Looking for some easy ideas for your small business that won’t cost a fortune? As a small business owner, you want your business to succeed. But you don’t want to spend thousands of dollars doing it.
You don’t have a big budget like a large corporation does with investors to fund you. And because you’re doing the majority of tasks yourself, you need some ideas that won’t take up all of your time.
In this post, you’ll discover easy small business ideas to help your business grow. Without further delay, let’s get to them.
1.Optimize Your Website for Search Engines
You may have seen the acronym SEO floating around the web. Or you may have a glimpse of what it is. SEO means search engine optimization. And it doesn’t need to cost a penny.
SEO helps your website and online communications get found by people looking for answers to their questions online. The answer could be your products and services.
You could hire a company to take care of your SEO. But you can also learn how to do it yourself–for free.
The Importance of Good Keywords
Good SEO is based on choosing good keywords–although there are other aspects of the strategy. You basically find out from a variety of resources what questions people are asking about your products and services.
You can learn this information for free on Google, Answer the Public, or Ubersuggest. Or subscribe to a paid site if you want to get more in-depth.
Once you find good keywords, put them on your website in headings and body copy and in tags. Another aspect of good SEO is to update the original content. This means writing new blogs and creating new content for your web pages.
Make sure to keep your content original. Whatever you do, don’t copy words from anyone else on the web. Or even your own website. Search engines will penalize you, which means you’ll end up lower in search rankings.
2. Promote Your Products and Services on Social Media
A social media account is free. You can easily sign up for a Facebook, Instagram, or Pinterest account to promote your business. But you’ll have to pay when you want to boost your page or place an ad to broadcast to your followers.
But you can literally build a following and get subscribers without much effort or financial investment. You can post videos and photos on the site. You can write about what you’re business is doing and offer discounts.
You can pay the social media site to target people that might be interested in your products that use the platform. Social media sites serve as a great place to promote your blogs that lead back to your website to generate quality leads.
3. Use Effective Tools and Systems
There are many good tools and systems for your business from analytics tools to POS systems that will make your checkout process easier for your customers and for you. You can learn about them in this guide to POS systems.
Other good systems and tools conduct metrics, analyze your marketing efforts, and let you know what your audience is thinking such as:
- Analytics: measures the success of your marketing such as your website bounce rate
- A/B testing: lets you know which emails and blogs work better than others
- Surveys: help you learn what matters to your customers in their own words
You’ll find these online tools and systems effective. They’re an important component in expanding your small business.
4. Know Your Target Audience Inside and Out
One way to boost your business potential and profits: get to know your target market. Know who they are, what matters to them, and what they need in their lives.
One great way to do this: create a document of your ideal customer or customers. You can have more than one. Jot down their pain points, their goals, their demographics like income level, and their desires.
Print out this template. It will help you narrow down the characteristics and important data about your ideal customers to help you sell to them.
This way, you know who you’re talking to. You’d write an ad differently to a 20-year old college student that cares about their social life than you would a struggling single mom with two jobs.
5. Build Relationships Online
The old way to build your business was to go to regular networking events. While you can still attend them, these days most of the networking is done online.
You can join forums and Facebook groups where your prospects hang out. Or other professionals that may give you referrals.
Do you specialize in producing communications for the medical industry? A business marketing group can give you the opportunity to meet another business owner in a separate niche who can refer a prospect needing a medical brochure.
6. Reach Out to the Media
The press is still a great outlet for free and low-cost advertising. And now many newspapers and magazines are online. And there are also popular blogs targeting your business niche.
Reach out to the blog owner. Perhaps you can write a guest post. For publications, send out well-written press releases that focus on how your product or service is affecting people’s lives.
7. Don’t Abandon Traditional Marketing
Traditional marketing still works. And it’s not all expensive like a TV commercial on a major network. Here are some avenues to try:
- Postcards: They’re an easy and cheap way to get the word out
- A hand-written letter: This is a more personal way to reach customers
- Print ads: Although it’s not free, you can still find good deals in print advertising
7 Easy Small Business Ideas to Help Your Company Succeed
Follow these seven easy small business ideas. With these small biz tips, you’re bound to see a big difference in your company’s bottom line.
Looking for more small business tips and advice? Explore more great content on our blog.
