One of the major problems facing most students in Nigerian tertiary institutions is the lack of finance. That ugly feeling when you insert your ATM card into the machine and it reads back “Insufficient funds”. Looks familiar, right? Yeah, we’ve all been there at some point. What if I told you it is possible to go through school without ever running out of funds? Yes, you can earn enough money online to cover for some little but necessary daily expenses like buying handouts, bus fares, course registrations, and other school expenses that your parents may not have the funds to carter for, or may find frivolous.
Money plays a very important role in a student’s life, hence, as a student, you need enough of it. I mean, there are lots of things you need money for while in school. Asides from feeding and clothing, you’ll need some extra cash for data subscriptions, attend paid tutorials, etc.
If you are looking to make money with little or no capital, the internet offers you easy and legitimate ways to do that. There are several genuine and legit ways to make money online. This piece would expose you to some of those ways and recommend some online platforms through which you can earn money as a student. Read on.
How To Make Money Online As a Student In Nigeria (2O Ways)
1.) Tutor people online
Irrespective of your age, there’s a good chance you have gained some skills that people will learn. Don’t let your skill waste away, earn money from it by teaching people the skills you have. Whether it is how to make pastries, bake cakes, grow social media following or solve some basic computer or software problems–whatever you know how to do well, you can earn income by tutoring others to do the same. How?
WhatsApp and Facebook groups are excellent platforms to host your paid webinars. You could divide your classes into two groups, one you will offer for free to attract an audience. This is an excellent way to make money online, and the best part is that you can do it at your leisure.
2.) Write Resumes for people
Every day in Nigeria, millions of people go looking for jobs. Most of these people do not have good CVs and cover letters. If you’re good at writing effective resumes and cover letters, you can offer your services to job seekers and others who may need them–for a token. This way, you earn some money which could help you cover some of your expenses as a student.
You can create awareness for your service via Facebook posts and WhatsApp status, customize your profile, and don’t be shy to let people know what you do.
3.) Write and sell e-books
Writing is a skill that is very easy to monetize online. If you’re skilled in writing, then there are lots of opportunities for you to make money off your skill. One of which is to write and sell e-books. This can be achieved in two ways;
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Sell e-books directly:
You can write and sell your e-books directly to buyers on social media depending on the number of your audience and how relevant your content is to them. For instance, if you are running a WhatsApp class, you can compile your ideas into books and sell them to your students. Selling your e-books can earn you a good amount of money.
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Publish e-books on web stores:
There are many bookstores on the internet where you can publish your e-books and earn money when someone purchases a copy. It is easy, and all you have to do is get registered and start uploading your books. Examples of such platforms include Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing, Okadabooks, Smashwords, GoodReads, and Wattpad, etc. For books published on these platforms, you earn royalties when a user orders your book.
Amazon KDP offers an additional option to earn more money by enrolling your books on its KDP Select. This allows Amazon subscribers to read your books without purchasing them. For each page read, you earn certain royalties. Once your books get published, you just sit back and watch your revenues grow.
This is a great way to earn money as a student without compromising your studies. So, what are you waiting for? Get your books ready and start publishing!
4.) Make money through copywriting
Copywriting is another way to earn money online through writing. Copywriting is the art of writing attractive sales copies to convince people to buy a product. Most sellers are looking for expert copywriters to help them pitch their sales. They need you to write eye-catching copies for their products, and they would part with a good amount of money for this service. Wouldn’t you rather grab your share of these monies? I bet you would.
If you are not skilled in copywriting, you can easily enroll with an expert, learn the skill, and start making money online by writing good advert/sales copies.
5.) Start a blog
Blogging has become a highly profitable internet venture over the years. Blog owners earn lots of money from advertisers who are always willing to pay to place ads on blogs with large traffic.
Google Adsense, Propeller, and MGid are examples of Ad networks that can help you monetize your blog. With these, you can earn up to $50 dollars weekly, but first thing, you will need to create a blog and publish high-quality and engaging contents that will attract visitors to your blog. The more daily visitors your blog has, the better your chances of earning from Ads.
Useful Resource
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6.) Content writing
Another way to turn your writing skill into money is by writing content. Bloggers and website owners publish many posts/ articles on their blogs/websites regularly. As you would guess, they cannot write all these articles by themselves, and they use the services of creative content writers to ease their task.
This is an opportunity you could leverage on to rake in passive income into your bank account. The good thing is that you can do this from anywhere. E.g. you can be in Owerri and write content for someone in Lagos or Abuja. Begin by reaching out to blog owners and informing them of your capabilities. If you can send them some free samples, they may be convinced by your work and request a part-time or full-time partnership.
Remember to always reach a proper agreement before starting out any project.
7.) Vlogging
Video blogging is a great way to turn your creativity and data subscriptions into a valuable income. Video-sharing platforms like YouTube and Instagram offer a large number of audiences and features that you can leverage on. Create a YouTube channel or an Instagram profile, grow, and engage your followers by posting quality pictures and videos. Originality is the key if you want to monetize (especially on YouTube). So, it is best you make your own videos.
There are different videos that you can make; from videos of yourself doing something you love doing, to comedy skits, expert analysis of recent events in society. Just make sure it is something that other people would be interested to see.
You can earn from your YouTube channel by applying for monetization once your channel meets the criteria. Start now and stop depending on friends for “urgent 2k”.
8.) Watching Videos
If making videos sounds like a lot of work, watching them shouldn’t. You can easily get paid for watching videos online. Platforms like Swagbucks and InboxPounds are among the top websites that will pay you to watch videos. As you would guess, these videos are mostly advertisements, but money is involved, so it would be fun.
All you need do is register on any of those websites, complete your profile, and start making money by watching videos.
9.) Online Freelancing
Freelancing is another way to make money online as a student in Nigeria. It isn’t just for students alone; anyone could become a freelancer online. Freelancers offer their services to those who need them from different parts of the world. The good thing is that you do this from the comfort of your home. Depending on your skillset, there are lots of services that you can offer to clients. Content Writing, Copywriting, Editing/Proofreading, Graphic design, Social media management, Digital marketing, and Internet promotion, etc. We often refer these services to Gigs.
You don’t have to worry about getting clients for your gigs, as there are platforms on the internet that serve as intermediaries between buyers and freelancers. I list some of them below:
Your first step is to sign-up on any of these platforms, build an attractive portfolio, and start selling your gigs. In a few months, you should make hundreds of dollars.
The modes of operations of these platforms differ slightly. For instance, on Fiverr, freelancers list their services (called gigs) so that buyers can choose which they want. The reverse is the case with Upwork where buyers list the services they require and freelancers bid for them by sending proposals.
10.) Affiliate marketing
If you own an active blog, affiliate marketing is a way for you to add an extra stream of income. You need to register as an affiliate on eCommerce websites like Amazon or Joomla. Place their affiliate links on your blog site. The best way to do this is to write an eye-catching sales copy that promotes a product in their store. When your visitors read this post and are interested in this product, they would wonder where they can buy it. So, your best bet is to include your affiliate links at strategic points within your write-up. When people follow your links and eventually buy a product, you earn money!
11.) Sell products on social media
This is a very common method that works for most people. The good part is that you may not have the product you’re offering for sale in stock. Simply choose some products you want to sell, go to shops where these products are sold in large quantities and at cheap rates. Take photos of the products and place them on your social media handle.
WhatsApp status, Instagram posts, Facebook groups, and walls are good places to list your products. When someone makes an order, you can then go to the shop and ship to the person from there. Do not forget to add your profits to your listing price. Very important.
12.) Build and sell blogs
There are many people who would love to own a blog, but they can’t go through all the hassle of designing and growing one. Why don’t you save them the stress by creating outstanding blogs, which to you is a simple piece of cake because you are good at it. Grow these blogs for a while and put them up for sale -then watch as buyers bid for them with much more money than you spent building them.
Isn’t that exciting? Well, if this seems like too much of a task to you, the next one is a bit easier and less technical.
13.) Build and sell Facebook Pages
Just like blogs, Facebook pages are assets that many people would love to own but probably do not know how to go about it. Pages are easy to create, and if you know your way around the platforms, you should be able to get thousands of followers in no time.
One tip is to post interesting and trending topics on your page. After a while, you can offer these pages for sale at a good price to someone who needs them.
14.) Rent your Facebook Groups
Renting out your Facebook group is also a good way to make money. Create a Facebook group with a relevant topic and invite people to join your group. Groups need time to grow, but they won’t grow if you just fold your hands. Develop a strategy to help you grow and manage your group. As your group grows and boasts large memberships, you can then monetize.
Most people join groups just to promote their businesses. Group owners on Facebook periodically rent them out to bloggers or brands to make sponsored posts. They earn a good amount of money for this. You could set your group to allow only admins and moderators to post on your group, this way people cannot post advertisements without paying.
15.) Sell Photos
Another way to make money online as a student in Nigeria is by selling photos. If you are good at taking photos, you can take as many high-quality photos as possible and sell them online. There are some platforms with huge databases where photographers can upload their photos for sale, they are called Stock websites. Examples include:
Photos on these sites can be used by other people for books, magazines, or websites, these people must first obtain a license before using the photos. A license can be sold as many times as possible to as many people as possible which means there’s no limit to how much you can earn from a single photo.
Each of these stock websites has specific rules that control the upload of photos to their databases, one common amongst them is originality. The photos you upload to these sites must be photos that you own. Other criteria include high quality and compatible formats.
To start uploading and selling your photos, register on any of the stock websites with your correct details and some samples of your previous photos.
16.) Apps beta testing
Beta versions of Mobile applications have to be tested for compatibility and full functionality before they are finally released to download by users. Although applications pass through some in-lab testing, developers allow real human users to test these apps across various devices to ensure bugs are detected and fixed. This is also applicable to new websites.
If you have some free time and an internet connection (of course you do), signing up for beta testing can be a good way for you to earn passive income without being actually employed. It’s fun, what more? It’s not time-consuming as each review may take just about 30 minutes for which you can earn as much as $10. Sign up to usertesting.com or any other similar platform that offers beta testing and start making money by reviewing websites and apps.
17.) Social Media management
Ever wondered how celebrities and public figures manage their busy schedules and still maintain an active online presence across different social media platforms? I bet you’re thinking of it now. It’s easy, they have people who manage their social media accounts. Brands and Businesses also require the services of social media managers, who get paid to manage these accounts. You can make money off this, even as a student.
Seek out opportunities by pitching yourself to prospective employers. A good way to begin is to tell people what you do and are capable of doing or would love to do to earn money, that way, they will actively be looking out for opportunities, and recommend you when one presents itself.
18.) Microblogging
As a student, you may find it rather stressful to own and manage a blog of your own, and blogs take some time before you can start making money from them. However, microblogging is another way to earn money off the internet.
Microblogging platforms such as HubPages and Medium allow content writers to post their articles so that readers on these platforms can access them. The system is designed in a way that writers earn money for each click on an article. Thus, the earning is determined mainly by the total number of clicks. HubPages, Medium, and most of the microblogging websites are foreign-owned, they generally accept writers from everywhere in the world, but payment methods can become a hitch for Nigerian writers. However, there are local platforms with easily adaptable payment methods that writers in Nigeria can leverage on.
An example is Opera News Hub. Owned by the Opera franchise, this platform is a hub for all kinds of trending articles. It is easy to work on and is tailormade for local writers/audience. Earning on Opera News Hub is relatively easy compared to other platforms, one just has to understand what works and follow it.
So, if you are good at writing compelling articles, especially on trending local and international issues, you might consider trying this out. Head to hub.opera.com, signup, and choose a suitable username and category. It takes from an hour to a few days for your account to be reviewed and approved. After that, you can start posting and earning.
19.) Learn a digital skill
This may not sound like a way to make money, but you’re so wrong. The world is going digital, and people with digital skills are many sorts after. Learning a digital skill increases your chances of earning good money online. Below are some high-selling digital skills that you should not hesitate to learn to increase your earning potential.
- Google ads management
- Facebook ads management
- Web design
- Graphics design
- Copywriting
- Blog writing
- Programming
- Web development
- Digital marketing
The digital skills listed above are lucrative, and also durable sources of income, mastering some of them and with the right strategy would not just make you earn money, but could lead you into a successful digital career path with endless potentials.
20.) Email Marketing
Email marketing is indeed a lucrative skill one could acquire simply because it allows you to make use of your Email list of blog subscribers to promote a particular product to a wider range of individuals who may be in need of the ascertained products or services.
It is an opportunity for those skilled at composing professionally written articles, product descriptions, and can persuade as many as. It can be done anywhere at your comfort i.e without leaving your home.
So if you fall in this category a higher chance of you getting jobs from a reputable organization is guaranteed.
Conclusion
Making money online as a student especially in Nigeria may not be easy at first but with commitment and relentless effort, you will soon reap dividends. All you need to do is to find out what works for you, stick with it and go from there. Your focus should not be on making it quick, but on developing a steady stream of income that would serve you in the long term. Most people make a couple of quick bucks on their first attempt, but they end up lavishing it hoping to make more. Things don’t work that way all the time, spend the money you make online wisely, invest in your studies, and in learning new skills. This way you will have multiple streams of income and would never run out of money.
Did you enjoy reading this article on how to make money online as a student in Nigeria? if Yes happy you find this helpful and informative and please don’t forget to share with those whom you may think are desperately in need of an online side income stream. Feel free to use the comment box to share your thoughts or appreciation in these topics treated above, thanks and do have a lovely day.
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