The level of unemployment in Uganda and East Africa is so high. The youth keep on crying to the government for jobs and the government always asserts that it’s welcoming and providing a conducive environment for the investors to solve that by investing in Uganda which is okay, but have you ever thought that before the employment opportunities come in, of which you don’t know when, the computer or smartphone you have can be your office and you be your own boss or freelance contractor?
The internet today is full of opportunities which you can grab and earn yourself a decent living from the comfort of your home but you got to be patient because most of them require research, learning certain skills and developing a client base.
Here are the different Freelance opportunities, you can check them out.
Contents
1.Transcription
Transcription involves turning audio files to text as per the guidelines of the client. I have started with this one because it’s an opportunity which is easier to grab and it only requires a reasonable English language grasp, an eye for details and some basic research skills. There are global companies hiring transcribers regularly like TranscribeMe, GoTranscript, Rev. Remember, for all of these companies, you have to do a pre-entry test with a pass mark above 90%.
2.Writing
Whether web content, book, magazine, online journal or article writing, there is plenty of work for writers and the client base is growing every day due to the increase in the force of the internet and information sharing in everything. All you have to do is to step your first leg in the door and try out the content mills for the start as you get to understand how to craft the different writings. There are global content mills and freelancer pools like Fiver.
3.Translation
Translation involves changing the words spoken or written from one language to another. Due to increased information space sharing, people are looking for information all over the world but sometimes language barrier becomes a problem, that’s where a translator has to come in because in most cases there is no time to first learn the language.
In Uganda, there are different translation companies but they don’t clearly state on their websites whether they have a job opening or not, it’s you to search for their contact, email them with your interest to work with them and they will get back to you with a test or interview.
4.Web Designing
Web designing is the art of making a website page elegant and attractive. This can be learned and mastered even without going in for a university degree. There are millions of websites out there designed by non-graduates.
If you know your good at web designing and you can really take your time to design an attractive website, try out Fiver, Freelancer, PeoplePerHour, Elance and Upwork, design an attractive profile and sell out your services to prospecting clients.
5.Software Development and Testing
Are you a software development student, professional or fresh graduate, you can put your skill set into play and you earn yourself a decent income online while building apps and software for different clients and businesses in Uganda and abroad as a freelancer. All you have to do is to look for prospecting clients, reach out to them, show them what you can provide to them and how it would be of importance to them.
For software testing, you have to learn software testing first because it’s another field of its own; there are online courses for software testing. There is UTest with software testers’ opportunities.
6.Website Testing
Website testing is different from software testing because it’s not technical and anyone can do it from anywhere in the world as long as you own a microphone computer with a reasonably speedy internet connection.
The companies offering such opportunities wants you to look at the website in question and you give honest feedback about the website in real time and the client or owner of the website pays for your feedback. There is User Testing, Enroll, TryMyUi, Testing Time, User feel.
7.Affiliate Marketing
Now, this one is tricky at the same time easy but requires you to be a little bit more patient and build an audience who later alone become your immediate clients. You can do affiliate marketing on social media platforms or starting up a website of your interest, grow your audience and later alone sell to them.
8.YouTube Channel
Starting up a YouTube channel is free and easy. All you need to do is to sit down, think about the different topics of your interest and then come up with something you would want to cover or share with the anticipated viewers.
YouTube receives over 30 million visitors per day and over 300 hours of videos uploaded per minute. So you have to come up with an idea of interest that would attract more viewers and create interesting content.
To make money from YouTube as a YouTube partner, you have to reach a minimum number of 1,000 organic subscribers and 4,000 watch hours within a period of 12 months.
9.Online Marketing
Many people are making a fortune today selling stuff online whether their own or for other people by opening up e-commerce stores. The skills you need here are the marketing skills to market your business and love for business.
You can also sell goods on social media by posting them in different groups of interest. In online businesses, clients are everywhere, there is no limit.
10.Constructing Chatbots
Today, every business focuses on business-client relations and direct interactions but sometimes it can be overwhelming to deal with each and every query or question from the customers or visitors to your website or Facebook page.
Businesses are building auto-responsive bots on their websites and Facebook pages to auto-answer the most common or easily solvable issues of the customers, providing insightful answers to their questions basing on the keywords in the customer(s) query.
Constructing a chatbot needs time, therefore the businesses hire independent contractors to do that and they pay for the services. You can join the chatbot building community on Facebook to learn more about them, how to construct them and how to get prospecting clients.
11.Research
You’re a graduate moving
Take your time, visits some websites that hire researchers and pay for their services. There is Writerbay, AskWonder, JustAnswer.
12.Networking
When I talk about networking, most people’s focus will go to the MLM companies and their pyramid structures of, bring one person or two and the rest you will leave it to us. No, this is all about spreading the word about a certain software, website, and app.
When you share the information about these startups, they will award you for inviting others, will earn commission from those entities for a lifetime as long they do still exist. You’re not going to spend any money. All you have to do is to spread the word.
13.Social media manager
Many businesses have established a firm connection with their customers but sometimes the owners have less time to provide regular information, explain some things to the customers and other social media related issues. They will be forced to hire a social media manager to manage the business’ social media accounts.
Sometimes, you may have a big number of followers on social media and business owners can use that opportunity to sponsor your social media accounts, in turn, you advertise their goods or services to your audience.
14.Uber
Since the world we are in now is so informed, to many, the Uber app is not a new thing. You always hear it but you may be wondering how to make money with it if you got no car, you’re still broke looking for jobs. All you got to do is to make friends with the people who have cars especially those of special hires.
Download the Uber app and pull out an interesting profile. The customers will connect with you for the services, contact your friend who has a special hire car parked at the stage, agree on the money you have to give him and the hours you’re going to spend with the car, go and make that money.
15.Viewing paid advertisements
This is one of the simplest ways of making money online but it’s time-consuming at the same time data consuming. If you’re using a paid data bundle I don’t advise you to go in for paid adverts but if you’re using a company or public wireless connection, I recommend spending some relaxing time, going register with more than 10 Ad view sites and making that money.
The reason for registering with more than 10 sites is, viewing adverts pays pennies since you’re doing nothing and doesn’t need any skills to do it.
Conclusion
The opportunities listed are not the only opportunities available on the internet but the most common and easy to give a try. Keep your eye open because more opportunities will be revealed soon, so keep posted.
The examples of the sites I have given above as case studies for the different categories are not limited to those sites but there are more others as we will cover each opportunity mentioned above in details sooner.
For any freelancer, patience is a must, no quick money. You can do work for a client and he/she takes up to a month to pay for the work you did. You have to make a research about the different opportunities and sites before you sign up with them to start working because you may end up working for scammers. You have to be a researcher.
In the next article, I will show you how to verify a legit online platform.