Creating a successful online business in the current economy requires a digital-first approach. Businesses of all shapes and sizes can benefit from an online presence to grow their company quickly by providing businesses with opportunities to reach new customers, generate more revenue, and scale their companies.
To take advantage of this opportunity for growth, developing a well thought out strategy, being consistent and executing your plan is critical.
This guide provides proven strategies to quickly grow your online business and create a good server without spending time or money.
1. Develop Your High-Performance Website
Your website is your storefront. If your website is slow, hard to use and hasn’t been updated in a while, then it is costing you money every day.
The following are the main elements to develop a high-converting website:
- Clear Value Proposition – Visitors should understand immediately what you are selling and the value of what you’re selling.
- Mobile Optimization – Approximately 60% of all website visitors will be using a mobile device to view your website.
- Fast Page Load Time – A delay of 1 second could greatly affect your conversion.
- Clear Call to Action (CTA) – A CTA should tell your visitors about exactly what they need to do, such as Purchase Now, Book a Call, Request a Quote.
If your website is on a platform such as Shopify, WordPress, or Wix make sure that your website’s theme is optimised for performance and conversion.
Bonus Tip: Including company testimonials, trust badges and or verified case studies create instant credibility with your visitors.
2. Utilize Search Engine Optimization for Long-Term Growth
Utilizing effective search engine optimization (SEO) strategies is one of the best ways to create long-term, sustainable growth. Successful implementation of SEO strategy will allow you to attract quality traffic to your website, which is essentially ‘free’ (i.e., visitors that have the intent and willingness to make purchases).
The following SEO strategies will build credibility as an expert in your space:
- Target customer-intent keywords
- Optimise your title tags and meta descriptions
- Build internal links
- Develop high-quality blog content
- Establish authoritative backlinks
You will position yourself as an expert by consistently publishing and creating content within your niche area and this will help enhance your overall search rankings.
SEO takes time, however, once you have achieved better rankings, the amount of traffic and revenue can increase quickly.
3. Utilize Paid Advertising for Immediate Revenue Growth
Paid advertising can provide you with immediate traffic to your website, which is critical if you want to achieve revenue growth more quickly.
The following are popular platforms for paid advertising:
- Google Ads
- Facebook Ads
- Instagram Ads
- LinkedIn Ads
Using proper targeting criteria, you can reach your best customer segments based on their demographic and psychographic characteristics, as well as their buying behaviour
As a best practice, spend a limited budget on multiple ad types to see which ads will work best and then you can invest more budget into the ads that work. Retargeting campaigns are an essential part of your paid advertising strategy, because you will be targeting customers who have already visited your website and are likely to convert into paying customers.
4. Create an Email Marketing Funnel
Email marketing is one of the most profitable methods for getting revenue out of customers.
Using systems such as Mailchimp and ConvertKit lets you build funnels for email campaigns, as well as segment people into different groups.
Here’s how to create an email marketing funnel that generates revenue:
- Provide your potential customers with a lead magnet (like a free guide, discount, or checklist)
- Create a welcoming email series
- Send valuable emails (educate, entertain, engage)
- Introduce your paid offerings at the right time
- Follow-up with emails promoting your products
Email funnels build trust and lead customers into buying from you over and over again.
5. Use Social Media Wisely
Using social media to create a presence is not enough — you also need to engage and position your brand.
Seek out where your audience is located on social media:
- TikTok for quick, viral content
- YouTube for long-form educational content
- Instagram for visual branding
- LinkedIn for business-to-business (B2B) marketing
Building trust comes from being consistent in posting educational content (that will help your customers), sharing behind-the-scenes content, posting testimonials, and showing your audience you are knowledgeable in your business and that you have experience.
Using video is the fastest way to create customer awareness and customer trust.
6. Improve Your Conversion Rate (CRO)
Traffic generation is only half the equation; it doesn’t mean that when a potential customer visits your site or clicks on your ad, they are going to buy something.
Improving your conversion rate means that you have the opportunity to make more money from each visitor.
To improve your conversion rate, you can make quick changes, including:
- Making your checkout process easier
- Giving your customers a sense of urgency (for example, running limited-time offers)
- Using popups on exit pages (to capture email addresses)
- Improving the copy in your product descriptions
- A/B Testing headlines and call-to-action buttons
Even a small improvement in your conversion rates.
7. Upselling and Cross-selling
Up-selling and cross-selling are one of the quickest ways to increase revenue and average order value (AOV).
Here are a few examples:
- Recommend complementary products
- Provide higher quality options
- Bundle products together as a single package
- Create a subscription service
Many eCommerce sites using Shopify will use an upsell app to automate this process.
The result is more value to the customer and hence more revenue to your business.
8. Work With Influencers and Affiliates
Using influencer marketing is very effective for building trust quickly because audiences turn to those they follow for recommendations.
Work with niche-focused influencers by offering them:
- Paid sponsorships
- Product to test and review
- Giveaway items to promote
- Affiliate program
Typically, micro-influencers generate more engagement with lower costs.
An affiliate program allows others to promote your products for a commission, thereby allowing you to grow your business without upfront startup costs, needing only to grow sales performance.
9. Automate and Scale Operations
To achieve growth, it is essential to have systems in place.
Use tools for:
- CRM Management
- Automated email
- Chatbots
- Sales Tracking
- Customer Service
The automation of your operations saves you time and minimizes errors, freeing you to focus on growing, not completing manual tasks.
As you increase your revenue, you should reinvest into those marketing channels that generated you the highest return.
10. Analyze Data & Adjust Right Away
The internet is growing due to data analysis.
You can measure the following with Google Analytics and through other tracking systems:
- Website traffic
- Conversion rates
- Cost per acquisition (CPA)
- Return on ad spend (ROAS)
- User lifetime value (LTV)
Tools like Google Analytics provide valuable insights into user behavior.
The fastest growing businesses are those that continuously test, measure, and optimize their online operations.
Fast-Track Your Growth Strategy (Your Action Plan)
To get rapid results, try this sequence:
- Properly optimize your website for conversions
- Try using paid advertising campaigns to drive immediate traffic to your website
- Develop an efficient email funnel to capture leads
- Retarget those visitors through additional ad spends
- Utilize an SEO/content strategy for ongoing long-term revenue generation
This approach can create some immediate revenue while you are working towards building a long-term sustainable business.
Final Thoughts
To grow your business online at an accelerated pace, follow the proven fundamentals instead of jumping on every new trending idea.
You want to focus on:
- Increasing your targeted traffic
- Converting visitors as efficiently as possible
- Increasing the overall value of each customer
- Automating your processes
- Making data-driven decisions
If you implement the proper systems, you will find your business’ growth will be predictable and scalable.
