15 Easy and Inexpensive Ways You Can Grow Your Business Online

The last couple of years has been tough on businesses because the pandemic has changed the world as we know it. One of the biggest challenges for marketers is: how to grow your business online? Whether it is a brick-and-mortar business or an eCommerce, they are all fighting for exposure in this vast digital landscape since online marketing remains a key to success. However, most people tend to equate the word ‘marketing’ to pricing strategies and technology tools.

Looking at the big marketing budgets established companies set, it can sometimes feel like a losing battle, particularly for businesses that are just starting out or are under severe budget cuts.

The good news is that growing your business need not always be expensive. There are many ways to increase your brand exposure on the internet and compete with big players in the market without spending a lot of money. How to do this?

Here are just 15 inexpensive ways to grow your business online

1. Email Marketing

As you must have often heard, the money is in the list. A guaranteed way to grow your business on the internet is through email marketing. Ask website visitors to subscribe to your newsletter or blog, and collect their emails.

Next, start sending out regular newsletters to stay in touch with visitors while building your brand’s credibility.

It goes without saying that you should avoid being over-promotional and send valuable content that recipients find useful. Send emails regularly and avoid bombarding your subscribers or you will lose them.

2. Post on Facebook

There is no denying the power of social media for building traffic and gaining traction with a small business. But bear in mind—don’t register on every platform you find; simply focus on a few that suit your brand the most.

Facebook is a great option for almost every business as it offers a wide range of features to grow your business online.

Post regularly and engage audiences naturally by being genuine and exciting rather than being too promotional.

3. Build A Presence on Instagram

Instagram is the most popular platform for marketers today with an ever-increasing user base and powerful features like reels and collaborations.

If you think your business can benefit from creating an online presence, devote some time to building an Instagram account and start engaging audiences through visually appealing content.

4. Video Marketing

Looking at the growth of video consumption over the past few years, you are leaving plenty of business on the table if you’re not jumping on the bandwagon right away.

You can start a YouTube channel for free and create simple video vlogs to share something valuable. As people are more attracted to this format, it gives you an edge when you share your content on social media, email, and your website, thus enabling you to grow your business online.

The learning curve for creating and editing videos is a lot shorter, and with the use of a promo video maker, you should be able to create videos effortlessly.

5. Ask for Testimonials

How often have you gone by others’ reviews when buying online? People tend to base their decisions on others’ experiences and opinions. So, it pays to collect as many reviews as possible for your business and publish them on the review platforms and testimonial section of your website to let prospects know what other people think about you.

Reviews are quite valuable for new businesses, but you need to ask customers to provide feedback; they might not give naturally. A simple reminder or two should do the trick.

6. Contribute to Discussions & Forums

A powerful component of growing your business online is to showcase yourself as an industry expert and authority. Consider posting on the top blogs, forums, social media discussions, and communities to showcase your expertise and authority in the niche. Quora is a great platform that gets high engagement.

When you give genuine, useful answers and insights for questions posted on the internet, people are likely to appreciate and admire you and if you are lucky enough, engage with your brand further.

7. Consider Blogging

You might have published beautiful, informative content on your website, but as a new business, your content may not get the exposure you are expecting.

This is where blogging platforms can help bring your ideas in front of a large number of people and provide you with an effective way to grow your business online. You don’t need to spend anything; just ensure that you follow the guidelines given by these platforms.

8. Use Guest Posts

Apart from creating useful content for your website, consider integrating guest posting into your marketing strategy.

It is not difficult to find high-quality, authoritative sites that allow posting for free, as long as you provide value through your content. Not only do guest posts increase your brand exposure, but also help secure links back to your site, which helps your ranking with the search engines to grow your business online.

9. Encourage User-Generated Content

User-Generated Content is an excellent free marketing strategy as the content you use is created by unpaid audiences. This is when somebody likes your service or brand so much that they take time to share the experience with their followers on social media.

While it often occurs naturally, there is no harm in giving it a push. You can consider highlighting the best posts on your channels and even give away your products as prizes to motivate more people to engage with your brand.

10. Connect with Influencers

Influencer marketing is a powerful social media technique for businesses. While big companies often hire celebrities and experts to promote their brand, you can consider working with micro-influencers to get results without spending an arm and a leg.

Those with a smaller following on social media platforms can promote your business in return for a free trial or product.

This tactic is quite effective as influencers are perceived as industry experts and can often encourage purchases while leveraging their audience and amplifying your brand message.

11. Optimize Metadata

Form a habit of creating meta descriptions and titles for all your web pages and content you post.

These details will be displayed on the search engine results so make sure they are relevant and attractive, thereby attracting more organic search engine traffic.

12. Perform Keyword Research

For those who are new to the world of digital marketing, keyword research is an important part of Search Engine Optimization or SEO marketing and helps you identify what your target audience is looking for.

Devoting some effort to keyword research makes your website SEO-friendly, boosting your site’s ranking and visibility, and thereby domain and page authority.

13. Use Structured Data

Schema markup enables you to label your website content for increased visibility on search engines.

While structured data might not improve your exposure directly, it will surely make your listing look unique and attractive, encouraging more click-throughs.

14. List Your Business in Online Directories

Promote your business locally by listing it on relevant directories. There is a whole lot of location-specific and industry-related directories you can choose from. Ensure that you only consider those relevant to your business and location.

15. Update Your My Business Listing

Another free way to grow your business online is Google listing. Consider updating your My Business listing and ensure that it contains accurate, up-to-date information.

Take time to fine-tune your listing so that it shows the best parts of your business. Do this for other local listings like Yahoo and Bing to get some organic traffic for free.

It is also worth working at Google Reviews as it effectively boosts your ranking.

Final Thoughts

It always helps to assign a budget for your marketing, but these are just a few inexpensive or almost free ideas to help you get started. By following these strategies, your business should see its online presence growing. Explore the internet and use your creativity to align your marketing message to your audience and get on track to successfully grow your business online.

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