The year is flying by and as we head toward the holiday season every business is looking for an advantage. With so many consumers shopping online now and looking for services, products, and essentially anything that can be purchased, your business must be always looking for new ways to grow.

To help you, let us run down a few simple suggestions that you can do right now free of charge. Yes, that is correct. These are all ways to grow your business without spending a dime. All you need is a little spare time and the willingness to put in the effort.

Optimize Your Google My Business Profile: Your Google My Business listing is what shows in the local search results when someone is looking for a result in the geographical area that your business is located at. You should ensure that all of your contact details are up to date and accurate and that your business listing includes the keywords that you are trying to rank for.

Collect Google Reviews: Make an effort to get as many of your past customers and clients to leave a review on your Google My Business listing. These reviews not only help you rank higher in the search results, but they also help attract more customers. Someone is going to pick a business that has more reviews simply because they feel they will receive better service.

Post on Social Media: Many people look for businesses on social media. Today, Facebook acts as a search engine for local businesses more than ever. Posting regularly keeps your business page active. If someone comes in contact with your Facebook page and there hasn’t been a new post in several months it’s a bad look for your business.

Ask Your Customers for Referrals: If you deliver a great service or offer a great product you are sure to have a lot of satisfied customers Often all you have to do is ask them for referrals and they will send them your way. The great thing about referrals is that you don’t incur a customer acquisition cost. However, you can offer a future discount or a gift card as a reward, as this will sometimes give your past customers more incentive to send business your way.

Put Discount Codes on Coupon Websites: If you offer discounts or have a coupon code, make them easy to be found. There are hundreds of popular coupon and discount websites that you can list your codes and offers on. If you do this at scale it can drive business regularly. This is yet another great source of new business.

Cross-Promote: Team up with other local businesses and send an offer to each other’s customer list. This is something that can be very effective since the referral is coming from a trusted source.

These are all great tips, and to help you even more we have an infographic below that features ten successful business owners and entrepreneurs, each sharing their best tip for business growth. See what they have to say and implement the ideas that will best help your business experience more growth in the coming months.