Effect of removing home page content

Question

I have a business website that I'm working on and I'm replacing the text I initially had on the home page with new columnized paragraphs of text. The text I'm removing though has a h1 tag and probably a good few keywords but I have no place for it now. The page is ranking first on Google for it's top keyword, would removing this content and replacing it with new content affect it's ranking much? Currently I just have it commented out with HTML tags <!-- -->, but this is probably bad practice and only a temporary fix.

Answer 1

Depends purely how much Google trusts your site and how much authority your site has, as well as how strong your competeiros are viewed against your own site. Changing paragraph content doesn't normally result in shifting of rankings but H1's can.

Google doesn't favor on changing of things like H1 Tags, Title, Meta Description and they have algorithms to detect such changes and patented technology that detects changes that it classes as unrevelant from the first ever seen H1 on your site.

Renaming Headers

So for example if your changing the H1 from: A blog about fuzzy gerbils to Gerbil Blog then its most likely your never get a change in rankings but if you use something like Fuzzy Gerbils to Gerbil Food then I would expect a shift in rankings for the word Gerbil and but a gain in the keywords Gerbil Food.

Try to keep the Headers if Possible

Personally you should try to keep the H1 on Topic of the Original H1 to avoid a shift, and try to keep the paragraphs on topic as when you first made the page, otherwise expect a shift.

Removing of Headers

If you have other H1's on the page then as long as those keywords are used then you should be ok, but no reassurances and comes back to how much Google favors your site, it may even improve your rankings, its impossible to tell in most cases.

Personal Moto

If the page looks better without the header and makes sense for your audience to have it removed then you should proceed and worry about the aftermath later. Personally I believe the user experience is the most important factor and not only does that improve your conversions long term your search engine visibity will increase within your niche as people will link to you, best experiences in my honest opinion gain the best SEO that Google loves and of course is natural.