7 Fantastic Growth Hacking Tips for Your Website

Growth hacking is best defined as a process of testing various marketing channels and evolving your marketing strategy to align it with the channels that are working effectively, to grow your business quickly.

Growth hacking has become a marketing phenomenon for online businesses trying to achieve growth and drive revenue from day one. It is essentially looking at the cheapest, most effective ways to drive customer acquisition.

It is not easy for early stage businesses to achieve rapid growth. To help you out, I have compiled a list of 7 fantastic growth hacking strategies that can propel your business growth in 2016. Furthermore, these hacks are low cost options that have a high return on investment (ROI) and should see new customers rolling in.

1. Make your website quick to load

With advances in technology and the general impatience of Internet users in waiting for anything to load, if your site takes longer than two seconds you could be losing revenue.

This growth hack is something you should ensure from the outset. When your site has speed, prospective customers are likely to spend longer on your page, rather than waiting it to load. You do not have to be a rocket scientist to predict that this will lead to a higher rate of conversions.

Make sure you enable browser catching, browser compression and utilize efficient imaging to increase the speed of your site economically.

2. Simple is best for your homepage

The home page is like the front cover of a book, or the front door of your home. Even though it may not hold all the detail, it tells prospective customers a lot about you. Make sure you make a good first impression.

Create a plan of what you really need on the homepage and what is better off elsewhere. Think about the bare essentials that you need to tell visitors who you are, how you solve their problem and have a visible call to action.

A video on your homepage is a great way to show customers what you do and is actionable with a simple click.

3. Make sure your content is getting you something in return.

Content creation is now a huge part of Internet marketing and a great way to draw qualified traffic to your site. However, a lot of people are missing an opportunity to get something in return for their content creation. When you are providing a resource, (be it a newsletter, video, blog post or free trial etc.) it is imperative that you get something from those consuming your content in return.

Ideally, what you are looking for is to secure their email address. It then takes you a step closer to lead conversion and adding another paying customer to your business.

If you allow all consumers access for free, you are letting potential leads slip through your fingers after you have done all the hard work getting them to your site in the first place. This is growth hacking 101.

4. Test, test and test some more

You need to know what exactly is drawing customers and creating lead conversions to your website. You would rather find out at the early stages, before you throw a whole lot of resources into advertising.

Creating small ads and analyzing the analytics will help you discover what is working. It gives you an opportunity to play around with your site layout, design, content, imaging, calls to action and text placement to see what converts.

It is an easy growth hacking strategy to embark on before piling cash into ads that you are unsure will convert.

5. Use analytics tools wisely

There are so many different analytics tools available online for you to track your website data. There are so many for a reason too - because they are so effective at helping you understand your web operations.

Utilize analytics to see how your customers are behaving when they land on your site. How long are they staying? At what stage of the sign up process are they pulling out? Are they converting? Why not?

Using analytics can help you tailor your website to make it as seamless as possible for site visitors to be drawn into converting into paying customers.

6. Cater simple email marketing campaigns around your analytics

So you have tailored your website according to your analytics to make it easier for people to sign up - however they are still not converting? This is where you can also use your analytics to tailor a simple trigger email marketing campaign.

When prospective customers get to a certain stage on your website but pull out, trigger an email marketing campaign to help them convert.

A lot of prospective customers may get close to getting across the line but a helpful email that is catered to them may give them a nudge they need to become a paying customer.

7. Utilize social proof and influence at every opportunity

When people first land on your page they are likely to be apprehensive. Like sheep, Internet users want to follow the crowd. Using social proof and influence on your page can help users follow what others are using and sign up more easily. Here are several social proofing strategies you can use as a handy growth hack:
- Use testimonials: People are more likely to sign up if you have real examples, of real people, that have already successfully used your site.
- Use effective imaging: Give people an insight into your company and your people with real, quality imaging of you in action.
- Show your numbers: If you have established traffic or users show prospective customers that you already have the ball rolling.
- Have links to your social profiles: By having visible links or live feeds to your social profiles such as Youtube, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram it is an easy way for prospective customers to know more about you and become more relatable.

What growth hacking strategies do you find work for you? And how would you advise those starting out with growth hacking to go about it. These 7 tips should get you started and help drive growth without costing an arm and a leg.