Modifying Well Established & Well Indexed Content

[CPollock]

I have a page that is very well indexed and has a 1st position ranking in google.  It is the best landing page in my site.

That being said, it's several years old and I honestly think it could be better.  The images could be enlarged, the the images could have fancy box enlargements instead of just linking out to flickr, there could be more content about follow up projects that people have done.

I'm noteably nervous about changing such a clutch piece of content on my site.

I do want to improve the content for users, not just make it more SEO friendly (it's already SEO'd), but I'm afraid that any change could cause a set back in ranking.

Am I being afraid of nothing, should I just go for it and improve my content, or should I be extra cautious when editing well indexed content like this?

Thanks for the advice

[EGOL]

I improve pages all of the time and have great results.   Traffic always goes up and rankings often go up.  (A drop is very very rare.)

Adding content to an existing page can significantly increase your longtail keyword traffic.

These are what I use as a guide

-- don't do anything that will change the title tag (unless you are targeting different keywords)

-- don't do anything that will change the onpage optimization (unless you are targeting different keywords)

-- don't change image file names or alt attributes

-- add as much new content as possible

-- revise existing content without fear

-- add additional images whenever you have them

[malecce]

The changes are always dangerous when you have a good position in Google.

But I always think if you avoid touching the tag in the page type:

meta Title

meta Description

Meta Keywords (only if you were already there!)

and finally, I would not change the content at the top of the page but only the graphic design.

I was afraid too when i did the same for many customers, but i did always so and never i lost a positions

Ciao

Maurizio

[CPollock]

Ok a couple of followup questions:

What about shortening the title tag? Currently it's "How To: Build a Custom Ergonomic Computer Desk - Blog - Projects, Ideas, Inspiration, Kee Klamp, Fittings".  The stuff at the end was added by the CMS and I want to shorten it to "How To: Build a Custom Ergonomic Computer Desk".  Is there any fear in shortening the Title tag when I am refining it and make it more potent (e.g. getting rid of the crap)

**What about changing the image file names and adding alt tags when they are nonsense or garbage? **

Here's an example of what's there now:

src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3039/2770274783_e9c2df4616.jpg"

width="500" />

You can see it's just junk.  I could see improve the meta substantially and also giving the files real names and putting them on my own CDN.  Doing this of course would cause google to see them as different (but better?) images.

**What about adding a "finish" picture to the top?  **Maurizio mentioned not editing the top of the page.  But what if I wanted to add a nice "finish" picture to to the top?  Would that cause any issues?

**What about making these changes incrementally?  **Would it be better to make a little change.  Like change an image a week or something silly like that, or make all the changes at once.

[malecce]

there is  a little problem with your text...

[CPollock]

yeah it seems as if the image tag as thrown int out of proportion, I will try to correct.

[EGOL]

Read these answers knowing that this is what I do and how I think.   On lots of these answers I don't know what google does and what google prefers.   I am betting on my gut rather than on something that somebody somewhere said sometime in the past which might be very different now.  I only trust what a very small number of people say and realize that google changes their mind about lots of stuff that they said in the past and don't tell anybody anything.

Make sense?  lol

Currently it's "How To: Build a Custom Ergonomic Computer Desk - Blog - Projects, Ideas, Inspiration, Kee Klamp, Fittings"

I'd say that is waaaayyyyy too long.  I keep mine at about 62 characters or less.   Without doing a detailed analysis of traffic that the page is currently pulling I would probably shorten to...

How To: Build a Custom Ergonomic Computer Desk

What about changing the image file names and adding alt tags when they are nonsense or garbage?

Lots of my pages get over half of their traffic from image search.  I would not change the image file name or the alt attribute unless I thought that there was a significant upside.

These can be part of the optimization of the page.

I do replace images when I have something better or update a graph, map or photo.  However, I always maintain the file name and alt attribute.

Sometimes content update requires images to be deleted and I do that with reluctance.

OMG!

My image tags look like this....

"keyword" is something simple... probably two or three absolutely relevant keywords that describe the image.

giving the files real names and putting them on my own CDN

All of my images are on the same server as the website, in the same folder as the article.... like this...

egolsite.com/article-name/image-name.jpg

Some people have told me to move my images to cloud hosting or a free service instead of my server but I don't want to make it look like I am not serving my own content.  I don't know if that makes any difference at all but I gladly pay to transfer terrabytes of images per month to keep them on my own servers.  If someone hotlinks one of my images does that help my domain's authority?  I don't know... but I got 'em there where I can see what's happening.

But what if I wanted to add a nice "finish" picture to to the top?  Would that cause any issues?

I assume you are talking about a nice big image at top of page that will make visitors salivate?  If that is what you are talking about then I would say... do it by all means and do it often.

What about making these changes incrementally?

Don't fart around.  Go for it.

[malecce]

**What about shortening the title tag?  **I think that it's correct , I would do the same thing

What about changing the image file names and adding alt tags when they are nonsense or garbage? Normally the alt image must explain what rapresent the images and help the crawler, for me you can cleaner the incorrect tag

What about adding a "finish" picture to the top? I spoke about the content (text) in the top of page

What about making these changes incrementally? Maybe you can try the change the title before and some tags ( alt) and wait some days

[EGOL]

**What about shortening the title tag?  **I would drop all of the CMS stuff.  Just be sure that it does not change the URL of your page.  Check the referral traffic to see if the CMS words are pulling any traffic if you have any doubts.

What about changing the image file names and adding alt tags when they are nonsense or garbage? If you change an image name you will lose all current image traffic for that image.  If I had lots of traffic I would not change it.  If the traffic was nil I would consider a change.

**What about adding a "finish" picture to the top? **I have no fear of adding that.  None.  It is huge upside if you have a great image.

**What about making these changes incrementally? **Do it if you enjoy farting around.  I don't think it will make any difference at all.

My most important advice.   If you are improving the page, keeping it relevant and are not changing the URL, title tag or optimization have no fear.