What are the top 10 ways you can make money legally in Nigeria? There are several ways to make money online as Social media has levelled the playing field for both young people, older folks - everyone that cuts across any strata and economic level. To plug into this industry, here are the top 10 ways you can legally make money online in Nigeria.
Blogging is a major way lots of young Nigerians make money only.
It starts by:
Picking/choosing a niche; an area of interest or expertise you want to write about. It can be entertainment, sports, celebrity news.
Then the next stage is purchasing a domain. There are domain market places that you can use like Namecheap.com and godaddy.com. The first step is to check for the availability and go on to buy it.
Choose a hosting company. You can then go on to choose a hosting company; this would be used to host the content; images, text that you want to upload to your site.
Choose a web framework; you can then have the ability to use a frame work of your choice; some popular web framework include ; WordPress, Gatsby.js, Jekyll. You might need to speak to a developer but the most popular frame work cum Content Management system is WordPress.
Publish you content: After choosing a framework and hosting; you can then publish the site. Your site will be visible at a Url (uniform resource locator). From there you can start sourcing and publishing content.
Start earning: There are several ways to earn from blogging; through serving ads using ad publishing platforms like Adsense, adseterra etc. You can also earn by inserting affiliate links throughout your website. When your readers click through those links and complete an expected action/purchase - you earn a certain commission.
Youtube is another way you can earn money online. Youtube is a video service platform with over 2 billion active users. You can open and post videos for free on Youtube to get people to view, like and comment on your videos. People can also subscribe to your channel and follow all your video updates.
Google, the owners of YouTube - require a threshold of at least 1000 subscribers and 4000 hours of watch time before you can apply to their partner program.
After which your channel is reviewed and in a few days you will be either accepted or rejected from the partners program.
Here are some reasons why users may be rejected from the Partner’s program - required to start earning:
Inflated views and subscribers by bots. Google will check to see if you manipulated the views and subscriber count of your account. So be sure to avoid this if you intend to apply to the partner program.
Original content: Your most popular video/s should be originally produced content by you ; with no copyright strikes.
Usually if you meet the threshold and apply to the partner program; avoiding bots and copying content, you will be accepted into the google partner program in a matter or hours to a few days.
Note: if you are rejected, you are given a 30 day window where you can review your content and reapply to the partner program.
Affiliate marketing is a business model where you recommend a business, product or service to people and for every purchase you get a percentage commission for the product.
This model is used in various industries from travel, to insurance to e-commerce to real estate. To start off making money using affiliate marketing, you can start with a google search; “affiliate marketing programs of {industry you are interested in}“. That is a good place to start from.
When you get into the program, you can use word of mouth, blogging, or YouTube like we talked about above, and your social media platforms and/or social media/paid ads.
There are several in-demand skills now like; Coding, UI UX design, SEO, graphics design, photography and voice overs. With market places like Upwork, fiver, and sync. you can list your services in the marketplace. You can then get hired on contract or full time for specific projects by individuals and companies.
You also get paid on the platform with payment options like Paypal and payoneer. Some Nigerians may struggle with these platforms but with Sync you can get paid with flutter wave and paystack.
Following from above; if you are an authority in an industry; skilled or posses deep knowledge, you can choose to package and organise your skillset into courses and sell on platforms like Gumroad, teachable, selar.co, flutter wave on Sync.
If you have considerable skill and interest in an industry; you can coach people and monetise your availability and skills through a structured curriculum and also unrestricted access to your resources on the topic and your time.
Many people even form vibrant communities around their coaching programs that help on helping participants beyond the scope of the subject matter.
Before the lockdown; mostly software development roles were offering remote jobs and a portion of Nigerian workers were beneficiaries. During the lockdown; more than before; remote work saw a new level of proliferation and it has become a Global phenomenon.
Employers have been introduced to the possibility of remote work and have started to get used to it. You can tap into this global market and match your skillset to existing demand.
You can start from a Google search; “Remote jobs in {city} or {country}. You can also explore remote opportunities on LinkedIn; where you can filter by city and work type.
Over a decade ago when Jumia and Kong launched; the foremost and biggest E-commerce platforms in Nigeria; it changed how commerce is done forever. It continues to do so as people can from the comfort of their homes; browse through products, add to cart, make payment and receive in a matter of hours!
Brick and mortar businesses, individuals, are taking advantage of this model to bring products to people at the comfort of their location and transfer to them.
Social media has become mainstream with the proliferation of smart phone devices and more affordable data bundle plans. As a result more Nigerians are spending more time on their phones in popular social media platforms like; Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and Snapchat; among others.
These social media platform serve ads to their users and you can pay to have your goods, products and services serve to larger audiences.
On the flip side; if you know how to run social media ads; you can offer your services to businesses and individuals.
Also following from the above; if you have a large engaged following on social media; in you can offer sponsored ads packages to businesses and individuals.
Businesses and brands are able to leverage on your audience and your endorsement to drive sales, awareness and leads.
Also here are other known ways to make money online in Nigeria:
