10 simple (and ineXpensive) ways
to grow your business online

don't try to outspend your competitors
outsmart them instead

Looking to grow your business online without a lot of money? If you are just starting a business, then you cannot afford to waste money. In this article, we will share practical tips on how to grow your business on a small budget. Our goal is to help you compete with the big guys without spending a fortune.

1. Choose the Right Platform for Your Website

The biggest mistake you can make as a small business is choosing the wrong platform to build your website. A wrong platform will not only cost you more money, but it will also limit your business’ growth potential.

At Agility Digital we predominantly use WordPress. It is the most popular website builder in the market, and it powers over 31% of all websites (including both small and large businesses) in the world.

Compared to some do-it-yourself platforms like Wix, WordPress sites have higher functionality, are easily customisable and are considerably higher performing when it comes to creating an SEO strategy.

As part of our Ready-to-go solutions your SEO and ongoing performance are all included as a part of your package.

2. Choose a Functional Website with Simple Design

A lot of small businesses when starting out either do one of two things; try to include every single piece of information they can think of on their site, or don’t include enough information about their business.

The trick is to understand your customers and put information that is relevant to solving their issue, think about the customer journey and what you are wanting the customer to do when they get to your site. Are you wanting them to book a consultation? Calculate a Quote or download an eBook? Most importantly you want to keep them engaged enough that they reach out to you.

What to know more about how you can keep your customers engaged online? Sign up to our Free Inbound Marketing Webinar

3. Make it Easy for Users to Contact You

How easy is it for users to contact you? Do they need to email you or call to book an appointment or a consultation? We recommend making it easy as possible by including online appointment booking and payment gateways.

Agility Digital make it easy for you to engage your customers by having specialised quoting calculators, payment platforms and appointment booking calendars all available for your web users to book your services with minimal friction.

4. Build Your Customer Database From Day one

Most people who leave your website will never come back again. This means that if you don’t get their email address, then you will have no way to communicate with them in the future.

The most cost-effective way to do this is by building an email list.

Email marketing is the most reliable way to communicate with your website visitors. By having personalised information about your web visitor you can also create personalised messages which help engage them with your brand more.

By creating a content strategy, you can offer your visitors free eBooks, Guides, Webinars etc to capture their details and continue an ongoing relationship.

Át Agility we build your website with Mailchimp integrated so you can start capturing your clients details and start tracking their behaviour on your site. Learn more about these great features and how the Agility System works to grow your business here

5. Get More Organic Traffic From Search Engines

Search engines like Google are the major source of traffic for most websites on the internet.

SEO or search engine optimization is a set of guidelines and techniques that make your website more search engine friendly. It is not too technical and with some guidance and training you will be able to do it on your own.

Luckily Agility build your website with SEO in mind right from the beginning so you can have peace at mind knowing that you will have a site that is optimised from the get go.

To get traffic from search engines you’ll need content, which brings us to the next step in this guide.

6. Plan a Content Strategy

Content marketing is a strategy to create useful and relevant content to attract and build an audience. This allows you to get more targeted traffic from search engines without spending a fortune.

The easiest way to add useful content to your website is by adding a blog. As apart of your website build with Agility Digital we will add a separate blog page to your website and sort your content into categories and tags.

You need to plan your content strategy by finding out the keywords your users may be looking for. We will help you discover your keywords as a part of your 4 week Website & Digital Marketing Workshop and will provide you with the guidelines to run a successful blog strategy.

Content marketing is a highly effective and proven strategy to market your business on a small budget. To learn more about it, attend our Free Inbound Marketing Webinar.

7. Make Data-Based Decisions with Google Analytics 

Many beginners use their best guesses to plan their growth strategy. You don’t need to do that when you can use actual data to make those decisions.

This is where Google Analytics comes in. It allows you to see how many visitors are coming to your site, where they are coming from, and what they do while there.

Google Analytics comes with a lot of information. Although, it is neatly organised and beautifully presented, it could still be a bit overwhelming for new users.

Agility Digital provide you with the training and tools to understand the full suite of Google Business Tools so you can understand how your potential clients are using your website. This helps us plan your ongoing strategy and ensure we are getting the most out of your digital campaigns.

8. Leverage Social Media to Drive Traffic

Social media platforms have highly engaged audiences. Facebook alone has 1.47 Billion daily active users, that’s around 18% of all people in the world. Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, and other social media platforms also have highly engaged users.

With so many users, social media platforms bring great opportunities for business. You can start by creating your business’s social media profiles and automatically sharing your blog posts.

There are tons of other things that you can do to engage with audiences on social media. The key is to keep your profiles active, grow your following, and bring traffic back to your website.

In addition to building your website and developing an inbound marketing strategy, Agility Digital can also help manage your social media channels. By optimising the type of content shared and the right frequency we can help increase your followers and help improve your brand.

9. Be an Active Participant in Online Communities

Online communities include forums and question-answer websites. These are the places people go to post their questions, socialize, find content, and explore. Top communities on the internet include Reddit, Stack Exchange, Quora, TripAdvisor, and more.

These communities can provide you with access to people interested in topics associated with your industry. You can join them for free and invest your time in building authority.

First, you need to find out which communities are more relevant to your business and where your potential customers may go looking for answers or content. For example, if you run a travel website, then you may find TripAdvisor more helpful than other communities.

Don’t spam these forums with links to your website in each post. Build authority by genuinely participating with helpful content, and mention your business or website when it is appropriate.

When putting together your marketing proposal, Agility Digital will provide recommendations on what forums are best suited for your industry and help you plan your content for an effective inbound marketing solution.

10. Utilise Pay-Per-Click Advertising

Contrary to popular belief, you can run Pay-Per-Click advertising campaigns on a small budget. With programs like Google AdWords and Facebook Ads, you can set your own pricing, target keywords, audience, and more.

In fact, Google AdWords even offers free advertising credits to new advertisers. As part of our system we also offer some free Google Ad Credits with our hosting solutions.

You can use these credits to experiment with PPC advertising and get some paid traffic to your website for free.

Growing your business online and providing you with the tools for success is Agility Digital’s purpose. If you are interested in exploring what Agility Digital could do for your business, book a commitment free consultation with our team and we can start helping you start your journey to online success.

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