Should I redirect secondary keyword page

[SamCUK]

I have a reasonably high authority home page and have decided to optimise the home page to target a competitive keyword that previously had a specific page that was optimised on an internal page of my site that I have spent time building links to.

The internal page has over 200 links to it so should I 301 redirect this internal page to the home page. Will that increase the auhority of the home page further? Or should I keep the internal page as a 'secondary' page for that keyword?. If I do have two pages don't I risk confusing google?

[AlanMosley]

I would keep the second page, you will lose a bit with a 301 redirect, and its much easier to promote one keyword per page.

[EGOL]

I would attack with both.  Improve the content on the internal page, sharpen the optimization of the homepage.

[SamCUK]

Am I not better off building links to the homepage using the right anchor text as it has a higher authority? I have a muchbetter chance of ranking highly with that page don't I? My reasoning for choosing to optimise the homepage for the internal keyword too is save myself some work. In order to get the internal page the same authority as the home page I have a lot of link building to do so I thought optimising the homepage for the keyword would kind of be a "short cut" id there is such a thing in SEO!

[AlanMosley]

You may lose relevancy for the first keyword, if you try to much to optimize for the second. Of cause t5his depends on the keywords

[EGOL]

Your homepage is probably less relevant than this interior page.

Using your homepage is a short-term strategy.

Using the interior page is a longer-term strategy but probably better if your site will have many keyword topics.

I would do on-page optimization for the homepage.  And put full effort into the interior.

That is generic advice.