Re-targeting keywords from homepage to category page

[alexhowe]

My website home page ranks well for a keyword lets call it 'Keyword1'. I'd like to create a new category specific to 'Keyword1' and name it 'Keyword1' so the relevant content and products can sit in there.

How can I ensure that my rankings of my current home page are passed on to this new category page?

Many thanks,

[TLM]

Are you looking to have the ranking metrics and the user redirect from Home Page --> New Page or is the goal to have just the ranking metrics and spiders redirected to New Page while the user stays on Home Page?

Both a 301 and a use of the rel=canonical would accomplish the task of transfereing (most) of the link juice from Home --> New and, in time, you should see New push up in the ranks and Home drop out, for the targeted keyword(s).

I assume you would like Home Page to still be accessible to the user while ensuring New Page claims the good SERP ranking, so my thoughts would be to use the rel=canonical. The user will remain on your homepage if that is where they are attempting to navigate and the spiders/link juice will make its way over to the page you are hoping to rank with.

There may be differing opinions, so make sure you get a full range of responses before you take action.

If I am misunderstanding your question, please let me know and I will attempt to answer your question further.

[alexhowe]

Yes I'd like the homepage to remain functional and all ranking data for the keyword which currently ranks there to be transferred to the new category page so the use of rel=canonical is probably the way to go. There will be a link to the new category using this keyword as anchor text in the navigation - would there be any advantage linking internally to this new page from the content on the home page as well to help pass link juice across to the new category?

[TLM]

The question of an internal link from Home Page to New Page would be more of an aesthetic and existing site architecture issue seeing as you are giving all of the metrics from Home Page to New Page through the redirect.

I do not think that the link on the homepage would 'help' in terms of SEO, but it won't hurt either.

A thought that could use some feedback from the community: Would it be better to 301 redirect Home Page to New Page in this example and build a new homepage that you could then use for branding purposes?

I ask because with a redirect in place, all links that are acquired will point to homepage.com but the redirect would pass them along to newpage.com at reduced 'value' regardless of their relevance to that specific product page. It would seem that if you want the ranking metrics from Home to go to New you would have to redirect, but in order to have a functioning home page which can rank for branded terms and acquire general links you should probably 301 Home and build a new page to become a home page.

I hope that question makes sense, and it would be great to get some feedback from the other minds on this board.