As many of my readers know, I usually write about strategy, innovation and leadership. But recently I've been asked a lot about how I helped establish Praxie.com as a destination website for hundreds of best practice digital tools and templates using growth hacking strategies.

That's because it's incredibly hard to cut through the noise and establish a new brand, website presence and business model in today's increasingly cluttered competitive world.

So, here's what we did to build a brand and drive tens of thousands of visitors to our website each month, all without any significant marketing investment. Anyone can do it if you're focused, methodical, and take the time.

1. Create Expert Content

Content is king. You can create it yourself or provide a platform that encourages users to contribute content as part of your business model. Content drives the brand and engages customers. 

Plus, Google and other search engines index and prioritize pages with solid content, so your specific web pages with noteworthy content will get a boost in SEO rankings and see increased traffic over time. Content comes in many forms: articles, blog posts, listicles, white papers, templates and videos.

2. Syndicate Content to Grow Backlinks

Backlinks are the lifeblood of SEO. The more that reputable websites link back to your website (or sub-pages on your site) the higher you'll rank will be in search engines. And the higher your rank, the more organic visitors you'll receive. 

Whatever you're doing or providing as part of your business, position yourself as the expert. Become a source of knowledge and insight for the press, get interviewed on podcasts, write articles for other sites or do anything else that gets your name (and backlink) out there on the net. 

This strategy also builds your brand.

3. Become a Video Star

Content isn't just about the written word. YouTube is now the number two search engine in the world, right behind Google. Video content highlights your expertise. It gets shared. And it drives traffic to your website that can convert to newsletter signups, subscriptions and product purchases. 

Be sure to include keywords in the titles and descriptions of your videos. Also include a plug at the end of the video for where the viewer can learn more (eg, your website). Re-purpose your videos on social media and embed videos into your website to further reinforce your content expertise.

4. Build Email Relationships

While just about every email inbox is cluttered with spam these days, when someone gives you their email address, they're essentially giving permission (opting in) to connect with them. While the same principle applies to social media, email is still a unique, higher-touch, form of connection-making. 

As compared to social media, email is like pinning a flyer up on someone's front door versus hoping they see it as they walk on the street past the flyer posted on the corner telephone pole. So, create easy ways for people to signup for newsletters. 

Connect with others on LinkedIn where most profiles include email addresses. Focus on building a list and providing high-value communications that use expert content to connect with your audience versus just trying to sell them your product. 

Many free or inexpensive tools can get you started like Mailchimp and Constant Contact.

5. Measure Everything using Dashboards

The only way to gauge progress is to measure it. Use Google Analytics to track your most important metrics, like the number of visitors, landing pages, conversion rates for your newsletter and purchases and more. 

Use free tools like those provided by Moz and Similarweb to benchmark yourself against the competition. Connect social media metrics and advertising into a dashboard that provides a holistic picture of the business. 

But don't spend too much time cobbling together data. Keep it simple so you can get a quick read on how you're doing while spending most of your time doing the things that grow your business.

6. Test, Re-Test, and Test-Again

Google recently introduced a great tool called Optimize. Optimize allows you to quickly run tests on your website or individual web pages. By creating A/B tests that serve up different page headings, product prices, button colors, etc., you can gain insight into what works and doesn't based on what you're trying to achieve. 

Track which market positioning statements result in the most newsletter signups or which price model delivers the greatest revenue. 

Running tests should be an ongoing activity which essentially means you're taking the winning formula from your A/B test and then running another A/B test using that as the baseline. Connect your tests to your data analytics to track what works (and doesn't) over time.

Most small startups don't have big funding. That's why growth hacks are so important. Use a little elbow grease, coupled with savvy customer engagement strategies, to build the basis for market traction. 

You might need to give it a little time to yield results, but that's also what's needed to create an enduring business.

Inc