How To Do A Complete Redesign of a Well Ranking Home Page?

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  • SEO
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I asked a similar question a while ago, but I don't think I was direct enough with my question.

I've heard stories about peoples pages losing rank, after they change their content. And thats what I'm trying to avoid here. I won't be changing the theme, but I want to change a lot of the content. The structure will stay the same, but the content will change. I want to change my top image to a big video, something engaging that gets peoples attention. Change the video under my form to a testimonial video. Make the 3 tables images more appealing & clickable. Change the main text so its more engaging/bullets, remove the wordpress link, add social media buttons and review buttons rather than the images I have now.

Let me just ask this way.

This is the site I want to change -

Mold Remediation NJ | MMRG Mold Remediation & Basement Waterproofing-


I want it to function more like this site -

Fairfax, Virginia - Best Personal Injury Car Accident Attorney Website | Benjamin W. Glass, III & Assoc. PC

Not so they are identical. But the goal when I made my site was just to get up some quick content, get it ranking first, then worry about the content later.

Well now that its getting a decent amount of traffic, its time to focus on conversions/bounce rate.

When you guys have a site that is ranking well, how do you go about doing a redesign? Should I change 1 small part of the website every few days? Every day maybe?

What I'm most worried about is when I get to the text. I want to change it all to a question/answer format. I will try to keep my keywords in there, but all the text is going to change essentially. A lot of backpages will change as well and I'll be adding links to the questions.

I really want this site to stick out from its competition. I want the bounce rate to be as low as possible & conversions as high as possible.

Have you ever just changed an entire home page in 1 day? I'm curious how many people have done this with well ranking sites, and what the effect was?

Thanks guys

-Red
#complete #home #page #ranking #redesign
  • Profile picture of the author paulgl
    How To Do A Complete Redesign of a Well Ranking Home Page?
    When redesign = different content, you don't.

    You create new content and/or a new website.

    Paul
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    If you were disappointed in your results today, lower your standards tomorrow.

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    • Profile picture of the author RedShifted
      Originally Posted by paulgl View Post

      When redesign = different content, you don't.

      You create new content and/or a new website.

      Paul
      So in a way, what you're really saying is that SEO'd landing pages can't be conversion optimized?

      Maybe I'll just change the image up top to a well made video, then the video under the form to a testimonial video.

      The site needs some type of change. Right now its not engaging enough. So maybe a well produced video can help push conversions.
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  • Profile picture of the author Mike Anthony
    Originally Posted by RedShifted View Post

    Not so they are identical. But the goal when I made my site was just to get up some quick content, get it ranking first, then worry about the content later.
    Generally content should be a part of the SEO but I don't think you have a huge problem. The entire area with the Hazard symbol is an image. If you wanted to replace it with the video like in the lawyer section I can't see that being a huge issue. There is the alt targeted keywords with the image but put a title above the video and it might even be a SEO improvement. The form is neither here or there. Again not much of an effect in changing it.

    Primarily its the text area that begins with

    Mold Remediation NJ

    That if you substantially change (along with navigation and above) that would make things interesting. So the way I see it you can do quite a bit of changes and you should be okay because that area at the top is just an image anyway and along with the form has no ranking effect for your keywords anyway.

    Hope that makes sense but just promise me that if it does and it works out you won't make the whole site go to hell just because MA suggested it
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  • Profile picture of the author RedShifted
    LOL. I promise Mike.

    Thank you for the help!

    -Red
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  • Profile picture of the author yukon
    Banned
    Some of those links/text are unnecessary as far as SEO/conversions. If you have to have a link back to a product site, I would bury it on the Privacy Policy page footer or something like that. You don't want your traffic wandering off on unrelated links, you want them following your call to action.

    Everything in red is unnecessary fluff as far as SEO:









    First thing I would do is make a backup of that pages HTML source code & save that on your offline PC.

    IMO you don't want to mess with these things:
    • Page Title
    • Any internal URLs on the site

    I've seen Google send a page into oblivion from changing a page title, I know some will probably disagree, but I've seen it happen. Your already on the first page of the SERPs for your keyword, so you do need to be careful with what your changing. A lot of that page probably isn't a big deal, but I would leave that page title for last, change whatever it is you want to change then, let it sit for a week or two & see what Google does.

    If Google sends the page into the unknown you can usually swap back to the backup HTML source code. I wouldn't mess with any incoming links (internal or external links).
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    • Profile picture of the author Mike Anthony
      Originally Posted by yukon View Post


      I've seen Google send a page into oblivion from changing a page title, I know some will probably disagree, but I've seen it happen.
      Sheesh you think so? I wonder who because page titles are WICKEDLY important.
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      • Profile picture of the author yukon
        Banned
        Originally Posted by Mike Anthony View Post

        Sheesh you think so? I wonder who because page titles are WICKEDLY important.
        Are you being sarcastic?
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        • Profile picture of the author Mike Anthony
          Originally Posted by yukon View Post

          Are you being sarcastic?
          :rolleyes: Yuke relax man...sure we disagree on things. Doesn't mean we disagree on everything. No sarcasm whatsoever. I was expressing amazement anyone would doubt you on the title comment. I don't even doubt you are right about some people disagreeing with you because people believe some weird things but yeah titles ARE that important.
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          • Profile picture of the author dargo72
            This is a very timely topic, as I'm looking to completely redesign my website as well.

            Thanks,
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  • Profile picture of the author RedShifted
    Excellent! Thanks a lot Yukon.

    I didn't realize I had that many junk links so I'm gonna work on that tommorow.

    I'll definitely leave the page titles and text alone. The truth is I haven't seen any of my competitors make changes to their website, ever since I've known them (its been years) so it may be best to just change the video under the form, delete the links, and leave it as it is. Then I'll just work on moving up a few more positions. I figure if I can pick up a bit more traffic, that will take my mind off making drastic changes to the content.

    -Red
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    • Profile picture of the author yukon
      Banned
      Originally Posted by RedShifted View Post

      Excellent! Thanks a lot Yukon.

      I didn't realize I had that many junk links so I'm gonna work on that tommorow.

      I'll definitely leave the page titles and text alone. The truth is I haven't seen any of my competitors make changes to their website, ever since I've known them (its been years) so it may be best to just change the video under the form, delete the links, and leave it as it is. Then I'll just work on moving up a few more positions. I figure if I can pick up a bit more traffic, that will take my mind off making drastic changes to the content.

      -Red
      Check this site out for some conversion ideas. Backlinko posted a link to that site last week, good site with plenty of examples that include pros/cons of different conversion (page layouts) test. Read the blog & look at the example links on their site (good stuff).

      http://unbounce.com/blog/
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