I have a site about "oncology nurse certification" we have several sub categories (courses/pages) i.e. "pediatric oncology nurse certification" "LPN oncology nurse certification" since this is such a small niche, 90% of all conversions come from users typing in "oncology nurse certification" i used to rank 4/5 for this keyword "oncology nurse certification" I wanted to try to rank top 3 for "oncology nurse certification" so I hired and SEO to redesign my site in Wordpress. My SEO said that my home page should NOT be optimized for my main keyword phrase "oncology nurse certification" and changed the page that shows all of our courses to be optimized for "oncology nurse certification" since this change i have dropped from 4 to 9 for my top converting phrase "oncology nurse certification" My SEO states: "it is very difficult to optimize the home page. You cannot build inbound links to it using the terms, as it looks like spam. Plus in Google eyes, the best page is your course page and not the home page which is an overview." is this correct, or should i optimize my home page for the narrow top converting phrase "oncology nurse certification" and then the inner pages for the long tail keyword phrases: "oncology nurse certification courses""pediatric oncology nurse certification" "LPN oncology nurse certification"
You should optimize the page that delivers the most relevant content to the user. Focus on the content of the page as apposed to 'optimising' .