hi all, I have a website which is a few years old now that has some good original content. Both the content and images are floating around on the internet. I am getting minimal organic search and very poor Adsense revenue. I have been a bit disappointed with the traffic but things are being indexed and shared. I am in the process of modifying all my articles for optimized seo, - including reworking the theme and articles themselves. I am not sure why but I have been "scared" and hesitant my current rankings for things will be lost. I know this should increase traffic and be for the better, but should I be concerned like this? Any thoughts? Thanks!
Optimising article pages for SEO won't harm your existing rank. Search engines want to know your content well, so you are helping them by optimising. But make sure to use ethical methods.
I think it is safe to say that your existing rank will not be affected if you follow proper SEO procedure. As far as your "organic search" and I surely will upset every SEO Guru by stating this--SEO is important, however it is not the "silver bullet" it is made out to be. When you do a simple google search related to blogging there are numerous Power Blogs that do not show up that often. This is because Mega Blogs such as Problogger built their fan base through Social Media, Guest Posting etc. Yes traffic from search engines is important, however to many spend to much time targeting it and getting little results.
There's no need for you to be scared, as you are not destroying your website. Not even close! SEO is a good way to make your website rank higher on search engine results. Just continue stuffing your website with fresh, original and interesting content, while doing some ways to rank higher, and you'll be good.
Only real thing to be concerned about is changing the structure of your url or canonicals. If you don't know what you're doing, that's really the only way to hurt your rank if going with the on-page.