Gone are the days where just your education degree will earn you enough income to live your dream life. We are now in a skills acquisition era and obtaining degrees alone might not be sufficient to enable you to maximize your living potential.
These days employers ask questions beyond the certificates you have and extend to relevant skills you possess. This puts you in an advantaged position and increases your chances of getting the job.
Furthermore, with the acquisition of relevant skills, the choice of becoming your own boss is available as well as working in a company that will pay reasonably well. This article will expose you to 5 digital skills that can increase your earning power.
Why Digital Skills?
The world is experiencing a digitalization transformation which means digital skills is the future of our business environment. Taking a quick peek at the banking sector, schools (online classes and exams), virtual meetings, court proceedings, online test and interviews, the government proposed digital identification number and so on, it is evident that digital skills are needed.
It is worthy to note that in the nearest future, some skills in operation now will become outdated. However, digital skills will still be valuable, here are 5 high paying digital skills you can pick from.
1. Digital Marketing
Nearly half of the world's population are online, people are always on their phones, tablets and laptops every minute of the day. Your customers are online. Learning digital marketing will equip you with the art of targeting a specific audience, attracting this audience with free contents or ads and making sales.
Digital marketing comprises of Market Research, Content Marketing, Online Advertisement; E.g Google ads, Facebook, etc, Social Media Marketing, Search Engine Marketing (SEM), Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Email marketing, Users Interface and Experience (UI and UX) Design etc.
As a learner, you can decide to either learn all these aspects gradually or choose different segments and specialize in it in order to be more proficient.
You can learn digital marketing through the following ways;
- Free online resources and YouTube videos
- Paid courses. There are good platforms out there
- Learn while working in a digital marketing agency or as an intern
- Learn from a digital marketing institute
Whichever means you choose to employ, the key to successfully learn digital marketing is to engage in constant practice. This will enable you to measure your performance and know what's working for you and what's not.
With a digital marketing skill, you can take your business online and get the most out of it. You can work as a digital marketing manager or specialist in a company. You can also engage in freelancing and earn cool cash. You can also choose to set up a digital marketing agency after you gain mastery of the field.
2. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
People go to search engines such as Google, Yahoo e.t.c to search for information, reviews or evaluate products. Websites or web pages that appear on the first page get more customer traffic.
Ranking on Google first page is very competitive since there are thousands of websites or webpage with similar topics, products or services. Google is keen on providing search users with the best and most relevant content therefore its algorithm takes into consideration, different factors to rank website or webpages.
This is where search engine optimization comes in. When a website is optimized to rank top on Google, it gets continuous traffic for a long period of time (years actually). Businesses pay extremely well to get their website and webpages to rank well on Google as SEO is of great importance to them.
SEO is a bit complex and to be skilled, you need to know how the search engine works, master on-page SEO, backlink building, SEO Audit, technical SEO and others. There are free online resources to help you get started and also paid courses too.
3. Social Media Management
We all love social media!
In fact, studies show that on an average, a person spends above 2 hours of their 24 hours on social media. It is no wonder the likes of Facebook and Twitter are among the sites with the most traffic on the Internet.
This means a lot for businesses; that’s why most brands in Nigeria pay social media managers good money to be their voice on these platforms. Social media managers grow the online presence of brands by creating awareness to their ideal audience. This awareness, in the long run, will invariably lead to business growth.
With good social media skills, you can earn money completing certain tasks for clients on freelancing sites and more. Even Government agencies and officials pay good amounts of money for social media managers to manage their social media account.
4. Programming
We cannot deny that digital services drive our world today. It is interesting to know that codes drive every of this function. Apart from tech-based companies, there is an increasing number of businesses that rely on computer code.
For instance, a programmer is really important to the ICT world because they create programs that tend to solve certain problems. The good thing about it is that in programming you have a vast majority of languages to choose from, so you’re not restricted to learning any language.
Try to start learning from basics and upgrade your programming skills later on. W3schools, freeCodeCamp, Code Academy, Coursera, edX, Udemy and other top programming course websites are ready to help you get started.
5. Web Development
Web development is a subset of programming that revolves around website setup and designing. This is one of the fastest-growing and highest-paying jobs in tech. It’s competitive but pays well.
To be well skilled in this field, you need to learn HTML, CSS, JavaScript, PHP and other programming languages that can ease up web creation and development.
There are websites you can learn web development for free such as, Freecodecamp, W3school, Code academy and others.
