Unless you have been hiding under a rock, you have probably heard of what has become known as \”Make Money Online\” and the youth seem to be all over it. You may have heard about it from a friend, or family member. It may even be from a social media acquaintance. All around you, it seems people are making money, and it’s from the internet. You have wondered what at all it is that they do. Is it fraud? You have heard of it too. There are people who do that, so these guys must also be doing it, right?
The whole online money concept is one that has been misunderstood by the Ghanaian populace and it is only now that the youth are beginning to realize just how many potential opportunities exist online. But it’s still at the early stages and sounds \”Fishy\” to most people. And oh, it is not being a fraud. There is fraud and there are online money-making opportunities. Once we have cleared the elephant in the room, shall we?
The Rise of the Internet Powering the Make Money Online Movement
Without the internet, there would be no \”online\” and without \”online\”, then there would be no making money online. The internet has disrupted many industries and continues to disrupt many more. This includes the future of work and what we can consider as work. The coronavirus showed the world that \”work from home\” could be a thing. But people like freelancers and online entrepreneurs, daily work was always \”work from home\”.
With lots of jobs being lost on the global front and countries like Ghana yet to catch up, the job market is not the likely solution to the dire demand for jobs in the country Ghana, at least not in the traditional sense of the job. It is traditional that one goes through about 2 decades of formal education after which they would have to submit their credentials to gain a well-paying job which in most cases isnt actually well-paying and neither is prestigious. But at least, it keeps the pocket a little wet, mom and dad proud and happy. All seems to be going well but just not for the employee. This is the story of a few. Many young people after completing education even after the highest level of acquiring a degree are still unable to land jobs.
The internet is the great equalizer. It serves the masses who are not able to get jobs through various ways that people can make money and not have to depend on the system for jobs. Today, one can launch a business online and start seeing results tomorrow. Unlike a traditional business which would require heavy startup costs, an internet business at the basic level only requires an internet device, an internet connection, and a skilled or knowledgable individual.
One could say, the internet has made it possible for anyone with ideas to move from mere ideas to execution and massive success if they are committed to the online money-making principles.
What Does it Mean to Make Money Online?
Making money online is one of the misunderstood concepts about the internet in Ghana. How does one make money online? How do you get paid? What are you paid for? So many questions pop up. But let’s look at it from the point of view of a business. Businesses either have services, products, or both. The good news is, you can sell both. Just like you can sell consultancy in physical settings, so can you online. If you are selling sneakers, you can do so online. How about something intangible, like teaching? Sure. You can create courses. How about making money from watching videos? Or getting free money? Well, those don’t work as much. So, where is the line drawn between a solid online business and a temporary scheme? We will share 15 good ways you can start with today to make money online.
Who is Making Money Online for?
Making money is for anyone who wants to earn more. Whether you are a student still figuring out what you would do after school, you’re an unemployed graduate, or maybe an employed worker. It works for everyone and anyone. Time commitment and resources to invest in the business may differ but there are lots of online business models that allow anyone to start with little to no monetary cost.
What Do You Need to Make Money Online in Ghana
Getting started with making money online is an easy way to make money without spending a lot. It works for anyone because the overhead costs involved in starting are very few that anyone could afford to get started. If you are reading this, then you have all you need to get started. To make the requirements much clearer;
1. Internet Device
If you are going to make money online, you might as well have a good device like a laptop, smartphone, or tablet which you can use to work. Note that making money online doesnt mean you won’t do any work.
2. Data Plan
Cars do not move without fuel and either does the internet work when you do not data. This is going to be the only overhead cost after you have incurred an appropriate device for the business you would do. Having a proper internet connection is crucial for sustaining your business or properly taking advantage of any of the 15 easy of making online in Ghana that would be elaborated on in this article.
3. Skill/Service, Knowledge, or Product
Like any other business, you will need something you can trade. It could be a skill in the form of a service, valuable knowledge or information, or a product. Most people already have one or two skills to start with. To make more money, you might have to upgrade your skills by learning new fields and building up your expertise.
15 Solid Ways To Make Money Online In Ghana
1. Freelancing
Freelancing is one of the most profitable and lasting ways to build an online business off the back of your device, an internet connection, and a profitable skill to deliver as a service. Businesses and individuals worldwide are looking for people to perform tasks and deliver various services and do not necessarily hire a full-time worker. This large economy of demand depends on freelancers to work for them. Google is one of the most notable organizations that work with freelancers. So who is a freelancer? A freelancer is a person who offers their services or skills to a wide range of people and organizations often is considered self-employed. They can sell their services to the highest bidder making lots of income while doing so. Some of the top skills in demand include User experience design, ASP development, Shopify development, English proofreading, SEO/Content writing, Photography, Animation, Virtual assistant, Lead generation, Data mining, Social media marketing, Video editing, WordPress development, AngularJS development, Java development, Voice talent, Accounting, Android development, iOS development, Electrical engineer, Zendesk, MongoDB, Data visualization, AutoCAD and 3D design. With so many skills in demand, you can either start with your current skills or acquire one or two and quickly get started. Freelancing is based on platforms and there are two major platforms
- Fiverr
- Upwork
Fiverr is perhaps the best to start with as a beginner. Freelancing is over simple and yet difficult because it isnt very much like a traditional job. And rhe digital medium used makes it difficult to demonstrate your skills. Without a deep understanding of the platforms like Fiverr and Upwork, creating a profile won’t be able to cut it. Fiverr Academy can help. Fiverr academy has helped lots of Ghanaians and Africans build consistent income streams from not just Fiverr but also other freelancing platforms like Upwork.
2. Affiliate Marketing With Amazon
Affiliate marketing has made many online entrepreneurs millionaires and anyone can do it. You may have to apply yourself to study, work, and much more but you will do so at a job. Most people think of online businesses as get-rich-quick schemes. They may help you make money, even faster but they are in no way get rich quick schemes. Affiliate marketing has made and continues to make millionaires and the industry is projected to grow in the coming years. At its core, affiliate marketing is friends sharing great products and services they found with each other and getting a commission from the sale when someone buys using their unique link generated by the company with the product or service. If you register with Amazon, you can generate links for any of the millions of products on rhe website which you can add to our social media, blog, website, or share to friends on WhatsApp. Getting started with Amazon affiliate marketing is a lot easier than making good consistent income from it. To build systems, learn to market each specific product takes study, dedication, and work. You can skip the learning curve and start reaping the benefits of amazon affiliate marketing. Find out more here.
3. Youtube Channel Business
YouTube is the 4th largest social media platform in Ghana. The future of video content is very promising with platforms like Facebook already making massive platform shifts to capitalize on the growth of video content. Users now prefer audio (voice) and video content to images and text on social media. The creator economy allows anyone to create a YouTube channel and start monetizing it once they have achieved 1000 subscribers and 4000 public watch hours after which YouTube will then send you an invitation to join its partner program to start making money from Adsense. Adsense involves YouTube showing video ads on your videos and pay you a percentage of the fee the advertiser pays to have the ad on your video. But for most YouTubers with well-established, Adsense forms a small percentage of their income as compared to brand deals, affiliate marketing, and selling their products, courses, and products. The possibilities of building an empire off the back of youtube are endless and anyone, you, can do it.
4. Blogging
Blogging became explosive in Ghana a few years ago and many young explorers have taken to creating news blogs and a few niche blogs. It is fair to say the blogging industry in Ghana is still at a young stage and needs visionaries who can envision massive businesses empires. Does this sound like you? Then start your blog today. You can make just like YouTubers by signing up for AdSense and from there, the potential is equally limitless.
5. Sell Digital Products Online
“Digital product” is the keyword here. Physical products may require start-up capital but digital products like courses, ebooks, downloadable music, internet radio, internet television, and streaming media; fonts, logos, photos, and graphics are things that are in demand. With time investment, skills and knowledge, you can easily start selling any of these and make money selling your products to companies, individuals in Ghana, Africa, and the world.
6. Start Mini Importation
Mini importation is one of the easiest, cheapest, and fastest ways to make money online. And most of the transactions will take place online including making your money. Establishing the right network and selecting fast-moving products are some key strategies to focus on when embarking on a mini-importation business. It involves ordering products from countries like China at low prices allowing you to sell them at a profit in Ghana. The product you choose is important for your success. A fast-moving product is ideal so you can quickly sell your goods off and make your next shipment. As you sell, you can create a full-fledged business starting with as low as GHS100.
7. Dropshipping
Dropshipping is much like mini-important but also like ecommerce. It works in a brilliant way that doesnt require you to see or handle any products. All you need to do is find a dropshipping service like Oberlo. Once you are signed up, you can select products from leading websites like Alibaba and amazon which you want to sell. Shopify or WordPress can be used to build your website. Once done, add your selected products. Once someone orders, you collect your money and then the rest goes to Alibaba or amazon which you signed up to. You will not handle any products and you dont process orders, It’s an automatic process. All you need to do is build the system, select products and add your profit and you are in business. Dropshipping has created millionaires and continues to provide many people with full-time income with time freedom and more.
8. Virtual Agency
Agencies are some of the best organizations providing useful services to clients. But what if you could have the same benefits as an agency, enjoy the profits without even having any skills to sell? Simply being the middleman operating a virtual agency has become one of the leading ways many people make money online. It’s genius at work. All you need is to set up a system to generate clients and a system of outsourcing clients to deliver the work then you can sit right in the middle and enjoy the benefits without doing any work, having skills, or any specialized knowledge. The challenge is the right systems to build. The virtual agency system [Blue: Insert link] can quickly get you on your feet with all the years of knowledge at your disposal to start generating income.
9. Write and Sell Books on Amazon
If you are a writer, writing is the easiest thing you can do. What if instead of only writing for others, you could write your material such as guides, books, novels, and more which sell very fast on amazon. It’s one of the easiest ways to make money as a writer if you are not in the freelancing game or interested in working for someone or a company. Many authors have been able to retire themselves from a typical day job to work full-time on writing from amazon alone. And it gets exciting since you can always print these books and sell physical copies.
10. Create and Sell Online Courses
Learning is now a must if you want to survive in this economy. But what if you are a can of knowledge and skills and want to teach others your techniques and skills? Online courses have taken over the internet with MOOC platforms all over the place. Many of them will allow you to register as an instructor for free and share your profits with them your course starts selling. You have nothing to lose but the time you put in to create the course. Platforms like Skillshare, Udemy, Kajaba, and Teachable make it easy to design, launch and make money from a course.
11. Sell Craft on Etsy
If you are good with making crafts but didn’t know how to take it to fly, Etsy is just the place you need to be. With an ever-growing user base and powering many individual business people to make good consistent income from selling what they make online.
12. Register as Affiliate on Jumia
Jumia is one of the latest ecommerce platforms in African and Ghana. You might have known that but did you know you could make money from Jumia even now? The Jumia affiliate program allows anyone to refer their friends and make a percentage commission from the sale. It’s simple once you are picked into the program.
13. Become an Influencer
Influencer marketing is “catching fire” in Ghana with many “ordinary” Ghanaians making thousands of Ghana cedis from brand deals, promotions, selling products, and more on mainly social media. It’s a very promising industry and like many others at a very early stage.
14. Create an App
App development is one of the skills in demand for freelancers. But what if you dont want to become a freelancer? Then you could build an app to solve a problem, entertain people or simply provide information. There are various monetization models an app can use with the majority of apps using in-app purchases and ads as the primary source of their income. Once you have the skills, building an app will be easy.
15. Take a Dip Into the Cryptocurrency World
Cryptocurrency is explosive even at its adoption stages. There are thousands of coins or digital currencies coming up crating small investment markets for the savvy investor. Do you consider yourself a financial guru? Dont worry if you are not, few people can be called experts on cryptocurrencies as it is still a new technology. But guess what? It has made more millionaires and surpassed the internet in early adoption rates. You may need to apply yourself to deep learning, technical and fundamental analysis to find real gems t invest in. But the question is, will it be worth it? Absolutely.
Why You Should Consider Making Money Online
Making money online is not online a way of making a living but also comes with a lot of benefits and advantages that you may not enjoy working a traditional job.
1. Work From Anywhere
Working online means once you have the 3 requirements mentioned at the beginning of this article, you can work from anywhere. With the widespread adoption of the internet all over the world, you can almost work from anywhere. It’s a kind of freedom that only the super-rich could enjoy. But now, with the internet, millions of young people all over the world can live such lifestyles without having o to worry if they would be sacked after their long vacation. You simply carry your work with you. Whether you are up in the sky or cruising on some island, you can still get work done and make money. It’s all online.
2. Own Your Time
Riches may be counted in money but true wealth is counted in time freedom. Are you able to completely own or control how you use your time, or there is someone else you have to be accountable to? Adopting one of the 15 online money-making ideas will allow you to truly own your time to explore things that matter to you as a person.
3. Explore Your Interests
We all have interests, desires, dreams, plans of adventures, and wonderful things. Sadly, these dreams and aspirations are crushed by the load of work, schedules, and deadlines of the corporate world and the demands of work that we soon learn to give up on our dreams and simply pursue what is present now to make ends meet. Humans are made to pursue Creative Freedom, goals and create things with passion and meaning. Pursuing an online income stream or business is one of the best ways to do what truly interests you without going broke or having to depend on others to take care of yourself. When you do engage in online business, you can pursue both passion and profits. You dont have to sacrifice any of them.
4. Work At Your Own Time
Is 8-5 draining all the energy from your system? Do you live for the weekend or do you simply dread Sundays because Mondays come next? It’s not news that most workers do not have passion for what they do and neither do they find fulfillment in doing the jobs. So why stay? It’s the illusion that that is the only option you have. The universe is so abundant that you can pursue what matters to you, work at your own time and still make a more than decent living. Thousands of Ghanaians who were pushed by the woes of unemployment to start online businesses and explore the various ways to make money soon realize the amount of freedom it affords them. Lots of Ghanaians enjoy the ability to manage their time, doing what inspires them while making much more income.
5. Build Your Own Business
It is said that you either build your dreams or someone else will hire you to build theirs. Indeed, we all cannot be entrepreneurs but everyone can have a side-hustle or a business that supplements their primary source of income. If the coronavirus has taught us something, it would be that the future is uncertain and that we need to build layers of financial security that we can rely on when economies crash and situations get out of control. 2020 was a very good year for the majority of online businesses because when we could do things on a physical level, online businesses had to make the world work.
6. Potentially Unlimited Income
The internet is full of possibilities and opportunities come off very often. You can start an online business today and get to a million in the next 90 days. A student could earn as much as a bank manager by doing an online business and an ordinary worker can make more than their boss makes in 3 months in a single month. The potential for massive growth in social media and other online platforms that you can make money from makes it flexible yet very profitable. With little to no overhead costs, and start-up costs, almost anyone can make it online.
7. No Risk/Fear of Losing
Jobs are unstable now more than ever. The demand far overtaking the supply of jobs makes it difficult to live a day without thinking about your dispensability. When will they let me go for someone willing to accept less salary you ask? Starting an online business does not give you such worries as you are your employer and you can count on yourself to make your business successful.
How to Get Started with Making Money Online in Ghana
Conclusion
Making money online certainly has a strong appeal to the Ghanaian economy of few jobs and mass demand as well as its various benefits. It also has almost no barrier to entry which means anyone, anywhere in Ghana with the internet with even a smartphone can start any of these ideas today and start making a healthy income in a few months (without need for formal education, qualifications, CVs, etc). Your starter pack is a mere skillset that anyone can acquire today and start their journey. Will that be you? Or you’d pass on the opportunity?
