So at work I made a minor change to the home page of a website and the home page dropped in ranking from #3 on Google to #7.

I now have to own up to my mistake to my boss and ask them to change it back to the way it was. I don't know how to own up to this. I also am seeing pages I've similarly edited drop in ranking.

What I am doing is called search engine optimization. I get websites to rank high in Google. It is a very tricky business, but an aspect involves including the target term you are going after at least once and perhaps a few times on a page.

My problem is that I am trying to figure out the best ways to include the target term on a page. I am looking at the highest ranking pages of our website and am trying to mimic how those pages incorporate the target term. And from what I can tell, the target term may not even be included in the body copy at all on a web page, but instead, very similar terms and synonyms are used. Yet, a top ranking competitor used a target term FOUR times in their body copy of 900 words. So, I am really confused about how this works. I added the target term just ONCE to our home page of about 200 words, and the page dropped in ranking!!

So, basically, I am experimenting with this to get it right. In my last job, I wasn't allowed much license to experiment or to change the web page copy and headlines. My boss wanted to control all of the web page copy without my input. She wanted it just the way she wanted it so I wasn't allowed to tweak.

So now in my new position, I have more input and license, but I am still experimenting with keyword usage on a page.

Based on the results I've seen for pages I edited, I've tweaked my approach again and am going to see what happens with the rankings now. I re-edited the pages that had dropped in ranking except for the home page. For the home page, I have to ask someone above me to change it back to the way it was, so there is no way around them knowing I made a bad judgement call.

So how do I explain this to my new boss? That I am still figuring this out? That I am tweaking my approach to learn how to do it best so that a page ranks highest?

I want and need to be successful in my job so that they keep me on. I want to get it right, but I am not there yet. I feel like this is something I should already have under my belt. But like I said, I didn't learn how to do this in my last job well enough. I cannot mention my old job to my boss and what I didn't learn. I want them to feel confident that I know what I am doing. At the same time, my work does involve some trial and error and experimentation.

So what do I do and how do I approach this with my boss?