something worthwhile and earn money online from home.
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Table of Contents
1. Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing is simply advertising or promoting another person or company’s products or services in exchange for a commission. It is simply selling products for a commission. You don’t necessarily need to be a digital marketer to be an affiliate marketer. All you need is a laptop or smartphone, internet connection, and probably a free or cheap course on Udemy. You can make money online from affiliate marketing, regardless of your country in Africa.
2. Transcription
Transcription is the act of transforming audio to text through an automated process or by typing on a device what you hear. It is one of the most popular online freelance jobs. Transcriptionists earn anywhere from $0 – $3000 a month, depending on their expertise, equipment, and dedication. This is our topic pick for ways to earn money online because of the abundance of transcription jobs available to people worldwide. You could start transcribing today if you wanted to. The challenge, however, is knowing the right thing to do. Being able to transcribe audio and video files correctly is a big challenge, particularly for ESL workers. But you can become an expert transcriptionist by going through some steps that we’ll explain in this post.
- GoTranscript
Our top pick for a transcription company that hires worldwide at any time and pays through both PayPal and Payoneer is GoTranscript. It is one of the best for Africans. All you need to do is sign up for an account and take a transcription test. You will hear from them within two to three weeks. If you are accepted as a transcriber, you will receive email notifications whenever a new job has been posted. There is a steady flow to the job.
- Accutran Global
This is also another good transcription company, just like GoTranscript. The issue with this company is that it pays through PayPal only and many freelancers don’t have PayPal in their country.
- Appenscribe
This company offers global transcription jobs online. Transcribers are paid different amounts depending on their expertise. Just like Accutran Global, this company also pays through PayPal, making it unsuitable for many freelancers.
3. Become a WordPress Expert
30% of websites on the internet run on the WordPress platform, largely because it is easier than other CMS and also free. While it is one of the easiest platforms, WordPress is still pretty technical for non-tech-savvy people. Most people running websites on WordPress don’t know half of what to do about improving a website’s SEO architecture, configuring templates, incorporating some features, troubleshooting problems, and generally improving on the default features of the website. These people typically seek the help of experts to help with this.
There are many platforms people turn to for help regarding WordPress. Some can afford to hire an agency to do the job, but not all will do that, even those who can afford the usually exaggerated cost of hiring an agency. Freelancers are a cheap and efficient way for most people to. They go to freelance marketplaces like Upwork and Fiverr to hire freelancers to fix their problems at a ridiculous fraction of what an SEO agency would charge, though still good enough for the freelancer.
You need to master skills like programming and be good at combining colors and fonts to represent the brand. These are not difficult to learn, even from scratch, provided you are willing to commit the necessary resources to acquire the knowledge. Khan Academy is a good place to start learning programming for free.
4. Become an Online Researcher
Marketing, advertising, and other business agencies do not have all the time in the world to do tasks like in-depth internet research. A consultancy might be trying to estimate the market size of a particular product in a certain location, but might not have the time to do in-depth research to find the answer. And without an accurate estimate of that market size, a large research project could have questionable credibility. These market research companies and industries might be unwilling to employ an in-house research assistant, so they look for freelancers.
If you are good at online research, you should check out Askwonder.com, which is one of the few companies offering freelance research positions. They have thousands of freelance research analysts around the world working for them and some analysts make as much as $2,100 a month.
5. Offer Typing Service
This is another easy way to earn money online for those who have little tech skills. You can offer to type people’s hand-written documents. Advertise your services on platforms like freelancer.com, Fiverr, and others to find clients. There is normally high competition for clients regarding easy jobs like typing, but there are many who make thousands of dollars every year doing just that.
6. Become a Freelance Writer
Freelance writers make a lot of money these days due to the never-ending demand for content. We live in a content-driven world and if you have good writing skills, you may be wasting it sitting at home and doing nothing. We have written other articles about freelance writing opportunities in which we presented more details in this regard, but as a reminder, you can land high-paying freelance writing jobs by doing one of the following;
Look for serious clients on freelance marketplaces or sign up with some online companies that work with freelancers to satisfy clients. You can leverage Upwork, Fiverr, iWriter, TextBroker, and many more.
7. Become a Self-Published Author
Self-publication has made it easier for anyone to publish their book without having to pay upfront for printing. A lot of platforms exist that will print your book as soon as someone buys a copy. You get a great percentage of the sale and the publishing company handles everything on your behalf, including delivery and handling returns. Many authors have made millions by publishing on Amazon Kindle, and so can you. With good expertise in any particular field or a knack for telling good stories, you can open a free Kindle account and start selling your books. Some platforms even have piracy control measures like PDF stamping.
8. Sell Courses Online
If you have a solid understanding of a skill that people want to learn, you can create video lessons for that course and have students sign up for it. Many platforms allow you to do this without incurring any upfront costs. For example, Udemy has courses that get thousands of enrollments over the months, depending on popularity and fee. If you offer good courses and charge moderate fees, you are likely to accumulate a large fan base, ensuring the success of other subsequent courses you may wish to launch.
9. Teach Online
Many platforms recruit teachers to teach certain subjects online. Websites like VIPKids, QKids, and many others are known to hire teachers to teach students online, and many of these websites pay at least $15 per hour with bonuses for excellent performance. So if you are a good teacher, you can earn or make money online from these platforms no matter where you find yourself, whether in Africa or not.
10. Offer Visual Assistant Services
You can become someone’s or a company’s virtual assistant. There is a wide range of tasks that virtual assistants do. You may take care of emails by reading and replying to them, you may receive and make calls on behalf of someone, or you can be a research assistant on some projects. Virtual assistants advertise their services on Fiverr, Upwork, Freelancer.com, and other websites.
11. Start Blogging
Although blogging typically takes some time to start generating revenue, it is the best way to earn money steadily online without having to sell products or services. Bloggers around the world make thousands of dollars monthly doing what they love. Provided you regularly publish useful content; you will get fans regardless of the niche you are in. Many have quit their jobs to fully dedicate time to their blog when it started generating more than what they could ever make from their full-time jobs.
The biggest challenge with blogging is providing consistent and useful content. Provided you do this; your website will gradually rank up the scales. You will also need to know what your target audience is looking for and the keywords they use to search for it.
There is an infinite number of blog niches you can choose from. But make sure you have enough passion for any niche to be able to write articles without getting bored. Don’t just pick a niche because people are making money there. It may seem easy, but then competition can grow, and then you’ll lose because you can’t keep up with the content demand due to a lack of interest in the subject.
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This article suggests eleven different online tasks you can do to earn money. I have put so much emphasis on transcription because it is the one job you can make a living from without dedicating too much time to training and looking for clients. There are more transcription websites out there than there are transcribers – partly because the job can be tricky. However, the other job types also hold the potential to make you thousands of dollars a month. A classic example of such jobs is the research positions offered by Askwonder.com. But it can be a tough battle making it through their difficult tests. We also have apps that can pay you real money if you’re very interested in making money.
