301 / 404 & Getting Rid of Keyword Pages

[CalicoKitty2000]

I had a feeling that my keyword focused pages were causing my site not to rank well. I do not have that many keywords.  I have 2 main keyword phrases along with 6 city locations.  For example (fake) "tea house tampa" "tea house clearwater" "tea house sarasota" and "tea room tampa" "tea room cleawater" "tea house sarasota".  So, I don't feel that I need that many pages.  I feel like I can optimize my home page and maybe 1 or 2 topic pages.  Right now, I have a keyword for each of those phrases.  These are all internal pages on 1 domain.  Not multiple domains.

Sooo... I tested it by 301ing a few of my "tea house" KW pages to the home page.  And low and behold... my home page rose BIG TIME!  Major improvement!  I'm talking like 13th to 2nd!

Here is my question... how should I proceed?  My SEO has warned me against 301ing too many pages all pointing to the home page.  He says that will negatively impact my ratings.  Should I 404 some pages? Should I build a "tea room" topic page and 301 that set there?  What is worse?  301 or 404?  How many is too many?

I'm really excited by these results, but I'm scare to move forward and hurt what has happened.  Thanks in advance!

[DennisSeymour]

If it's just a few pages then I don't think it should be something to worry about. I've 301'ed thousands and it never affected me before.

The problem with this though is you might have some trouble ranking for some (different) location based searches, or at least, to consistently improve after the 301's initial benefits stop.

I always stay away from 404s as much as I can. Although it doesnt really affect your SEO if the dead link is nowhere on your pages but I still dislike it, personal preference.

I won't be much help as this is all still trivial without seeing the actual pages and their functions.

Treat it as a test though, you'll learn a lot from it.