How can I change a website without affecting it's rankings?

[bigballin6161]

I have a website up for my offline business and it is ranking at the top which is good. What is not so good is that I haven't gotten any business from it yet. I am sure that I was so worried about on page seo that my content acutally isn't that good and the website looks kinda lame. If I was to change the content and/or change my whole website(as in get a whole new one made) to make it look better how would this affect my rankings as I don't want them to drop! Any suggestions?

[alphazulu]

Changing the theme would be fine, just make sure the links all stay in tact, it shouldn't effect anything too much.

I would recommend adding more information to what you already have, expand on what content you already have, also make sure you keep your keywords the same, if you start changing key words around then you might start to see some issues

I'm no expert but from everything I know about SEO it shouldn't be a big issue to change some stuff, just try to keep the important SEO parts in tact.

[shuvo]

I think it will not affect.As far i know If you only change the domain then you have to start it from the first.However if your change can put some unique articles then there is a possibility your ranking will increase more.

[stevemack]

yes, in terms of changing content there may be some variation in the ranking either increase/decrease but website design seems nothing effect on it.

[socialbookmark]

If you are ranking high now, i suggest you to don't change the content of your website because by doing it, its possible that your ranking change in search engines. But changing the template of your website to looks professional is needed and i suggest you to do it.

[TheGrooby]

I changed some of my content on a couple sites and they took a massive **** in the rankings. After about 2 weeks they seem to be making a comeback now. Does this sound familiar to anyone?

[imkazu]

what is your main purpose of this site, is it to get an email address, to get a sale, or something else ?
You need to definite what a conversion; once you have done that, try rotating signup buttons, headlines, colors, etc and monitor your stats

these changes shouldn't affect your se rankings too much

[kishornayak]

If the page links change, website changes, then ranking will get effected. The best option is just make changes in the content of the pages and if necessary add some new pages.

[Wesley Atkins]

Changing the content or design is not a problem..

The problem occurs when the internal URL's change..

You need to ensure you keep the same URL structure, if not, the old URL's will need to be redirected with a 301 redirect to the new location to ensure you keep your rankings..