Taking over a domain, best approach for SEO

We recently bought a domain name, he was ranking better than us on the proucts we sold.
He built the site as a affiliate, and we paid him money for the conversions.

So we bought the domain from him.
But i´m a bit scared what to do next.
This new domain ranks better on 3-4 of our most important keywords.
Our current domain is 4-5 spots below.

What is the best approach to take care of the ranking this domain has, to our favour ?

The ideas i got so far
- Move our site to the new domain name
But as our content ranks worse than his, wouldnt this just lower the new domain namn with time anyway?

- Link our categories with links from the new domain name
Here i see issues too, wouldnt Google see that we own the new domain too, and when linking to our other domain name lower one or both of the domains?

Any suggestions about this?
If someone has a idea or link to some company that may work out a best case scenario i´m open for suggestions too. (paid of course).

Do you think he ranks higher because of on page seo or off page seo?

301 the bought domain to your domain.

jamie3000 said:

Do you think he ranks higher because of on page seo or off page seo?

Click to expand...

On page for sure. That domain contains 20-25 pages with distinct categories and text.
And our store has a complex Woocommerce installation wich is hard to SEO 100% in my opinion. Categories and products has different URL-structures and other shitty stuff.

NordicSnowman said:

On page for sure. That domain contains 20-25 pages with distinct categories and text.
And our store has a complex Woocommerce installation wich is hard to SEO 100% in my opinion. Categories and products has different URL-structures and other shitty stuff.

Click to expand...

Ummm I'd fix your underlying problem then. Or you'll probably end up buying another affiliate out. Any seo plugins you can install?