Starting and growing your business is not easy and it is not meant for thin skinned individuals. In fact, it is a process that millions of people try, but only a handful succeed.

Not only is it stressful and demanding, but it requires your complete attention and loads of motivation.

 

Now we have THAT out of the way, let’s talk about the bright side. There are 7 easy ways to grow your business online, and if you stick to these simple steps you can also stay within your budget.

 

 

Prefer to watch the video?

(image: hbswk.hbs.edu)

 

 

Step 1: Find a problem in society. Determine if you can bring value to the problem & solve it. 

COST: FREE

 

 

Understanding what you are passionate about will make your business life a million times easier. If you are getting into a business simply to make money and be a world renowned entrepreneur, it is guaranteed that you will burn out from the business stress long before you even make your first $1,000 dollars.

By finding a problem in the world that you are passionate about solving, you have guaranteed yourself a longer career in your business. So how do you go about finding a problem in society and solving it with your business? Glad you asked!

 

 

• Research Your Market: Who are you targeting? What is the problem? Once you have this defined, you need to go really deep… This might take 6 months or more depending on how big you want to grow your business.

 

 

 

(image: clubhosting.org)

 

 

If you are not sure where to start, click here learn more

 

 

 

 

Step 2: Design and build an easy-to-use website.

COST: + – $100

 

 

• Step 1: Register A Domain Name (GoDaddy is a great option)

It’s easy to think about a website in terms of real estate. A domain is your address. It’s how people on the internet will find you.

 

 

• Step 2: Finding A Host (HostGator is a great option)

Your hosting provider will be the “land” your “house” is built on. You must have hosting to have an online business, and the costs will vary. Huge companies spend thousands of dollars a month on hosting packages and small business spend significantly less. (source)

 

 

• Step 3: Choosing a Theme and Appearance (We like ThemeForest.net)

Your theme and appearance are how you ‘decorate’ the outside of your house. Again, the price is up to your personal budget. You can find some really amazing themes using ThemeForest.net for relatively cheap prices though!

 

 

• Step 4: Start Adding Content

Your content will be how you are found, what problems you can solve, (again with the problem solving! Yes, it is just that important!) etc. Content is why people visit your ‘house’.  It is what makes your business a business and draws customers to your product. Keep reading below for more on this topic.

 

 

 

 

 

Step 3: Establish yourself as the expert.

COST: FREE

 

 

You can now officially consider yourself an expert. If you honestly did the work in step #1 and spent time researching your audience’s biggest challenges, all you need to do now is create videos, images, blog posts, live trainings (keep reading) that solves the problem from the expert viewpoint.

 

 

 

(image: www.mediavisioninteractive.com)

 

 

Step 4: Focus on creating content that sells.

COST: FREE

 

 

Use a shareable website or blog that belongs 100% to you. It is going to be the life blood of your new business. It does not matter so much where you share your content online, after all, each business owner will have their own favorite sites. But it is important that your content be gathered together in a single location. This location must be a site that your audience (the people you are solving the problem for) can reference back to, for more of your products and services.

 

 

(image:socialmeep.com)

 

 

 

Step 5: Use social media, industry influencers & search engines to drive traffic to your site.

COST: FREE

 

 

• Share Often: share your content from your blog post multiple times. According to vervesearch.com you can tweet your post, share to Facebook and Google+ the day you publish your content. A couple days later you can re-tweet, re-share, and also create multiple videos from 1 piece of content. The biggest takeaway from your multiple sharing strategy, is to include your website address on every post you make. This is how you drive massive traffic back to your site (where your products live!)

 

• Get Influencers to Write for You: some schools of thought these days will tell you that having an industry influencer promote your content (even helping you write content!) is by far more important than SEO, search engine optimization. The best part is that creating relationships with influencers is 100% free. All you have to commit to is reaching out to the leaders in your industry (the problem you are solving) who have the largest social followings. These influencers have the capacity to get your name in front of thousands if not millions of people. Now it is up to you to ask them!

 

 

(image: prewrittenemailmarketing.com)

 

 

Step 6: Follow up with e-mail marketing as you build your list. 

COST:  $20+ for lead page generator, $29+ email autoresponder

This is one of the most important tools in building a business.  As you develop your sharable site, begin building a list of emails of the people that visit your site, and continue to provide them with value. This will translate into buyers for the future launch of your product or service.

 

 

 

(image: www.tgslc.org)

 

 

 

Step 7: Increase your income through training and webinars.

COST: FREE for Google Hangouts and +$20 for paid webinar hosts like Webinar Ninja

 

 

According to UnBounce… there are several steps you can take to ensure that you have a successful and profitable webinar:

 

 

• Create an Interesting Topic: Believe it or not this is where most webinar hosts totally miss the boat! Their topic is boring, it has been done a million times, and audience members just are interested. If you are going to use webinars, save yourself disappointment by only hosting a webinar when the topic is new, interesting, and dare we say, EXCITING!

 

• Write Your Training Content AND Marketing Content: Never leave a webinar with only having covered teaching. You must always end the webinar with 10-15 minutes of a product promotion.

 

• Test your “Webinar Registration” Page: What does the audience member see after they register? Do you have any goodies for them as a “Thank You” for registering? Not necessary but certainly a nice personal touch!

 

• 10 – 15 Minutes of Product Purchase Opportunity: Really, your audience expects it these days. If they love you and your content, why would you miss giving them an opportunity buy?

 

• Test Your Sales Page

 

• Schedule and Automate Your Social Marketing for a Week’s Worth of Promotion Before the Webinar.

 

• Include Registrants Who Missed the Live Event Witha “Watch the Recording” Email

 

• Scoop Up All Product Sales with a “Last Chance” Email

 

 

 

 

Conclusion

Without needing much luck, if you’ve made it this far, you now have a good idea on how much it will cost you to bring your business online. Not only are most of these steps FREE, the other ones are ridiculously cheap!

 

There has never been a better time in the history of the world to start your own business, and we would love to be a part of your success!

 

Check out IMU and if you have any tips that we missed we would love to hear!  What’s worked (or not) for you? Leave a note in the comments.