The number of freelancers that earn from Fiverr in Kenya has dramatically increased, especially since the Covid-19 pandemic made young people embrace working from home.
Fiverr is now one of the many ways that young Kenyans are making money online while working remotely to serve international clients. You can read some of the other ways in this article I wrote on Making Easy Money working Remotely in Kenya.
Key Takeaways
- Target simple gigs, use SEO and a real photo, niche down, and price your gigs well
- Do excellent work and have great customer service to get good reviews
- Avoid illegal gigs and other practices that might get you banned
If you are struggling with reviews, I have written on Getting Fiverr Gig Reviews as a new account.
A Summary of Earning from Fiverr as a Beginner Freelancer
Before we go into details, here is a list of tips and tricks that you can use to customize your Fiverr profile for higher earnings:
- Target simple gigs like Content Writing, Data Entry or Analysis, Social Media Posting, Web Research, and Amateur Graphic Design.
- Narrow down your Gigs. For example, if you choose Content Writing, make the target even smaller by focusing on Content Writing for Bonsai Trees.
- Use your real photos on the Fiverr profile and Gigs pages. Generic stock photos are not really effective for building trust.
- Make a striking Gig image that captures attention quickly. Do not clutter it with too many words.
- Use SEO tips in writing your Gig’s Title and Description. An SEO-optimized description will get you more impressions and help you rank higher.
- Create pricing packages for your Gig that accommodate clients at all budget levels. However, do not have huge variations in the pricing levels for one gig.
- Personalize all your offers to the client’s brief. Mention the information they have written in the brief when telling them how effective you will be at offering the service.
- Avoid offering services that Fiverr terms illegal.
We will go over each of these in more detail below but first, just in case you are new to Fiverr, let us do a recap on what it is, how it works, and how you can earn from it regularly.
You can skip this next section and go directly to the TIPS below it.
What is Fiverr?
Fiverr is basically an online marketplace for services. It allows anyone to join and sell their skills for as little as $5 and as high as $10,000.
The Fiverr platform has been operating since 2010 and currently, it is estimated that it has over 2.5 million freelancers and about 5 million buyers.
Fiverr makes money as a company by charging a commission for transactions made through the platform. A seller pays up to 5.5% of the amount they spend on a gig while the buyer (freelancer) is deducted 20% of the amount that they earn from a gig.
Despite the fees, Fiverr is a great way to make money online since it is very easy to join and with a little effort, you can find paying clients.
Read the comparison between Fiverr, UpWork, and Contra in the article I wrote, “Is Fiverr Better than Upwork and Contra?“
How does Fiverr work in Kenya?
Fiverr is an international company and so it operates in multiple countries including Kenya.
This means that there is no difference in working on Fiverr in Kenya versus any other country. The process of starting out and earning is the same.
So, if you are wondering if you can use Fiverr in Kenya, then the answer is YES. Yes, you can use it for freelancing.
Here are the steps that you need to follow to get started:
1. Signup and Login on to Fiverr
Fiverr only allows people with a registered account to sell or buy services.
Registering is free and you simply need to go to www.fiverr.com and create a free account. You can Sign up with the Google Account option if you want to do it faster.
When signing up, you will specify if you want to be a seller or buyer. Select the Seller option since you are a freelancer looking to get paid.
Just in case you may want to buy a service from Fiverr, you can switch to your Buyer profile. Fiverr allows you to go back and forth between buying and selling as much as you want.
2. Create your Seller Profile
Once you sign up, you will be taken through different steps to complete your Seller profile.
Filling in the information can take up to 30 minutes depending on the amount of information that you put in and how professional you want it to look.
Make sure you think about what types of Gigs you will create before filling in your Profile. It is better to match the information on your Profile with the one on your Gigs.
3. Create your Fiverr Gig
After you have completed your Profile, Fiverr will take you through the steps to create a Gig.
A gig is a service that you will offer to buyers on the platform. For example, it will be something like “I will design a social media for you”.
You can choose to make a gig on anything because Fiverr has about 2 million services. However, to succeed faster, you can choose services popular among other beginner Kenyan freelancers like:
- Content Writing
- Data Entry or Analysis
- Social Media Posting or Management
- Web Research
- Amateur Graphic Design
It is important to brand yourself as an expert in one area. Trying to offer all services above will make you seem unprofessional.
For example, you can pick Data Entry and make your Profile and all your Gigs about data entry and analysis.
Look at how other professionals on the platform have priced their gigs and try to match them. Do not go too low or too high.
4. Wait for Orders – Client Briefs
Unlike other platforms, Fiverr does not require you to look for clients. Instead, they will send you a notification when a client requests a service that Fiverr thinks is a match to your profile.
There are millions of buyers on the platform so just sit and wait for one to be sent your way.
When you get a notification, customize your offer to the brief that the buyer will have written. Chat with the client professionally and if you are lucky, they will place an order.
After completing an order, a client is given a few days to accept the delivery then the money is released to your Fiverr account. You cannot however withdraw it immediately – it takes 14 days for Fiverr to allow a withdrawal.
To learn how to withdraw money from Fiverr using PayPal, read this article that I wrote on “The Process of Withdrawing Money from PayPal to M-pesa in Kenya.
Tips on How to Make Money on Fiverr in Kenya
Once you are on Fiverr, remember that you are competing against thousands of other freelancers all over the world.
It is important to customize your profile and gigs well. Here are a few tips to make you stand out:
1. Create SEO-friendly Titles and Descriptions for Gigs
Fiverr operates like a search engine – the same way google does.
So, in order to be found when a buyer searches for a service, you need to include Keywords that the buyer will enter on Fiverr’s search bar.
For example, if your gig is about Content Writing on Kitchen Gardens, then your Title and Description should include the words “Content Writing” and “Kitchen Garden”.
You can go further and add other words and phrases that relate to the one above. This customization of titles and descriptions is easier if you have some SEO knowledge.
Read more on SEO in this article about Simple SEO Tips for Fiverr.
Ultimately, a good description gives you more impressions (views by buyers) and so your chances of getting hired are higher.
2. Focus on Small Niches
A niche is a narrow or specialized section of buyers.
In the case of Fiverr, an example is buyers that are looking for writers that are specialized in generating content on Kitchen Gardens.
Such buyers will only hire writers that fit this profile.
So, as a seller, try to identify small niches that you can serve. This makes you compete better because instead of your gig being “I will write you a blog article”, it becomes “I will write you a kitchen garden article”.
Other niche examples are “graphic design for Instagram”, “content writing for health blogs”, “data analysis using SPSS”, etc.
3. Create Eye-catching Images
Gig images are important in landing clients on Fiverr.
Take some time to create great images using www.canva.com or any other tool.
The trick with gig images is to include an image of yourself and a very short text about your service.
An example of text for a gig image on graphic design for Instagram would be “Stunning Instagram Designs!”
For data analysis, the image text could be “Detailed Data Analysis!”.
Still, on photos, it is critical to use your real pictures. When buyers see the real you, they tend to have more trust than if you just used a stock photo downloaded from the internet.
4. Customize Responses to Client Briefs
When Fiverr gets an order from a buyer and they think it matches your gigs, they will send you a notification.
Try to be quick in responding to the client briefs with customized messages.
For example, if a client said “I am looking for a competent writer to help me with a 2100-word blog post on nursing mothers”, your offer should mention the same information.
You can respond with “Hi. I am John and I would love to work with you on this blog post about nursing mothers. I have great experience in writing blog posts and I can generate for you well-researched and plagiarism-free 2100 words on this topic”.
The above response is much better than simply saying “Hi. I can do it”.
5. Deliver Fast and Get Positive Customer Reviews
Fiverr ranks gigs based on how buyers rate your work.
If you get many positive reviews, you are more likely to get new customers.
In order to get positive reviews, you need to offer excellent service. This means that for your first few clients, you need to go above and beyond to make sure they enjoy the experience and leave a positive review.
Then as you grow bigger on the platform, keep improving the quality of your service.
Another important aspect is making sure you deliver your orders before the deadline. Fiverr values quick delivery with no revisions.
If you consistently deliver orders within 12 hours, regardless of when they are due, there is a chance you will rank higher due to better customer satisfaction.
6. Don’t Earn from Fiverr using Illegal Services
There are service categories that Fiverr considers illegal.
One example is Academic Writing. Fiverr is constantly banning accounts that sell essay-writing services to students.
In order to remain on the platform, avoid creating gigs in this area. However, if you still want to target such customers, make your gigs about tutoring or generating sample papers. I have written on other ways to target such customers in the article Direct Clients for Academic Writing.
Other banned gigs include services around Hacking, Financial Fraud, Piracy, YouTube Views, etc.
Also, stay within Fiverr’s terms of service to avoid getting your account banned.
Some popular reasons for accounts to be banned include getting fake gig reviews, copying gigs from other sellers, copying gig descriptions, stealing gig images, spamming other sellers, having multiple Fiverr accounts, and asking for payments outside Fiverr.
In Conclusion
Fiverr offers a great opportunity to grow as a freelancer in Kenya.
You only need to be good at a particular skill to start making money on the platform.
Nowadays, this is very easy because you can learn almost any skill via YouTube.
Put simply, with just a laptop and internet access, Fiverr is one place where you can make hundreds of thousands doing remote work from your home in Kenya with a just few hours of working each day.
Other online income sources in Kenya that I have written about include YouTube Vlogs, TikTok, and Food Delivery.
So, don’t wait. Take action.
