[MitziMoto]

I run an SEO fueled business and it scares the crap out of me; especially as we hire our first full time employee. The fact that Google could literally shut down my business at any time keeps me up at night.

My business started as a hobby and has grown significantly (due to SEO ranking improvements) over the last couple years. We're now at a point where we (my wife and I) can no longer handle the volume that's coming in. Our options right now are a) hire an employee to help reduce the load or b) remain small and stagnant because Google could cut the cord any minute.

I'm trying like hell to find alternate traffic streams like Adwords, Facebook, Mobile, etc, but I can't quite figure out how to make a reasonable profit with them. So for now I guess I just have to take the risk. No guts, no glory.

[unclebucknasty]

If your profits will increase after paying a new hire, then absolutely, positively, go for it while you can. It is so difficult to work yourself into your current position that you must maximize your return while there.

Also, if you have more business than you can handle, then the only certainty on your decision tree right now is that you will lose revenue if you don't hire someone to help. Google may hose you (and that may even be likely, at some point) and you may be able to find alternate traffic streams, but they are not certain occurrences, nor is the timing of any of these scenarios (including a Google hosing).

And, of course, if you get help then it may free up some of your time to pursue the other streams without impacting your current revenue.

If you can mitigate your hiring risks by offering 1099 or contract-to-hire, or otherwise, that may be prudent.

But, again, you gotta' maximize your profit while you can. Congrats on having a "good problem" and best of luck!

[MitziMoto]

Thanks.

If it was just my wife and I like it has been, I wouldn't mind the risk. We've gotten this far. My fear is in hiring a new employee and having their livelihood dependent on my business that has a single point of failure. Granted, it's a fairly entry level customer service position so it's not like someone's going to retire from the job, but I would still feel just awful if I had to let them go because we had no traffic due to something like a "mysterious" Google penalty that I can't figure out and will get no help from Google on.

I'm hoping we can use the free time we'll have from mundane tasks to think about how to make the business work with other traffic sources.

[unclebucknasty]

>My fear is in hiring a new employee and having their livelihood dependent on my business that has a single point of failure.

Man, I have absolutely been there! I mitigated this concern by hiring part-timers who also had other jobs. An added benefit was that having multiple part-timers vs. one full-timer also gave us redundancy in the event of vacation, illness, etc.

BTW, my situation was primarily with customer service reps as well.

Hiring multiple people does require additional training and administrative overhead, etc. and your business needs may or may not allow for such a solution. But, you can also mitigate your legitimate concern by being completely transparent with candidates with regard to the company's position. You might even consider offering a little upside bonus for the good months/quarters or paying slightly higher than market to offset their downside risk.

Given the current labor market, you will possibly find that candidates who would otherwise have no prospects are happy to take on the risk of having even potentially short-lived employment.

In the end, you can find a solution that works for all. Communication and openness are the keys.

Good luck!

[xur17]

I run a coupon related site that's targeted at a specific segment of the market. I was ranked at the top 1 or 2 sites for a few pretty popular keywords for a while, until the summer of last year when I changed the domain, and my rankings dropped off within about a month (despite setting up correct redirects, updating in Google Webmaster tools, etc. Believe me, I spent a LOT of time making sure I did it right).

I never could figure out why the search traffic dropped off. I didn't partake in any seo tactics (I honestly wouldn't have known how to), and my search traffic hasn't really recovered.

Interestingly, my traffic recovered based on direct and refferal traffic, so it wasn't as big of a problem as it could have been, but it does sadden me that I am missing out on a significant portion of the current market (to get new users), but I'm completely lost on why my ranking dropped.

[drjacobs]

Yeah from what I've heard changing domains is one of the hardest things to do successfully in SEO. This is especially true the older the domain is and the more authority it has.

[xur17]

The previous domain was a little over a year old, but yeah, that could very well had something to do with it. I'm not sure if the domain name change was worth it, but I can say that it made the domain easier to remember, which is always good, and makes me less susceptible to Google changing algorithms.

[Axsuul]

Did you do a 301 redirect?