Do you want to learn how to make money online in Nigeria legitimately? Here are 20 ways. Bookmark this post, because you will need it.
Updated 2022. Disclaimer: We may earn commissions from some of the links below.
1. Google Adsense
Google AdSense is a program run by Google through which website publishers in the Google Network of content sites serve text, images, video, or interactive media advertisements that are targeted to the site content and audience. These advertisements are administered, sorted, and maintained by Google.
One of the cool things about Google AdSense is that it’s so easy to get set up. If you have a blog or website, you can sign up for a free Google AdSense Account. From there, Google will give you a unique code that you will paste onto your website. Google takes it from there, tracking your page views, traffic, and earnings on your behalf. There is no upkeep or maintenance to get this thing going, which makes it a no-brainer if you have a website already.
You can only run Google Adsense on your blog/or sites you have control over.
Before creating your blog, you need to get a popular topic or subject that will bring a lot of visitors to your website. You can also create a blog that provides latest gist and information, anything that will generate traffic to the website. Blogging needs a bit of patience before you can start making real money from it. All you need to do is to keep writing regularly and sharing your website and contents on social media platforms. After you have been able to generate enough traffic to your website, you can monetize your blog with Adsense.
Read: Make money with Google Adsense
2. Offer Pro Services
Another way you can make money online in Nigeria is to join a pro site. This is especially rewarding if you’re a creative. For example, there are websites you can join and offer your services. Most freelancing websites allows you to leverage your skills to earn some quick cash online. Sites like Fiverr, Upwork, and Freelancer.com are perfect examples.
Freelance services that you can offer include web design, web development, graphic design, search engine optimization, social media marketing, article writing, copywriting, guest posting, data entry works, email marketing, etc.
3. Affiliate Sales
With affiliate marketing, you partner with brands and businesses within the content of your website. If you mention a product or service, you link to that produce or service using a unique affiliate code you received when you signed up for that particular affiliate program. From there, you’ll make money any time someone buys a product or service through your link.
Affiliate marketing is the process of earning a commission by promoting other people’s (or company’s) products. You find a product you like, promote it to others and earn a piece of the profit for each sale that you make.
- Choose your niche. (This is a tech site, so it only makes sense to promote others in the same field. Not going to promote products of a cooking site, right?)
- Research different affiliate programs and products. (Amazon has one of the best affiliate platforms so check it out.)
- Build a site. (Duh!)
- Build an audience. (Traffic is important. How to you sell products if you don’t have an audience??? You might want to check out my post on how to get massive traffic to your website.)
- Promote your affiliate product(s).
Also check out affiliate programs of some notable brands in Nigeria such as Konga and Jumia Affiliate Program.
However, making money with affiliate marketing is a lot harder than people present it. You might think that all you need to do is put a link on your site and then watch the money flow but that isn’t the case. You have to do a lot of upfront work to convince your audience that they want/need a particular product. If you can’t do that then your links will just sit there unclicked.
Check out our recommended Amazon products
4. Sponsored Posts
If you have a website or a large social media following, you can also make money by pursuing sponsored posts and ads. Basically, companies are willing to pay bloggers and social media influencers to promote their products and services. If you have a platform, be it a blog or a huge Instagram following, you can cash in.
- Learn how to master social media here
- Get this free Social Media ebook
- Get 1000 followers on Instagram
Keep in mind though, you don’t need a website to do sponsored content since you can also get paid if you have a lot of social media followers.
A word of caution though… don’t be greedy and in a hurry. The first sponsored post we did paid only $20.
5. Flippa — Sell Your website
Yeah. You heard right!
So, Flippa is basically a place where you can sell and buy ready made websites.
If you’re willing to dedicate a little capital, flipping on Flippa can net you some serious coin. The platform has seen more than $140 million in sales since its 2009 launch, making it a very g0od platform for you to begin to make money from.
When your website is seeing a healthy amount of traffic, engagement and financial potential, it’s time to auction it on Flippa.
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6. YouTube
While YouTube recently changed its monetization program, if you’re able to hit their new minimum bar of 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 hours of view time in the past 12 months, it’s still an incredible place to make extra money online.
Rather than making money through subscriptions, YouTube channels are based on a traditional advertising system. Meaning
the more viewers you get, the more you make. Once you’re approved for the YouTube Partner Program and can start including ads on your videos, with every 1,000 views, you will make approximately $2-$4. Which might not seem like a lot, but if you have 100 videos with 5,000 views a month each, that would be $1,000–$2,000 already.
Depending on how successful you are (virality, subscriber base and topic) you can make a lot of money, and there are plenty of stories every week of more and more YouTubers making it their career.
There are a ton of YouTube channels out there on any topic if you can think of, and most of the people with a big following are earning some money in exchange for their videos and time.
7. Paid Surveys
Want to make a quick buck for doing practically nothing? Taking paid surveys can help.
Note: Taking surveys will not make you rich. You can’t depend on them as a part-time job either. However, they can be a decent way to make some extra pocket change.
Example:
- Survey Junkie – Get paid in cash or gift cards to take surveys share your opinion about a variety of products and services.
- Vindale Research – This is another survey company that pays cash for your opinions about popular brands like Disney, Nike, Samsung, and more. You can also earn a $2 bonus for getting started.
- EarningStation – Earn cash or gift cards for taking surveys, shopping online, watching videos and more.
8. Guest Blogging/ Freelance Writing
If you have writing skills and creative talent, it’s also possible to get paid to create online content.
The key to making money online in Nigeria as a freelance writer is figuring out a niche, networking with people who might hire you, and delivering high quality content 100 percent of the time. While there are a ton of writing job boards to help you get started, it’s fairly easy to find starter writing jobs on websites like Upwork.com.
See Blogging websites that will pay you $100 to write.
9. Bitcoin Investment
A word of caution though — this isn’t full proof nor for the fainthearted. Visit bitcoin.com for what you will need to know and check out our post on everything you should know about bitcoin.
Just think of it like investment banking, but with bitcoins.
10. Ebooks
This is a nice little way you can make money online in Nigeria.
eBooks because you can make them as simple or as complicated as you want. The easiest way to make an ebook is to simply write it in some type of word processing application (Word, Pages, or Google Docs) and export it as a PDF.
It’s completely dependent on the subject matter and what problem you are trying to solve that determines if it will be successful.
If you don’t even want to set up your own website you can go directly through Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing to reach millions of people instantly. Of course, you are dealing with a lot of competition but I know authors that make over $40,000 a month with their Kindle books.
11. Launch Your Own Blog
Another underlooked way you can make money online in Nigeria is to launch your own blog. Here’s how to Start a Blog in 8 Easy Steps:
- Step #1: Select a perfect niche for your blog – what you want to write about. Is it food? E.g., this is a tech blog and I only write on technology.
- Step #2: Choose a blogging platform – There are various platforms, Blogger (like Bella Naija and Linda Ikeji uses), WordPress (like this one), Square Space, Wix, etc. I will 100% recommend WordPress.
- Step #3: Pick a domain name – Your domain name matters. Take time to choose a short, relevant – and easy to remember one. USE THIS CODE to get a cheap domain name.
- Step #4: Get a web hosting account – The hosting company you use can make or break your site. Use InMotion hosting. They are legit.
Then after steps 1-4, just Select a theme and design your blog and then you’re done!
12. Grow a Startup
Building and scaling a high-growth startup, while by far the most difficult way to make money online, arguably has the most potential upside. If you can successfully create an online service, tool, or marketplace that fulfills a rapidly growing need in the marketplace, you could be on track for creating a very valuable business. However, it’ll undoubtedly take an intense dedication of time, efforts, and financial resources.
Good luck though!
13. Get into Dropshipping
Drop shipping is a streamlined form of retail business wherein the seller accepts customer orders but does not keep goods sold in stock. This is quite an old business.
if you can find a solid product that’s already being manufactured at a reasonable price from a marketplace like AliExpress, LightInTheBox, or others, and market it to your audience, you’ll have the start of a money-making eCommerce machine.
14. Become a coach online
Being an online coach or consultant is a great way to make money online, as instead of giving your client ongoing deliverables (like when you’re a freelancer), you’re teaching them to be better, faster, stronger than the competition. Your expertise becomes the product you’re selling.
15. Start Testing websites for money
To test these websites, you’ll be asked to visit the site in question and record your reactions and thoughts as you go through it. To get started making extra money online by testing websites, sign up for some of the most popular services like UserTesting.com, Userlytics, TryMyUI, Userfeel, or TestingTime (for people outside the U.S).
16. Sell your own online course
If you’re already an expert in a topic—either through your current job, freelance business, or coaching—you can package that knowledge into a high-value course and sell it for years to come.
Courses and other knowledge products like e-books, are what’s called passive income. That simply means that once the upfront time and effort is put in, with just a bit of regular upkeep and marketing you’ll be able to continue to sell and make money from them for months and years.
So, how do you go about putting together your course? A quick google search will reveal all you need!
17. Sell Stock Photos Online
If you have a fondness and talent for taking pictures you can make extra money online by becoming a stock photographer and selling your images to a stock photo company like ShutterStock or iStockPhoto. You’ll get royalties every time someone licenses an image you’ve submitted.
In general, stock photos earn approximately 25-45 cents per image, per month.
18. Write for Medium
Medium is an online community where anyone can post articles and essays and get them in front of their audience of millions of monthly readers. While it can be a great place to build your audience for your own blog or find customers for your consulting business, with Medium’s new Partner Program, you can now make money online whenever someone reads your articles.
Register for free and you can choose whether your articles are freely available or only readable by those people paying $5/month for a premium Medium membership. You’ll make money based on the amount of people who read and engage with your posts each month.
19. Become a Freepik Contributor
All you have to do is to sign up as a contributor to Freepik (photos, vectors, PSD files) or Flaticon (icons), upload your resources, wait for them to be downloaded, and earn money! Contributors are paid depending on their content downloads, which is known as the pay per download method.
Freepik is one of the most visited websites in 2020.
Freepik pays a bonus of $2.5 per 1.000 downloads per illustration during the first 30 days since the image is active at Freepik.
20. Buying & Selling Domain Names
Like real world property, domain names can be bought and sold for profit, generate residual income, and developed to increase their value. Buying a good domain name and selling it over time is a common way for domain investors to turn a profit.
You can keep a domain for 10 years and still sell at a considerable profit. While you are waiting for it to sell you can monetize the domain and throw in some SEO, which in turn can justify the cost to the buyer. Most domains end up paying for themselves so your portfolio won’t really cost you any money out of pocket.
See tips from Godaddy on domains
That’s it! Twenty legit ways you can make money online in Nigeria – and generally. Would love to see you make a success of your career, just like we are trying to do. Give these a whirl and you never know what could happen.
Z
