With the coronavirus pandemic wreaking havoc across the world. Our economy has taken a massive hit,with people out of jobs and businesses closing down by the day.
As a result, many Kenyans are desperate to make ends meet and with the economy at record lows a suitable alternative is to look for online jobs where numerous opportunities exist that pay in the old mighty dollar.
So, if you are one of the people seeking to get started with online jobs and make a living online.
Read on..
The online jobs listed here are for Kenyans, a lot of websites that offer online jobs restrict the location you can work from.
In this article, we focus on websites that allow Kenyans to sign up, provide certain services and get paid.
To be successful requires commitment and patience to start seeing real returns, many Kenyans are making a comfortable living working online and despite of what happens to the Kenyan economy they are safe, not to add, they earn their money with two zeros appended to the end. What more could you wish for.
You can be one of these Kenyans working from anywhere you like; the comfort of your home, your favourite café, in Diani or Watamu or even a different country. You mostly dictate the hours you work and live the life you want.
But to get there you have to start small and be willing to put in the time to grow your skill or service offering.
We believe what you do everyday no matter how small determines who and where you end up.
We help you get there, we help you achieve your dreams.
Enough said, now let’s get into it.
How to Get Paid
Safaricom made an announcement in April 2018 that would forever change Kenyans lives. The integration of m-pesa with paypal now allows Kenyans to easily transfer and deposit money to and from paypal.
Paypal is among the most widely used online payment services in the world. It allows you to pay and receive payments online when shopping or working. It operates like m-pesa and shouldn’t be difficult to use once you have a paypal account.
Now, that we know we can work and get paid online to our m-pesa number, let’s find some online jobs.
1. Transcription Jobs
Transcription jobs involve converting speech to text. For Example, you can convert a video interview to a written dialogue between the interviewer and interviewee.
Transcription services have grown more popular mainly due to their application in most professions such as legal, business, medical, academic e.t.c
There are a variety of websites offering transcription services and even more cropping up every day due to a recent surge in demand for the service mainly due to coronavirus.
Now, for the important part, transcription jobs pay well once you start getting a lot of jobs due to great performance on previously assigned jobs. Consistency, reliability and a commitment in producing quality work is what will get you to the promised land, once there Ksh. 100,000/ month or more would be your take home.
Top Transcription sites that allow Kenyans:
Those are good to get you started and learn the transcription service as you earn and grow your income.
2. Blogging
With blogging, the whole world is accessible to you.
Blogging is a path that will lead you to learning several skills that will be instrumental in becoming successful in the online space in general. Digital marketing is one of the skills that you will develop to blog successfully.Digital marketing involves:
- Search Engine Optimization(S.E.O) – When building your website and publishing content, you’re not only writing for your human audience (which is quite important) but also for search engines.
To learn more about S.E.O go to:
1. Ahrefs.com – read their blog
2. moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo – One of the best beginner guides
3. youtube.com/incomeschool – for those that are visual learners. Human audience – when creating content on your website you should ask yourself, does this content help my audience solve a problem they have? Does it give them ideas? Does it give advice (Where, how and When)? Having such questions in mind will guide you in creating content that engages your audience and keeps them coming back.
Search Engines – For the audience to find your content especially when new, they mostly have to go through a search engine, type in their query and allow google to find the best possible answer for them, hopefully your content will be ranked as the first result or on the first page. There’s a saying in SEO that goes the best place to hide a dead body is in the second page of google. Understanding how Google and other search engines work is crucial for the success of your blog. If your content can’t be found, you won’t have an audience.
Content Marketing – Your content should be high quality, error free, clear and concise to keep your audience engaged to read through your articles and crave for more. For most Kenyans kizungu ilikuja na meli but lucky for us we have the basics and with a little guidance and practice you can create quality articles in no time.
Quality writing coupled with good research skills can open many doors for you in the online world such as:
academic writing
Article writing (for blogs/newsletters/documentation)
Technical writing
Documentation
Social Media Marketing – Everyone today has at least one social media account that they frequently visit for various reasons. As technology evolves and our world becomes smaller through interconnection, how we go about our daily lives is now very different than it was just 10 – 15 years ago.
Social Media as a result has come to shape the world in ways no one could ever have imagined both positively and negatively, which is an entire discussion in itself.
Being able to learn how social media works and how to use it effectively to promote your blog, brand, products/services, content e.t.c is vital to your goal and will continue to be in the future. The earlier you start the better.
Write about your passion
To get good at blogging and have the patience to see it through to success requires you to be passionate about what you write. Pick a topic that you’re familiar with or enjoy talking/researching on. A good start could be what you do for a living you could offer valuable insights to other people or sell a service around your expertise.. It could be a hobby you’re good at and would like to guide other curious people on how to get good at it. Whatever you decide, let it be something you’re passionate about because your audience will tell and it will keep you going before the blog takes off.
Build An Audience
Give a reason for your first time visitors to come back. Learn what they need from you by engaging them and doing solid SEO and provide it to them. You cn make money through:
Ads on your website – Google Adsense and Ezoic are probably the best ad networks out there. You will earn money when people click on the ads placed on your website.
Info. Products (ebooks, audio books, membership) e.t.c – Once you’ve built up an audience that trusts you by constantly providing valuable content to them. You can start providing info. Products such as ebooks that expound more on certain topics, courses, coaching and memberships for your audience where they can get access to exclusive offers e.t.c
Blogging is one of the best ways to earn money online, mainly because it’s passive income which means you’re earning while sleeping. Once you have your blog setup with enough quality content the blog can continue thriving with little to no input over a long period of time. But ofcourse don’t abandon your blog completely remember it’s a business and will need input to keep thriving.
3. Youtube
Plan
It’s important to have a plan for your content before you start.
What is your target topic and are you passionate about it?
- Research
Take some time to find out if people will be interested in the topic you wish to focus on. Look at other youtube channels focusing on your topic and see how they go about creating their content.
Don’t fear reaching out to them if you have questions most will ignore you but don’t be discouraged, a few will be happy to help you, just be polite in your approach.
The important thing here is to look at what others are doing and try and do it better and uniquely, find out if there are gaps in their content and address them. Try going an extra mile compared to them. - Topic
Picking a topic you’re passionate about will keep you going when your channel is young and getting a handful of views. - Equipment
Don’t go overboard on equipment when you’re starting out, start small and grow from there.
To start you’ll need:
i. Smartphone – Ksh.15, 000 to Ksh. 20,000 smartphones have decent cameras to start you off.
ii. Laptop/pc – Once you’ve shot your videos, you’ll need to edit them. A Ksh. 25,000 and above laptop will do the job. Next, Adobe Premier pro is a video editing software which you can easily learn by watching tutorials on youtube.
If you have a Mac, Imovie is great. You may also need and audio editor such as RX 7 audio editor to clean up your audio in the case of loud breathing, background noise, soundtracks e.t.c
5. Freelancing
Kenyans are flourishing and making a living entirely online through freelancing. Don’t we all dream of working for ourselves, having control of our time, choosing how much or less we wish to work. Online jobs such as freelancing allow this dream to become a reality.
It will take time and a lot of patience but the result will be worth it. Once you build up your skill and start completing jobs to clients’ satisfaction your hustle will snowball earning you more of that sweet dollar.
You will need a professional, comprehensive and well written CV and cover letter to start, a well designed portfolio website to showcase your work, if any, is highly recommended.
If you have a skill already, that would be the best to start with. If not I recommend you try learn one of the following,
- Graphic Design – Although there’s a lot of competition in this field their is also an endless supply of design jobs.
Logo design, business card design, flyers, illustrations, photo editing, 3d visualization, web design and many more.Becoming a pro at graphic design requires a proficiency in the Adobe Suite of softwares, start with Adobe Photoshop and grow from there.Your goal should be to build a portfolio of your work to showcase to potential clients, better yet have a portfolio website that you can show a potential customer anywhere anytime.
- Virtual Assistant – You’ll basically be an assistant but virtually. There’s an increasing demand for virtual assistants.
You can be hired full time or part time by an individual or organization but if you’re starting out the position will likely be part time for an individual.Responsibilities for VA’s involve email management that is drafting, sending and following up on emails, schedule management, data entry, lead generation through linkedIn, answering phone calls and customer queries, booking flights and accommodation e.t.c.The list is endless as it mainly depends on the nature of the job.
To qualify as a VA you require to be computer literate and abreast with current technologies.
You should at least have a clear and comprehensive CV ( competition is high, you have to get this right), excellent working knowledge of Microsoft office suite, google calendar, chat apps such as slack, Zoom/skype, good command of English, time management skills to meet deadlines and organizational skills to handle your various tasks efficiently and effectively.
A beginner Virtual Assistant can earn Ksh. 50,000 – Ksh. 60,000 per month with the more experienced ones earning upwards of Ksh. 150,000.
If you’re patient and willing to learn, being a virtual assistant can earn you good money and of course freedom of your time and an ability to work from anywhere. - Data Entry – Data Entry jobs involve the adding, verifying and editing of data. Companies require transcription of notes from meetings, preparing spreadsheets, adding raw data into databases multiple times in a day.The job requires strong typing skills, good command of English, Microsoft word proficiency, understanding database technologies such as Mysql, Oracle or MongoDB would be an added advantage.
- Software Development –This is one of the most lucrative skill in online jobs. Software developers are in hot demand with a multitude of jobs depending on your specific knowledge.
Getting good at programming takes time and commitment but in the end it will be worth it. As the world becomes more technologically adept everyday the need for software developers increases too.
Main categories of Software developers are web developers, desktop developers and mobile developers.
Learning certain programming languages such as Java, Python (recommended for beginners) and javascript allow you to develop apps for different platforms. Python is easy to learn and highly versatile, with a solid understanding of the language you will be able to apply it in games, mobile apps, web apps, machine learning and data science.
There are numerous free websites that can teach you programming from scratch such as:
- Graphic Design – Although there’s a lot of competition in this field their is also an endless supply of design jobs.
i. freecodecamp – learn web development, includes certifications and a community to help you in your journey.
ii. 100daysofcode– There’s no better way to learn a technical skill such as programming like building projects. 100daysofcode teaches you to code through consistency and habit. By the end of it you’ll have real world project to show to your potential clients. What better way to learn.
iii. Codeacademy – The most beginner friendly website on the web. The website mainly focuses on web development, data science and machine learning with easy to follow exercises for the ultimate beginner.
Conclusion:
Online jobs offer a vast opportunity for Kenyans to earn a living by tapping into the global market from the comfort of their homes. In case you come across an interview, we have an informative guide that will prepare you to excel in them.