Working for my former boss

Hi everyone,

first of all, what a great website! I already found a lot of useful advice. So thanks in advance.

I am also looking for advice for myself, though I have no specific questions. I already know quite a bit about SEO, mostly white hat, by using Google's guidelines and some other sources.

My former boss, who sells spices, is thinking about hiring me. Originally I worked for him in the spice shop itself until a customer suggested he'd make a better website. I know a lot about WordPress, built a few themes myself and so I ended up setting up a website for him. We talked for a bit, and he was okay with me learning SEO while on the job. All I did then was write good content based on our competitor's content. He still gets customers, but few. About 5 a week. 5 is still plenty in terms of income, it comes down to roughly 200 euro's a week, 800,- a month. He's happy with the results. Recently he sold the shop because of the crisis in Europe, but he actively advertises with the website, and understands it is a valuable tool.

I have been busy as well, looking for ways to make WordPress faster, and learning more about link building and site structures.

The only thing I am currently worried about, is what my boss will expect. I talked to him, and he wants 10 customers a day. This seems very doable, considering I only did a little on-page SEO and I was even a little sloppy whilst doing it. Currently I am letting all the information I gathered sink in. I know how to build websites from scratch, know what to focus on, and I also managed to get our webshop on the first page and even place in Google (even though we have a big competitor!), for multiple keywords and products. We even ended up on the wholesalers list, though of course there are not that many queries for wholesalers.

I am planning to learn more about black hat SEO but I am getting the feeling it doesn't entail as much as I thought, sure, I am not familiar with blackhat programs yet, and I read a bit about Scrapebox and Xrumer (which apparently does not work anymore) but I don't get the feeling that it's very hard to figure out when you already have a reasonably technical background.

So, my main question is, with all Google's updates: is link building- focusing on quality links -and good content the best way to go? I plan on investing a lot of time on these two aspects of the site. I also want to redesign the logo/ icons/ buttons to increase our conversion rate, and customer satisfaction. What would you focus on? How would you go about setting up a webshop with a decent amount of traffic?

Don't really know where to start, last time was just practice, but he is expecting a lot. How do you guys approach big projects such as setting up webshops or affiliate sites?

Thank you very much! Sorry I am not more specific, I am just looking for good advice about running the whole project. I feel I am missing oversight.

Wouter

Until now i dont see any use in black hat methods (if u look at SEO).

I do SEO since about 10 years ~ Since 1 month i try some blackhat techniques, already invested like 500€, until now, nothing changed...

OP, your post is pretty long and not specific enough.

What are two straight questions you want answered here? Tell us them maybe we can help.

A good friend of mine does use blackhat and actually makes quite a lot doing SEO, but, he also says he stopped doing link building because there is not a clear pattern and Google can randomly kick out white hat sites along with black hat sites (though he does notice a pattern). His advice was to just look at competitor's websites and copy their site structure/ content (not literally of course). Is that true? Seems to make sense to me.

Main question is what steps to take in a big project, like setting up a website using SEO. I am familiar with all the steps and strategies, just not when to do what.

It's not very specific because I am also trying to get a feel for it, I am mostly interested in people's experiences with setting up webshops SEO-wise.

Your friend is dead wrong mate. SEO linkbuilding still works. But you can't just copycat. Smart SEO professionals have a good portion of their links hidden from spying eyes anyway. So you'll never see a good portion of their links and therefore can't copy them even if you wanted.

WJM1988 said:

Main question is what steps to take in a big project, like setting up a website using SEO. I am familiar with all the steps and strategies, just not when to do what.

It's not very specific because I am also trying to get a feel for it, I am mostly interested in people's experiences with setting up webshops SEO-wise.

Click to expand...

Start by setting up a few social links, and get your T1 links in place. T1 might be anything from aged manual web2.0's that are multi-page, to "Authority" sites, to private PBNs, to whatever... but they need to be HIGH quality and not very many to start.

But if you don't know what you're doing you're very likely to make a fatal mistake and wreck yourself. So learn first, then act.

My advice... read more. Then come back and ask questions when you have a better idea of what to do.

If you don't know what you're doing, I suggest to not dabble with black hat methods. Stick to what you know at the moment and make the best of them. You're creating content - that's good. But if possible, don't rely on your competitor's trends because your brand will be limited by their success. Try to come up with your own original stuff. Don't think about competitors. Think about your customers. Think about how you can help genuinely them. Ask your boss about his customers. If he's in the business for a long time, he prolly knows his customer behavior more than anyone. Use his insights to build content for your marketing campaigns. You gotta work hand in hand with your boss on the content. The content is in his head - you just gotta take it out there and publish it. Good luck.