There’s no better time than now to build a business and make money online.
The internet has completely transformed how people do business.
It has opened up borders and removed limitations on what you can do and achieve based geographical regions or financial resources.
With a computer, an internet connection, and personal drive, there is little that can stand in the way of you making an income online.
Nonetheless, before you can learn how to make money on the internet, you need to be willing to work hard and dedicate yourself to this challenge.
In this article, I’ll share with you the ultimate guide on how to make money online in Kenya.
Working as a Freelancer
The most significant chunk of Kenyans making money online do so through freelancing; you become a service provider. There is a massive demand for the craziest of services you have seen or imagined.
If you can draw, have a beautiful voice to make some voice-overs, web design, graphics, writing fiction or academic papers, there is always someone somewhere looking for your service.
Freelancing is a faster option to start making some money on the internet. It is not as complicated as setting up your own business, just creating profiles on some freelancing sites, familiarise yourself with them and begin to provide your services.
List of Freelancing sites
1. Swagbucks
Swagbucks is one of the best sites to make cash online and one of the most reputable among students.
So if you are wondering how to earn an income from home in Kenya, this site is one of the answers.
The site is mostly loved since students can earn rewards using different ways such as an exclusive signup bonus.
As far as services go, Swagbucks not an academic or article writing website. Swagbucks conducts surveys and is one of the most reliable websites in that regard.
Users get rewarded after watching videos or playing games in the form of vouchers, prize draws, and cash. You stand to get 70 points or SB per survey.
The minimum reward threshold is usually one SB. There are a lot of positive reviews from Swagbucks users, and customers and the surveys conducted are very accurate.
Swagbucks is one of the simple ways to make cash online in Kenya, and as long as you conduct your surveys every day, your earning will keep increasing.
You also have the option of completing a broad range of offers to increase your earnings. Each study takes approximately ten minutes, which adds up to around £2.40 every hour.
Even better, once you finish your review, you can participate in more using multiple providers. You also get consolation points in case a survey comes up, and you are not qualified.
2. Freelancer
As the name suggests, this is one of those sites where your dedication determines your net worth.
It is one of the sites on this list where you can quickly get your first job and have your first paycheck in your account in a week.
The pay is a little low of late and the selection process even more rigorous, so ensure your grammar is top notch and your attention to detail is sharp.
Freelancer is one of the best sites to make money online in Kenya for novice writers. The average pay is $2 per 500 words, which is insanely low compared to some other websites on the list, but you get to advance after completing a particular number of tasks.
In the next stage, a writer earns $4 per 500 words. Freelancer is a good site for a writer who is just getting into the game; however, for the more experienced, there are better sites to get money on the internet.
3. Fiverr
In case you’re wondering, how to earn money online from home in Kenya, look no further than Fiverr.
This website is utter bliss for the freelancer and has almost every job you can think of for a payment of $5.
You can write an original article, an academic thesis, or even record yourself singing a particular song or reciting a poem.
All you have to do is market your gig properly, and the money will follow.
4. Upwork
Upwork and Fiverr share one thing in common; all their jobs are not less than $5. However, with Fiverr, the most you can get is $5.
Upwork can have jobs that pay $100 and above almost every day of the week and payment is always guaranteed.
You are required to download the Upwork Team App to make it easier for the client to create milestones and fast track your hourly payments.
Upwork is the answer to your how do I earn cash online in Kenya question and arguably one of the best sites to get earn money on the internet on this list; I still use it to date.
5. iWriter
iWriter is the article writer’s heaven, or at least it used to be; before all the article writing sites came to be, iWriter was still in existence.
However, there was a time when the iWriter suspended their services in Kenya claiming they were hacked multiple times by IP addresses that originated from the country.
The statement, which was issued on July 10th 2012 took many by surprise as iWriter was the most trusted website around that time.
However, Kenyans were not the only country to receive this punishment, countries such as Latvia, Russia, Pakistan, Ukraine, Malaysia, Czech Republic, and India were also banned from accessing iWriter services.
However, their services resumed a few months later across the country, and iWriter rejoined the ranks of easy ways to earn cash online Kenya.
iWriter pays depending on the level your account is in at the moment. The first rating is the Standard Level, where jobs range in word count, but the pay is dismal.
A 150-word article will only earn you a dollar. However, once you get to the Premium Level, you can make $10 for 1,000 words.
That’s not all, iWriter also has Elite and Elite Plus Levels where a writer can earn over $10 and over $40 for 500 words respectively. Pretty impressive right?
However, this site is not a get-rich-quick scheme. If you submit substandard articles, the clients will reject them and give you a low rating.
Low ratings dwindle your chances of proceeding to the next level, and if you continue submitting poor quality work, your account can be temporarily suspended.
As such, be sure to have some writing experience under your belt before purchasing or opening an iWriter account.
As suggested earlier, you can learn the ropes using sites such as Freelancer or Fiverr.
6. Transcribe me
Nothing on this list answers the question of how to make easy money on the internet in Kenya than Transcribe Me.
All you have to do is sign up and transcribe audio files presented to you by clients on the website.
However, before getting started, you are required to complete a set of tests set out to gauge your skill level.
If the website admins think you have what it takes to join their websites, you will be notified by mail.
Transcribe Me has a minimum payout of $1, which means as long as your account has more than one dollar, you can withdraw.
The site pays $20 per hour, but this is unlike your regular sixty minutes.
However, the questions are not hard and as long as you have a good command of the language at hand, making money online just got much easier.
7. Slice the pie
Who knew there would come a time when people would get paid to listen to and rate music?
There aren’t many sites to earn money online Kenya that allow clients to earn their keep by listening and rating music.
Slice the pie is the most common and pays up to 17 cents per song or less depending on the promotions coming with the song.
Reviewing a song only takes a few minutes of your times, and you can make more than ten dollars every day if you take the job seriously.
Payment comes every Tuesday and Friday and requires a minimum of $10 to be completed.
After joining this site, think of your first $10 as security; from there, you can start earning twice a week just by listening to and reviewing songs.
It takes more than just the artist or the producer to make the song a hit, reviews also compel people to listen to the song. Hence the name, slice the pie.
8. Postloop
If you are more of a social media influencer or strategists and article or academic papers are not your forte, you can try registering on Postloop.
Just like the name suggests, this site pays you to post on specific forums.
Payment is made a few hours after posting the required information, and the minimum payout is $5.
It’s one of the legit sites to earn money online in Kenya and doesn’t require a lot of expertise compared to its counterparts on this list.
9. Newlines
Newline.org has a minimum payout of $20 with payout speeds that vary but usually takes less than 24 hours.
The crowdsourced news website has a timeline that updates its topics that require 50 to 100 words.
The details of what is expected of the writer can be found once you click on a specific topic and you can earn more money by adding little blurbs.
The best way to make money on this site in Kenya is following current events keenly and developing a knack to write about daily trending occurrences.
You can quickly make money on this website from the confines of your house and manage your payment to arrive after a week or a few days depending on your preference.
Not to mention, the website is always accepting contributors so getting in is the easy part.
Creating a Blog
Creating a blog is one of the best-known ways for anyone who is looking to make money online in Kenya and with an advantage. You can work from home, and you don’t have to work on it every day.
With blogging, you need to create good content that will make people visit your blog.
You can then make money by display ads as well as receive a commission on advertised products that your readers buy.
It is what we call Website Monetization through affiliate programs.
Producing content
Another way for those who are wondering how to make money on the Internet is the production of content for third parties.
Content Marketing is a definite trend in digital marketing, and many companies do not have a structure to generate content for their blogs, so they need third-party labour.
If you are good at writing and have notions of SEO – Search Engine Optimization for Search Engines, this is an exciting option.
So how is content marketing helpful, well a company like Smart Kenya has a blog, and we update our blog regularly with content related to what we do? We use the posts for marketing ourselves as it has been proved a blog is an excellent way to generate traffic to websites.
You can also get paid to manage a Facebook page, creating relevant content to fans, seeking greater engagement with the audience. You can write texts, create photos or illustrations, share videos, finally, produce the most diverse content.
Video Production
If you like to produce videos, this is an area where you can make good money.
Many people have found that YouTube can turn into a great source of income through the monetisation of original videos produced and posted on their YouTube Channel.
A good example is Caroline Mutoko, a prominent and very popular Kenyan who produces videos on fundamental issues in the country.
Creating info-products
Another way to make money on the net is by creating info-products. An info-product is any digital information that can be sold or otherwise made available in the form of downloadable file online.
These days, the development of infographics is one of the best-paid ventures online. That’s kind of content that quickly spreads on the internet, getting the fruits of viral publicity purposes.
You can create various types of info-products that can be developed as e-books, online courses, manuals, textbooks, and software. This type of activity can be performed in a home-based model since it does not require physical space for production or storage.
With the tools available on the internet for dissemination of any digital product, writing eBooks can be a very lucrative business. One right way, for example, write an ebook and publish on Amazon.
You provide your materials for a store that has millions of customers, and they pay up to 70% of royalties by direct wire transfer to your account. You can write a guide on anything or a thriller set in the 50s.
Not only that, you can write technical texts, reviews of products, stories, articles, advertising copy and the more you know or like. There is a demand for all this on the Internet, especially for those who speak English.
Creating a virtual store
E-commerce growth in Kenya is a fact. The market has grown 25% on average over the past five years and gives no cooling signal.
First, you need to know what to sell on the Internet. Give preference to niche markets to avoid competition from major players in the market. To succeed in this business; it is best to do proper research on e-commerce to have an accurate idea of what to do in this segment.
Selling on Marketplaces
Currently, you do not need the whole structure of a virtual store to sell over the Internet. There are several marketplaces where you can sell your products without the need for an arrangement of e-commerce.
I know some people who use sites like eBay, Amazon, Alibaba and the likes from Kenya who sell their products worldwide. There you can sell whatever you want provided it is within the rules established by the site.
There is also a growing trend known as Dropshipping that is slowly coming to Kenya where you only become a middleman between buyer and manufacturer.