First Post: I've done my homework, and have a few questions

I interviewed with an e-commerce company selling furniture a few months ago, but didn't get the job. I was a business major in college, and all my computer science knowledge comes from tackling things I didn't understand and figuring them out. Given that I was very interested in the industry, I figured why not try to emulate the company I interviewed for and start my own company.

The business plan of the company I interviewed for was simple: create multiple websites specializing in furniture sales (ie one site sold armoires, another sold dining room tables), and work to move up as high as possible in google's organic rankings. According to them, PPC was just not cost effective and SEO was the way to go. So after a couple months creating the websites (before I undertook this task, php, shopping cart software, and to some extent HTML was completely foreign to me), I'm ready to start learning SEO to rank them as high as possible.

I don't have much money, but have an excessive amount of free time - the only benefit of being unemployed in a ****ty economy. So, I'm coming to you guys asking what SEO techniques you advocate for a man in my position. I did my homework (well, I've read 2 books cover to cover on the subject, and researched online - take that for what you will), and I have a few questions about what I've read so far.

First, how quickly do SEO techniques evolve? For example, if I read an article from 2 years ago, will that still be relevant today?

Second, given that I am creating e-commerce sites that will sell products, I can't exactly create a plethora of original content that will attract readers simply because they want to read one of my articles. I suppose I could create a buying guide (thoughts?), but other than original product descriptions my hands are tied. Because of that, I can't imagine any sites would want to link to me on their own. What do you recommend in order to get quality links to my site? I can't spend a ton of money, but that doesn't mean I can't spend ANYTHING. I found a topically related PR4 site (through tracing one of my competitors inbound links) that would offer me a link (probably 20-30 total links on the site already) for $10 bucks a month. I have no idea if this is something to consider or not.

What about using expired domains? How important is it that the links to my site are topical? I read a good article in the FAQ section I believe, but the article was over 2 years old - is it still relevant?

Also, it would be a HUGE help if someone could explain to me how important different areas of SEO are to my SERF rankings. For example, I read that making keywords 5-7% of my content was optimal, but are keywords more important than links to my site? If one is more important, by how much so? Any direction I could get as to where I should focus my energy would be a huge help.

I'm sure you guys get a ton of newbie questions like mine, and I want you to know I really appreciate anyone willing to take the time to help me - I'm desperately in need of some direction.

Thanks again.

This was a mistake. It would have been a lot better to learn SEO before building the sites. Now you might be forced to make a race car out of a lawn mower. Or, a better decision might be to start from scratch and build them again.

When I build a new website for products. I learn about the products, then do keyword research. This helps determine page names, category names, image names and site navigation structure. All of this is done knowing that frames are deadly, some types of coding can not be spidered, and lots of other deadly sins that designers commit.

Some things (such as quality content) are enduring... others change at an unpredictable rate.

I thought that you had "an excessive amount of free time"? What's the problem? Hate writing? Earned grades of D and C- in your writing classes?

Maybe you better keep looking for a job if you are not able to write great content about this topic. Or have the money to hire the great writer. You must have links to power this site. No links then all of the time you spent on it is wasted.

There are tons and tons of articles out there... the age is sometimes important... the topic is sometimes important.... but who wrote the article is jugular.

You will find that over 50% of the advice given on SEO topics is flawed. So, knowing who to pay attention to and who is full of crap is the key to success.

I think it's great that you've decided to go into business for yourself. The problem is, you're copying a broken strategy.

To build these separate websites, you're going to need to put the same amount of effort into each and every one of them. One link to one site is not going to help you with the other sites.

Whereas if they were all on the same site, one link to one section would help your other sections as well.

The way it is crafted right now, you'll need to linkbuild for all these separate sites.

Furniture is something that people look at by the room. Having the armoir on a separate site than the coffee table they put in front of it doesn't make sense. It should be one place for it all, one transaction, one site. Visitors would expect that. I know I would.

Take this into consideration along with EGOL's advice, that studying SEO, then perhaps starting your site(no "s") from scratch may not be a bad idea.

Good luck with your venture, and continue to ask questions!

PS - keyword density should be forgotten - it doesn't affect anything.

If I was in this market I would focus ALL of my efforts into a very small number of sites. One at first... then maybe a second to specialize in the top proven area.

Hey Egol - thank you very much for taking the time to respond. As you can see I'm totally lost here, and I'm very appreciative you're willing to take the time to help me.

As far as taking on SEO after I created the site, I agree I went about the whole process backwards. Unfortunately I was blind when I undertook this task, and had no idea that the site needed to be created with SEO in mind. I do now, and will not make this mistake in the future.

I'm currently using Zen Cart for my site, so editing one php page should carry through to the rest of the site and I'm hoping in the end it won't matter that much anyway, though I would love to hear you thoughts on this.

SIDENOTE: I know that frames are deadly for a site - does shopping cart software generally generate pages with frames?



I want to clarify this point because I'm afraid I gave off the impression that I'm not willing to put in hard work in order to get my site ranked. In the two books I was reading, I got the impression that a lot of the "original content" they were referring to were for sites that had articles. Such sites would naturally attract links (or so I would assume) as long as the content was original and interesting to read.

Given that my sites sell furniture, I had assumed I was not in the same boat, and that the best I could do for original content was a welcome message on my main page, and original product descriptions. I do have an excessive amount of time, and more than that I am not short of effort on this project, and if the consensus I get here is that I need to find a way to include articles in my site then I'm prepared to do that.

Are my assumptions correct that I'm fairly limited as far as content goes?

Lastly, am I to understand you didn't agree with Jugular's article? Sorry, I couldn't see a definitive answer one way or the other.

Anyway, thank you very much for replying, and I hope you would be willing to take the time once more to respond to my follow up questions.

Thanks again.

Once you get to thinking about it, there are plenty of ways you could include articles on your site. Whether they be buying guides, design advice, color matching tips, resell value comparisons, uses, "what color/shape/style desk goes with mauve wall paint?" type articles (for a blog or similar CMS).

When writing the articles, keep in mind which products you have that are related, and post ads for them alongside/throughout (sparsely) the articles. That way, they're sales mechanisms, not "just" articles.

I'm just in the initial stages right now, so I can still change my business plan if need be. Please understand that I am not hard headed, and I don't go to someone asking for advice only to say "ok, now I'm gonna do it my own way now." However, if you don't mind I would at least like to explain my thinking (or rather, the thinking of the company I interviewed with), and then get your opinion on it. I don't mind being told I'm wrong, but I would still love to hear your thoughts on it.

The company I interviewed for built specialty furniture sites, and according to them the more obscure the furniture the better. For example, they have a site that sells only fireplace mantels. According to them, this was a better way to create sites because it was so hard for them to compete with a general furniture site. However if they created a specialty site that sold, say armoires, they had a realistic chance of ranking on the first page when someone searched for "armoires."

Could the same thing be accomplished by creating a general furniture store, and then working to get www.myfurnituresite,com/armoires ranked well for "armoires?"

The company I interviewed for has a business plan that I KNOW works, and that is one reason why I'm apprehensive to deviate from it until I'm more informed on the subject. What are your thoughts?