My Guide on How To Grow Your Business Online: 13 Easy Steps

To grow your online business, you need to have the right tools at your disposal. Regardless of whether you’ve built your site with a builder, or have opted for an open-source platform like WordPress, the tools you choose should fulfill your business needs. This could include:

• A suitable web host provider – Look for hosts with high uptime rates (99.9%+ is best) and quick server speeds, so people don’t have trouble accessing your site. Hosting is typically built into website builders, but if you’re using a platform like WordPress, you’ll need to find an appropriate host yourself
• Enough storage space and bandwidth – Also included with web hosts, you need enough storage space to store and display your site’s key files, alongside high bandwidth for quick data transfers
• Responsive themes – An outdated site design risks damaging your brand’s reputation online. Make sure that your site has a sleek, high-quality theme that’s modern and optimized for desktop and mobile devices
• Additional functionality – Different businesses will need different functionalities. For instance, a pet boutique might need scheduling services to make appointments with clients. If you’re using a website builder, check that it comes with the tools you need, or at least apps you can download to add additional features to your site

Do You Need Specific Website Features?

If you need specific site features, here are my recommendations based on what you might be searching for:

If You Need Scheduling…

Scheduling tools are included in many website builders, though my top pick is Squarespace’s Acuity Scheduling feature that costs an additional $16-$49 per month (billed annually). If your main aim is to create a booking website, the tool enables you to set up appointments with site visitors.

On WordPress, you’ll need to pay for a scheduling plugin yourself and connect it with your site, though some popular options include WP Booking Calendar ($39+ per month) or Amelia ($49+ per month).

If You Need Ecommerce… 

If setting up an online store is your priority, I recommend Shopify since it’s the best ecommerce platform on the market and comes with powerful ecommerce tools – like inventory management and multi-channel selling – that are suitable for growing stores.

To set up and sell for free, Square Online is your best bet, since it’s the only platform allowing you to open a store for nothing.

Alternatively, if you’re a WordPress user, I suggest installing the free WooCommerce plugin which will enable you to set up an online store and get selling.

Designing your site is a crucial step when growing your business online, since it’ll dictate how your site’s visitors perceive your brand. If they open a landing page that’s messy, has unharmonious branding, or is tricky to navigate, they’re less likely to take your brand seriously (and are more likely to click off your site altogether!).

The secret to good web design is pretty simple: always remember who you’re designing for. Your design needs to appeal to your target audience and serve their needs. For instance, think about:

• Navigation best practice – If you want audiences to get from point A to point B with ease, you should optimize your site’s navigation features. From logical page hierarchies to clear navigation bars or sticky menus, you need to make it easier for visitors to find what they’re looking for and complete a specific action (boosting your conversion rate in the process).
• Color palette – How do you want audiences to feel when they open your site? Your color choices play a huge in part in how a customer perceives your brand. For instance, a serene blue or white can invoke professionalism and trust, while a bold green or red might be a better fit for a more adventurous target audience.
• Font – With fonts, you need to strike the perfect balance between style and readability. Make sure that your primary and secondary fonts are compatible with your target audience and are easy to read on different devices.
• Site imagery – Imagery is a fantastic way to tell audiences more about your brand. I suggest using company-taken photos over stock images since they add a touch of personality and authenticity to your site. You could also showcase user-generated content which will inspire other customers to interact with your product or services too.

Useful Tools for Designing Your Site

• Coolors.co: free – color scheme generator
• Google Fonts: free – huge library of free, open source fonts
• Tailor Brands: free to use, $9.99 to download your logo – design assisted, personalized logo generator
• Wix Logo Maker: free to use, pay $20 for commercial use – you’ll need a free Wix account to use this easy, design assisted logo maker

Whether you’re writing up a blog post, a hit tweet, or an engaging About Us page, it’s important to create high-quality content for your online readers.

But what does “quality” mean in this instance? Well, when writing for the web, quality content is digestible, engaging, and gives the reader the exact info they need in a short amount of time. You want to avoid flowery language or complex sentences here, since your site visitors are more likely to skim a page rather than read every word.

When writing your content, remember to:

• Avoid large chunks of text and use white space, bullet points, headers, or short paragraphs to break up each section
• Steer clear of jargon and write any explanations in simple, easy-to-understand language
• Use eye-catching imagery, such as infographics or photography, that helps you get your point across

Useful Tools for Producing Content

• OptinMonster’s list of 700+ Power Words: free – this is an awesome resource which lists over 700 power words, split into categories, and with examples to guide you on their use
• Hemingway App: free – this app grades and analyzes your copy for readability, such as highlighting any sentences that need shortening
• Grammarly: free – this tool helps you avoid embarrassing spelling mistakes by analyzing your content for grammar issues and readability
• Canva: free – an easy to use graphic design platform where you can create infographics, posters, social media posts, and videos
• Upwork: paid – if you don’t want to write your own content, you can hire someone else to do it through a “work marketplace” such as Upwork

Social media is one of the best free advertising opportunities for growing businesses. It offers the chance to reach wider audiences, with 71% of consumers who’ve had a positive experience with a brand’s social media page being more likely to recommend it to friends or family.

Though there are a variety of platforms to choose from, your social media strategy should consist of platforms that your target audience are interested in.

For example, a recruitment agency might choose LinkedIn since its users will be looking for jobs there, whereas a freelance photographer might opt for a visual platform like Instagram or Pinterest to find audiences looking for photographer profiles.

Plus, if you’re willing to spend some money, learning how to advertise on Facebook and other social media platforms will boost your visibility even further and put your business directly in front of your target audience.

My Top Tips for Creating Strong Social Media Content

When using social media for your business, don’t forget these key points:

Be Selective

Don’t spread yourself too thin. Not only do you need to select the right platforms that your target audiences are on, but you also need to ensure that you have the time and resources to keep to schedule and post on a regular basis. In fact, sporadic sharing is a big no-no – don’t post five items in one day and then go silent for a month. Be consistent! That way, your followers will know when to expect your next post.

Keep Connected

Don’t leave your followers in the dark, especially if they’re interacting with your profile. Spend some time each week replying to follower comments and show that you care about your audience. To spice things up, you could also generate some buzz by setting up fun polls and competitions (then sharing the results), creating some relatable meme marketing content, or featuring your audience by sharing their user-generated content.

Stay Consistent

Avoid mixed messaging with your posts or you’ll confuse your audience. Instead, use a consistent tone of voice, ensuring that your social presence stays true to your brand. This brand cohesion should be present throughout your bio, imagery, color schemes, social copy, and any trending hashtags, sounds, or filters used.

If you’re an authority in a specific niche, or have great insights you’re itching to share with your audience, I suggest starting a blog too. It’s a great way to engage with visitors, boost your brand’s credibility online, and improve your visibility on search if your posts target specific keywords that your audience are looking for. 

If you’re interested in a website builder, most options on the market will have built-in blogging platforms you can use to write and publish your first post. For instance, some of our best choices for blogging, like Wix and Squarespace, will allow you to choose from a number of professional blog templates, help you optimize your blog for search, and let users comment on your posts.

For WordPress blog sites, you can find thousands of WordPress blog themes across the web, while you can also customize your site through plugins and code. The platform is also built for blogging, coming with post archiving and the ability to view blog revisions.

If you do want to create a business blog, here are my six top tips:

• Make sure that your blog covers topics relevant to your business
• Plan ahead so you can post new articles regularly (it’s worth looking into content batching for this reason)
• Make use of events – such as Black Friday – to post topical content that will grab your audience’s attention
• Write guest posts for other blogs to boost your brand’s visibility online and increase backlinks
• Share your blog posts on social media to promote your blog
• Send newsletter updates via email marketing

Useful Blogging Tools

• BuzzSumo: $199+ per month – a useful tool for content research that helps you find discover trending stories
• CoSchedule: free or $19+ per month – a handy marketing calendar that helps you schedule and manage posts, and share them to social media
• Trello: free – a card-based management system to track and organize projects
• Google Trends: free – search for your topic to see if it’s trending in Google
• WordPress Distraction Free Writing: free – WordPress users may benefit from Distraction Free Writing mode, which you can turn on inside your editor using the “Toggle Full Screen” button in your toolbar
• Unsplash: free – a library full of free photos to use

Did you know that email marketing offers amazing return on investment? For every $1 you spend, you can expect to make back $42 on average, making email marketing a powerful tool for growing your business!

Additionally, by using an email marketing tool and sending your subscribers regular emails, it’s much easier for you to stay in touch with your customers and keep them engaged with your business. Some emails you could send include:

• Regular newsletters filled with industry-related news, or your brand’s latest products or services
• Company updates to keep readers in the know
• Special offers – such as exclusive event invites, discount codes, or early product drops – to give your email lists a reason to stay subscribed
• Abandoned cart recovery messages to remind users to complete a purchase if they’ve left an item in their cart

Struggling to choose an email marketing service? After we’d spent over 160 hours testing each platform, we found that Brevo (formerly Sendinblue) is currently the best email platform for small businesses. It’s great value for money, has an intuitive editor, and comes with some powerful features like automation.

When it comes to the question of how to grow your online business, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) plays a huge part in whether your site shows up in search engines or not. For instance, when ranking websites, Google takes five key ranking factors into account, alongside over 200 additional factors to decide which pages show up in its results pages first.

If you’re new to SEO, I’ve listed some essential steps below to get you started:

Target the Right Keywords

Keyword research is the best place begin, since it’ll help you understand what your target audience is looking for on search engines to find businesses like yours’s. For instance, if you’re a florist, you’ll want your site pages to appear when search engine users look up queries relating to flowers, bouquets, and so on.

The golden balance is finding keywords that have great search volume but not much competition – this is very rare, so don’t worry too much if most of your search terms seem targeted by your competitors already.

Once you’ve found a keyword you want to target, create some high quality content around it. Be sure to use the keyword in your headings and metadata, and regularly throughout your content. You’ll get the best results when you can show your site has strong expertise in one area, so try not to jump around too much!

Use Effective Meta Data

If one of your pages appear on Google search, users will be able to view important information about your page link. This includes your meta title and meta description. The former is your page title and indicates what’s contained within your page, while the latter offers readers a little bit more detail about what’s inside.

When writing your meta title and meta descriptions:

• Keep them short – If your metadata is too long, Google will simply cut it off, so keep it snappy
• Put the month or year in your meta title – This shows Google and users that your content is fresh
• Place your main keyword in the first half of your meta title
• Be specific – In the meta description, tell users exactly what to expect from your page – remember they’re trying to find relevant information as fast as possible
• Use persuasive language – The more people who click on your result, the better! You need to make your search result seem like the most useful, inviting page to click on. The more people who click on your result, the more Google will prioritize it in rankings

Pay Attention to Your Linking

Make sure that you link internally within your website – for example, if you have blog articles, include links to other pages on your site. This helps Googlebots (Google’s search crawlers that identify and index web pages) navigate and make sense of your website – they crawl your website’s sitemap, following links from one page to another, to get a full picture of your site.

This is why it’s important to have good links set up between your pages, and to avoid broken links at all costs!

Additionally, avoid linking externally to sketchy or low quality sites as well. You don’t want the Googlebots to follow these links and associate you with sites with low domain authority.

Useful SEO Tools

• Yoast SEO: free – a popular WordPress plugin designed to help manage your site’s SEO
• Semrush: $119.95+ per month – an all-in-one suite for SEO, especially useful for carrying out keyword research
• Ahrefs: $99+ per month – a keyword research tool that has a neat keyword explorer feature if you need keyword suggestions
• Google Keyword Planner: free – designed for running Google ads, but is a useful free tool for general keyword research too (you’ll need a free Google Ads account)
• AnswerThePublic: free – an easy to use tool that shows you useful phrases and questions people are searching for around your keywords
• UberSuggest: free – another easy to use tool that gives you a helpful “Keyword Overview” including search volume, SEO difficulty, and keyword suggestions

If you want to grow online and accomodate lots of visitors on your site, avoid slow page loading speeds at all costs. In fact, 53% of mobile users will leave a site if it takes longer than three seconds to load, so don’t feed into an internet user’s impatience!

Here are my top tips to boost your site’s loading speeds and keep site visitors happy:

• Test, test, test – Remember to test your site speeds regularly to find any room for improvement. You can use free tools for this, like Google PageSpeed Insights, to see how quickly your pages load. Overall, you should aim for a score above 90.
• Check your hosting plan – if your site is lagging or crashing, you may need to upgrade your hosting plan, or change the type of hosting you’re using. You might even need to switch providers entirely if its servers keep going down!
• Optimize images, videos, and files – the more files you have, and the bigger those files are, the slower your site will be. Compression reduces the file size and helps your site load faster.
• Assess your plugins – too many plugins will slow your site down, and chances are you have more than you need. Could it be time for a clear out?
• Use a CDN – this spreads bandwidth across multiple servers, and is a much speedier option than relying on a single server to deliver your content to visitors.

Useful Tools for Improving Site Speed

• Pingdom: free – see how fast your site is and get a custom analysis
• Google PageSpeed Insights: free – enter your URL for a free analysis and suggestions on how to improve your page speed
• Kraken.io: free – easily compress images to upload to your site

Your site’s mobile design isn’t an afterthought, but a priority. Most traffic comes from mobile devices, so you need to create a smooth and enjoyable experience that puts mobile devices first.

Adding to its importance, even Google has explained why mobile-friendly interfaces are necessary for your site:

• Mobile-friendly sites show up higher in search results
• Mobile searches make up more than half of searches on Google.com
• For many advertisers, the majority of traffic comes from people on their mobile phones
• If your site isn’t mobile friendly, visitors are 5 times more likely to leave

So, to make your site mobile-friendly, follow these key tips below:

• Strip your content back to basics and avoid large chunks of text where possible
• Remove unnecessary content such as adverts or pop-ups that take up too much space
• Make buttons large and easy to tap with a thumb or finger
• Use plenty of white space
• Think about what the user wants, and give it to them straight away – don’t make them scroll too far for it

Useful Tools for Creating a Mobile-Friendly Business Site

• Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test: free – type in your site’s URL and Google’s tool will tell you if your site is mobile-friendly or not!
• AMP: free – Accelerated Mobile Pages helps pages load faster on mobile devices
• Bootstrap: free – a front-end framework that scales your webpage to fit different devices (you’ll need coding knowledge for this!)
• Mobile-responsive website builder or WordPress themes: free and paid available – in these cases, your content automatically adjusts depending on the device being used

Even if your business site loads super quickly and is beautifully designed, if you can’t give the user what they’re looking for quickly, they won’t hang around looking for it – they’ll go looking somewhere else.

If you want visitors to stay – and eventually convert – you need to make important information easy to find on your website:

• Contact details – To improve your site’s customer service, it should be easy for site visitors to reach out to you via channels like email, phone, or live chat (or all three!)
• Pricing – Be transparent and upfront about your pricing by making it simple to find
• Shipping and returns policies – If you’re running an online store, you customers will want to know about these policies
• Your location – if you have a physical location, help people find you using maps, directions, or a photo of your premises

To make key information really easy to find, you can create a Google Business Profile for free. This means that when someone searches for your business on Google, your listing will appear telling people your location, opening hours, contact details, and website address. It also means visitors don’t even have to click onto your site to get in touch or visit you in person!

Useful Tools for Helping Users Find Key Information

• Google My Business: free – displays your business information at the top of Google search results
• WPForms: $49.50+ per year – a contact form plugin for WordPress websites
• WP Google Maps: free – a WordPress plugin that lets you add a location map to your website

If you have some budget to spare, I recommend investing in Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising, especially if you want quick results. This method involves bidding on target keywords or phrases to appear in search engine results and to encourage users to click on your website. For maximum exposure, these paid adverts usually appear at the very top of the search results.

This advertising method is an effective way to grow your business online for multiple reasons:

• Results are speedy – Unlike SEO, PPC offers quick results since it makes your business immediately visible in front of users on search. However, I do recommend using both SEO and PPC at the same time.
• Easy to reach the right audience – PPC ads are designed to target specific demographics. In fact, Google uses a algorithm to make sure that it delivers your ads to the right people.
• Provides useful data – With PPC ads, you can use your ads’ data to track key metrics such as your overall impressions, conversions, or click-through-rates, helping you stick to your long-term goals.

Be aware that running PPC ads can be costly overtime, and as soon as you stop paying your visibility disappears completely. However, you’re ultimately in control of how much you want to spend and which keywords you want to target, which should help you stick to a budget.

Popular PPC methods include Google AdWords and Facebook Ads, and I recommend these platforms because they give you plenty of control, are easy to get started with, and help you target your specific audience.

Useful Tools for Launching Pay-Per-Click Advertising

• Google AdWords:  free to create an account, set your own campaign budget – bid on target keywords, then pay for clicks via the ad to your site
• Facebook Ads: free to create an account, set your own campaign budget – create and manage Facebook advertising campaigns

Don’t underestimate the immense power of social proof. With a whopping 97% of people relying on reviews when deciding what to buy online, displaying social proof on your site can build trust with your audience and inspire shoppers to choose your site’s products or services over a competitor. Some popular social proof examples include customer reviews, user-generated content, and press coverage.

Here are four easy ways to leverage social proof to grow your business online:

• Set up a Google My Business listing – Using a free Google My Business listing, you can verify your business online and share key details such as your business name, location, contact details, website URL, and photos.
• Gather customer reviews and testimonials – Put positive quotes and testimonials on your homepage and share them on social media – you could even create a dedicated “case studies” page on your website.
• Reply to reviews and comments – 89% of people will read how a business responds to reviews, so make sure that be mindful when talking to your customers. Even if you receive a negative review, you can salvage the situation by crafting an open, transparent, and attentive response that takes your customer’s needs into consideration.
• Display star ratings where possible – Star ratings are a clear visual indicator of how trustworthy your business is. If you’re receiving plenty of four-star and above reviews, you can also display them on testimonial pages or in your social content. Additionally, these star ratings can appear in Google search results, so make sure that you’re keeping your customers happy!

Useful Tools for Leveraging Social Proof

• TrustPulse: free – automate social proof, show real-time customer activity to other visitors via popups, and integrate with hundreds of other platforms
• Proven: $39+ – a WordPress plugin that shows social proof notifications to visitors, so you can showcase recent sales, newsletter signups, and so on
• Proof: $26+ per month – customize social proof notification and collect useful data
• WP Customer Reviews: free – a WordPress plugin that makes it easy to collect customer reviews through your website

If you have hundreds or thousands of site visitors each day, your page has to be up to scratch. If users come across unresponsive buttons, forms that don’t work, or cluttered navigation bars, they’re likely to feel frustrated and leave your site. That’s why I stress that you test, test, and test your site some more. 

Sites littered with errors will make your brand look unprofessional online, provide a poor user experience, and will give you more work to do as you spend time trying to rectify those mistakes. If you can identify any key areas of improvement early on, it’ll be much easier to keep your site optimized and running smoothly in the long run. 

But what should you test? Consider testing these key features that can have a huge impact on your site’s performance:

• Website links – Do all of your site links work? Ensure that they’re clickable, feature accurate URLs, and don’t lead to any sketchy sites or broken pages
• Buttons – All buttons should be easy to find and work when a site visitor clicks on them
• Web forms – Whether your site features a “Contact us” form or newsletter sign up block, you need to check that users can successfully fill these forms in, from start till finish
• Page speeds – Though I’ve already mentioned page speeds, this round of testing is another opportunity to make sure that all of your pages load as quickly as possible
• Popups – Let’s face it: site popups are annoying if they take up too much space or are difficult to close. Make sure that they’re not invasive on both desktop and mobile view

At the end of the day, you’re the best person to know which tests you should run. Understanding your audience and which metrics are most important to you will have a big influence on which factors you’ll test going forwards.

Useful Tools for Testing and Improving Your Business Site

• OptinMonster: $14+ per month – lead generation software that lets you create and test email signup forms
• CrazyEgg: $294 per month – useful eye-tracking data such as heat maps and scroll maps that show you how people are interacting with your site
• Google Analytics: free – provides valuable data about your website traffic, bounce rate, conversions, and more, so you can track performance
• Optimizely: custom pricing – easily carry out A/B testing to see which version visitors respond to best, helping you optimize your site
• HubSpot: free version available – an all-in-one platform that combines marketing, sales, and customer service, useful for managing everything in one place

Though you now know how to grow your business online, the work doesn’t stop there. To ensure that your site continues to thrive, you need to regularly check its performance and visitor engagement by paying attention to key metrics. These metrics will differ depending on your business goals, but the most common data to track includes your page views, the average time spent on each page, your bounce rate, and how many conversions you’re getting.

As your site progresses, I suggest keeping an eye on these metrics and using them to identify any problem areas. That way, you can smoothen out your strategy and continue growing your business online – good luck!