hi there I have a website for my service business, lots of people have mentioned they really like it, to me it looks like crap, but it works SEO wise. I'm 1st on google, yahoo and Bing for my keywords, not really competitive ones but brings me a lot of business. Not to the question itself ... I'd like to give the site a facelift, make it more appealing graphically, change the layout and include more pages if possible, like a different page for every service we provide, but I'm afraid doing that will affect my ranking. I'm open to give it a try but if I save a copy of the website as it is right now, and upload the new one, if I see a change on rankings, can I replace it with the old one and would that take me back to where i was ? Thanks for the time and if the question is not clear enough or other info is needed just let me know and I'd do my best to provide it.
You i think you should go for a new theme, if you really consider your current theme looks like crap. This can increase sales.
Why change something that seems to be working? Remember, it does not matter what YOU think. Nobody cares, but you. If you are getting a lot of business you are obviously doing something right. Don't change it other then to add to the existing content in the same manner as you are doing now. In fact, take very detailed notes about your site. Look at where the traffic is coming from, what keywords were used to arrive at your pages and build more of those pages. Maybe even a blog or something you can link to point back to your site.
I support that same line of thinking "if ain't broke, don't fix it", but I feel like if it's working as it is, I can make it look better which is going to provide me with better sales. But my concern still ..... if I screw my ranking with the changes, can replace it with the old one and take me back to where I was ?
it's ok to change your design, just make sure you keep the exact same structure, same content, images, videos if any... you should be fine in 99.99% of cases if u don't touch the content and structure, u may see little fluctuations in ur rankings the first week or two after u change the design (even those are rare), if u see those, don't panic, things will get back to normal after a week or two. good luck.
Thanks - I can take being not the #1 for a couple of weeks, now is the time since is low season for us. I hope I don't screw this up, because I want a better site, visually, but I believe I can do so keeping me up there on the search engines.
You can change the design without affecting your rankings too badly. Just keep all links the same. It's probably the most important thing you can do.
most of my SEO "success" is due to off-page techniques, my content obvioulsy is important, but I think that I can only improve it, and I won't be changing any page name so that can't mess my off-page SEO, right ?