A business usually earns you enough money to at least keep up your maintenance costs and employee salaries. Whatever money is left over usually goes into expanding the business, and thus we get the age-old saying: “you have to spend money to make money”. That is not always true, though. You actually can start a business from scratch. Some of the most successful business entrepreneurs in the world have done it, and so can you.
However, that’s an archaic way of thinking. Sure you need to invest a bit of cash to get started, but there are thousands of business ideas that don’t require a single penny to start. While this rule doesn’t apply to a lot of retail businesses, it can be applied to digital businesses.
Take blogging for example. It’s a business that can start with a free blogging website. You pay nothing to get your content on the internet, you can start building a viewer base, and you can start raking in cash through advertisements and affiliates. YouTube content is the same. As long as you’re lucky enough to go viral or make content that is in demand. You’ll go from not spending a single penny to bringing in wads of cash.
But let’s start easy. Let’s discuss how to build up your blog without having to spend a single penny, and grow it into a flourishing business.
Social Media
You have to pay money to advertise on social media platforms, but did you know that almost everyone uses ad-blocking software to hide them anyway? It’s true. You may have used one yourself or have a friend that blocks advertisements, and they’re incredibly effective tools. As a result, no matter how much you spend on advertising, you aren’t guaranteed to get a huge boost in exposure.
The best way to advertise your blog on social media is to follow and be followed by figureheads in the industry. If you tweet out that you’ve just released a blog post and someone influential retweets it. It could be exposed to thousands of more viewers. It creates a chain reaction, and your post will spread like wildfire and your blog will gather huge amounts of attention.
But that’s not the end of it. Interact with social media users that mention your twitter name, respond to their queries and engage in conversations to show that you’re the real deal and that you care about getting more viewers. Keep pumping out relevant content, keep getting noticed by new readers, and you’ll see those view counts grow exponentially.
Design Your Website Properly
Slapping together a template with clashing colors and mismatching fonts is a bad mistake. Don’t use templates that every other website uses and don’t take design into your own hands. The fastest way to remedy this is to hire a web development company. You could just as easily spend an hour or two reading up guides on web design and build your own masterpiece from scratch.
Be Resourceful
Don’t pay for services that you don’t need and don’t plan ahead for a situation if you aren’t there yet. If you are thinking of subscribing to finance managing cloud software, consider learning to manage your own finances. You can do this by using a combination of spreadsheets and calculators. Don’t pay for stock images and photos when there are dozens of websites out there. Plus there are photographers who are willing to give out their work royalty free.
1 Comment