HI, after looking at my static homepage for several months, I have decided that a Blog style front page to bring more clickable content to the forefront might be my best bet to decrease bounce rate. I am unsure if this change will negatively affect my sites current page #1 ranking for my main keyword and others. I made changes to my homepage on this site a few months back and was moved back in the rankings by 10 or more pages shortly after.( I am not sure if those changes were the cause or not) I am afraid to make this change. Has anyone ever done this without negative effects? Thanks
Just make sure you don't get a lot of spammy comments and/or trackbacks. Then you should be fine. As the xXxpert said, blog is better, because it lets you add content easier which helps you improve search engine rankings.
You won't be punished per se, but Google is very delicate (as you've found out by changing your content) so it's hard to say what the exact effect will be. My advice would be to backup the static page, then make the switch and wait a week or two. If your site falls, you can easily switch it back to your old page, and your site should go back up to where it was before.
If it involves Google then you will be punished. But don't worry, because you would most likely be punished even if you didn't change it.