12 Essential Tips For Small Online Businesses | Low Budget Growth

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LOW BUDGET starting out?

No Problem, here are some tips…

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Starting and growing a business can be very intimidating and a lot of hard work. However, hard work, persistence, and motivation almost always pay off. You don’t need giant advertising budgets and a big team behind you to achieve success. You just need to know what works, and how to do it. Today we will be talking about some essential tips for small online businesses that will help you grow your business and increase sales. And more specifically, tips and suggestions that won’t burn a hole in your wallet.

Follow these tips and suggestions in this article to help you achieve success!

Is your business already doing more than $10,000/month? Read this article on how to scale!

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PICK THE BEST PLATFORM FOR YOUR WEBSITE


When creating and designing the website for your business, you should keep in mind a few things – functionality, ease of use, pricing, support, features. From our own experience, in almost all situations, we would recommend using WordPress. WordPress is completely free, easy to use, and you are able to create pretty much any sort of website with it. There are thousands of themes and plugins you can use to create your website exactly how you want it. And plenty of support and help documents available online. It is truly amazing software. Did you know that over 31% of all the websites on the internet are powered by WordPress? That is a huge amount.[/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.4.7″]

Here are a few recommended choices:

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WordPress is an open-source platform that allows users the ability to customize themes and plugins to create a unique experience for your visitors.

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Shopify is the perfect choice for small or new businesses to bring their products online and start selling right away. 

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Wix is an easy drag-and-drop builder. While it has it’s pros there is a fair share of downsides. Wix being focused around “simplicity” can remove your ability to get creative in the development of your website.

[/et_pb_accordion_item][et_pb_accordion_item title=”Weebly” _builder_version=”4.4.7″ open=”off”][/et_pb_accordion_item][et_pb_accordion_item title=”BigCommerce” _builder_version=”4.4.7″ open=”off”][/et_pb_accordion_item][et_pb_accordion_item title=”SquareSpace” _builder_version=”4.4.7″ open=”off”][/et_pb_accordion_item][et_pb_accordion_item title=”Drupal” _builder_version=”4.4.7″ open=”off”][/et_pb_accordion_item][et_pb_accordion_item title=”Hire a pro” _builder_version=”4.4.7″ open=”off”]

If you are not tech-savvy, and your budget allows it, hiring a professional is the best way to go. Remove the guesswork, get advice on what works/what does not work. Click Here for a free quote.

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CHOOSE A SIMPLE YET FUNCTIONAL WEBSITE DESIGN

Creating and designing a website is more simple than it has ever been before thanks to themes and CMS’s like WordPress. You can create a professional business-ready website within a few hours nowadays, even without any prior web development or programming knowledge. Most well-made themes will have customization options that you can use to design your website to your liking and preference. When choosing your website design, make sure it is simple to use and functional. Advanced and complicated themes might seem like a good idea to “wow” your customers. However, unless you are a web design company that wants to show off their design skills, advanced/complicated designs should be avoided. You can achieve a professional and sleek website look without complicating things.[/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.4.7″]

MAKE SURE CUSTOMERS CAN CONTACT YOU EASILY

Make it easy for your customers to contact you if they want to. You are losing out on a lot of potential business if your customer wants to contact you but finds it too hard to do so. Not everyone is as tech-savvy as you are! A good way to go about this is to make it easy enough for your grandma to use. A simple contact button/page with a simple contact form is a great and simple way for your customers to contact you. You can also add your email address, phone number, social media pages, and other lines of contact that your customers may use.[/et_pb_text][/et_pb_column][/et_pb_row][/et_pb_section][et_pb_section fb_built=”1″ _builder_version=”4.4.7″][et_pb_row column_structure=”1_2,1_2″ _builder_version=”4.4.7″][et_pb_column type=”1_2″ _builder_version=”4.4.7″][et_pb_image src=”https://marquemediallc.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/marque-mail.png” title_text=”marque mail” _builder_version=”4.4.7″ border_radii=”on|12px|12px|12px|12px”][/et_pb_image][et_pb_button button_url=”https://www.marqu.email/lander-67-camp/” url_new_window=”on” button_text=”Lifetime Email Marketing Software for just $67″ button_alignment=”center” _builder_version=”4.4.7″ custom_button=”on” button_icon=”%%57%%”][/et_pb_button][/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=”1_2″ _builder_version=”4.4.7″][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.4.7″]

BUILD AN EMAIL LIST STRAIGHT AWAY

You should try and turn everyone who visits your website into a potential customer, even if they do not make a purchase the first time they visit. If you do not obtain their contact information, there is no way you can contact them again in the future. If they visited your website once, they are clearly interested in one way or form, so take advantage of this and get their contact information which you can use to market to them.

An easy way to do this is to create an opt-in form on your website which people can submit their email address to join your mailing list. Most big website platforms have plugins and built-in features to help you set this up quickly and simply.

A common tactic is giving them a reason to give you their email address. See the examples below…

“Sign up to our mailing list for exclusive discounts and 10% off your first order!”

“Sign up to our mailing list for a chance to win a $20 voucher each month!”

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GET ORGANIC TRAFFIC FROM SEARCH ENGINES

One of the main aims for a small up and coming online business should be to gain organic traffic from search engines. This does not come naturally, unfortunately. However, you can increase your organic traffic by improving your website’s SEO. You do not need a big budget to develop your SEO, and there is plenty you can do to improve your SEO without needing to spend a penny. This can include creating a blog and posting high-quality SEO optimized articles and improving your on-site SEO.

Not sure why SEO is important for your business? Read this article about SEO tips for small online businesses.

If your website is powered by WordPress, check out these SEO plugins:

7 Best Free WordPress SEO Plugins & Tools

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USE GOOGLE ANALYTICS TO YOUR ADVANTAGE

Google Analytics is a free yet powerful tool that gives you valuable insights and data from the users that visit your website. It is very easy to install, and most website creation software, including WordPress, have plugins which make the installation as simple as a few clicks of a button.

Google Analytics can show you how many people have visited your site, what days they visited, how they found your site (referrer), as well as what they did while on your website.

With this valuable data, you are able to identify problems on your website, as well as make intelligent decisions that can increase sales or traffic. In other words, the data can give you a hint on what to focus on, what to improve on, and feedback on your current campaigns. Google Analytics is extremely valuable and provides tips for small online businesses, and big businesses alike.

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INVEST IN PAY-PER-CLICK ADVERTISING

You do not need a big budget to use PPC advertising. Sure, it would be more effective with a bigger budget, however that doesn’t mean it is useless with a small budget. Programs like Google Adwords & Facebook Ads give you the option to set your own prices, keywords, and target audience. You can test the waters as well as generate some leads with as little as a few dollars or pounds. It is definitely worth the small investment. Many small businesses overlook PPC advertising because they do not think it would be worth it without pouring a lot of money into it. However, it is definitely worth it, even with a small budget.

Do you have a low budget but want to learn an effective low budget advertising strategy? Check out Fred Lam’s 3 x 3 Facebook Advertising Strategy

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HARNESS THE POWER OF SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING

Social media is an extremely powerful marketing tool for all types of business – big or small. And best of all, it is free! If you haven’t already created social media pages for your business, do it right away. This is one of the more valuable tips for small online businesses. Social media can completely change the results of your business if you play your cards right.

It is very easy to harness the power of social media and generate organic search traffic to your website. Following, liking, and commenting on targeted hashtags is a simple yet massively effective marketing technique.

Social media is a great place to share blog posts you have written for your business, as well as promotions, sales, competitions, and anything else that is related to your business.

Check out these 10 Essential Instagram Marketing Tips

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IMPROVE YOUR WEBSITE FUNCTIONALITY, SPEED, & PERFORMANCE

Improving your website’s functionality is not only great for your customers, but it also has a direct impact on SEO. Poorly optimized slow loading websites will have a negative effect on your SEO. A slow-loading website can also turn away potential customers. If your website takes longer than 5 seconds to load, that is a sign that you need to do more to optimize it. A common cause of slow loading times can be imaged on your website. Images can be optimized in many different ways. There are even free plugins for WordPress that increase website loading times. Run a performance check of your website to determine what you can do to improve functionality.

GTmetrix is a great tool for checking the functionality, speed, and performance of your website. It will give you suggestions on how to improve load times as well as other aspects of your website’s functionality.

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USE FOMO & OTHER SALE INCREASING TACTICS

Using sale increasing tactics doesn’t necessarily mean you need to sell your products or services at a discounted price. You can create the impression that the product is discounted with the use of FOMO and other sale boosting techniques. Creating time-limited promotions is proven to be an effective sale boosting method because of the fear of missing out.

A common tactic is adding a “SALE” price to your products. Most eCommerce platforms and plugins have this feature. You are able to add an “original” price as well as a “sale” price, and it displays to your customers as if it was discounted from the “original” price.

Example:

Original Price: $139.99

Limited Time Sale Price: $59.99

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FOR MORE TIPS FOR SMALL ONLINE BUSINESSES, CHECK OUT OUR BLOG PAGE.

Other Related Articles That May Interest You:

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through working with thousands of clients in the past, we have accumulated a lot of great data! Can we send you a free PDF we have put together?

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