Finally made it to page 1

should I leave it alone or continue tweaking?

[bnhall]

Hi after lots of effort and following everyone's advice I've finally made it to great positioning in Google.

Question: should I continue to fine-tune the site or just leave well enough alone?

[troels nybo nielsen]

Search Engine Optimization is a never ending story. But I am one of those people that would rather talk about User Optimization.

Keep on putting good content on your website. Keep on bettering what content there already is. Keep on making your website more easy to use. Ask your visitors what they think.

[Beachboy]

Congratulations on getting to Page 1. To stay there, or to rise to the top, keep building inbound links. That's how CNN stays #1 for "news." :)

[Jakpot]

Have had several in the top ten for months and have not and will not make the slightest change to any of them.
Blessed to be there and since don't know Google's algorithm
I am most hesitant to "tweak" them

[jackofalltrades]

After a couple of months as a member, i totally redesigned and optimised my site.

I was already number one on a couple of keywords (by luck of my content, not through intention), but after the change I was number one on many more and top ten for others as well.

personally, I would say leave the pages that are getting high rankings in the SERPs and add more pages and content.

JOAT

[CuriousWeb]

JOAT> personally, I would say leave the pages that are getting high rankings in the SERPs and add more pages and content

I agree with this entirely, and target for niche keywords...

[AgentSmith]

personally, I would say leave the pages that are getting high rankings in the SERPs and add more pages and content.

I am also with JOAT on this.
You can't always chase algo. You will tire before it does. Your quality inbound will grows as well, considering that your effort and enhancement are perceived well. User quality will increase as the quality of your site is enhanced by content development:)

I was once at your position with my secondary search terms. After some odd months, I moved from 8th to 5th then 5th to 1st.

troels_nybo_nielsen also has a good point. Putting effort in user optimization, you will be able to better your conversion rate and user engagement.

Congrats and good luck:)

[2_much]

Usually when I have a site that ranks I tend to make a few minor modifications to the code that I KNOW will help maintain rankings.

The main thing for me is, when a site ranks, to do a "usability check". I monitor the conversions, and if they're low, then I make a few changes to the site to try to improve sales. If the site is very badly designed, then I tend to risk a redesign A few times I've had sites dropped after a redesign, but other times the power of Page Rank keeps them there - proving the power of PR (especially for competitive keywords).

So to summarizie (from my pt of view)
1. Yes - minor tweaks
2. Check for conversions & usability