Hello everyone! I've been learning more about online business lately, and I'm curious about the experiences of other members here. Starting an online business is one thing, but growing it and keeping it successful seems to be a different challenge. For those who already have experience running an online business: What has been your biggest challenge so far? Was it finding customers, getting traffic, building trust, managing competition, or something else? I'd love to hear your experiences and learn from the community. Thanks for sharing!
For me the biggest challenge has been getting found consistently, not making the product. I'm a one-person UK seller of digital products (sleep sounds and a few simple tools I built for myself), and a download can be finished in a weekend, but nobody sees it unless I keep showing up. What has helped a little: 1. Picking one specific problem per product, so the listing answers a real question someone would type into a search box 2. Sharing useful answers in communities like this one before mentioning anything I make 3. Keeping the routine small enough to repeat: one thing a day rather than a big burst every month Trust is the slow part. I've learned not to expect quick results and to measure what actually brings people in. Curious which of those you're finding hardest, finding customers or keeping up the effort?
Hi, I am Alex and I run Go X in Florida, working with about 550 hotels, restaurants and attractions. For me the biggest challenge has been the same one TUITT named: getting found consistently, not building the offer. With hospitality partners, trust is the slow part too. What has helped us most is picking one clear problem per audience and answering it in public before we ask for anything, then keeping the routine small enough to repeat every day. I also track which answers actually bring a conversation, not just views, and I drop the ones that do not. Curious if you have tried one channel for 30 days straight before judging it, that made the biggest difference for us.
One thing that helps narrow this down is separating a traffic problem from a conversion problem. Track qualified inquiries, how they found you, and which ones turn into paying customers. If visits are there but inquiries are not, the offer or page may need work. If both are low, focus on one channel you can keep up consistently and measure it for a few weeks before adding more. Trying several channels at once makes it hard to tell what is actually working.
For me, it's definitely Google. Having your traffic slashed by 80% right when you thought things were going great is discouraging for anyone. Honestly, I'm not sure many people truly recover once they get hit like that. I've been trying to rebuild traffic for a few of my sites for two years now, and it feels like an uphill battle.
Growing an online business involves several interconnected hurdles, with acquiring and retaining customers, driving visibility, and managing the complexity of digital operations ranking as the most prominent challenges.
For a small service business, I'd put turning interest into actual enquiries ahead of chasing more traffic. Start with one page that spells out the service, the area covered, a real example of the work and one obvious way to request a quote, then test that enquiry process on a phone. Keep a simple weekly count of enquiries, where they came from and how many became paying jobs; that helps separate a visibility problem from a weak offer or slow follow-up.
An 80% drop is rough. I would first separate impressions, clicks and rankings in Search Console, then compare the affected pages and queries with the period before the drop. If impressions fell, check indexing, manual actions and whether the loss is concentrated in particular topics or pages. If impressions held but clicks fell, look at rankings and search result changes. That helps decide whether to fix a specific set of pages or put more effort into other channels while organic traffic recovers.
qwikad.com, that one is the hardest, I think. When one source brings most of the visits, one update can undo years of work. While you rebuild, I would spread the risk. Pick one second channel where your buyers already spend time, maybe short video or a marketplace, and keep it going every week even when Google is doing fine. And collect emails from day one, because that list is the only traffic nobody can take away from you. It will not replace an 80% drop fast, but it makes the next update hurt a lot less.