Ranking a redirect?

A friend of mine just started his own firm and has little to NO presence on the internet. He was supplied with a basic agent website by the company he works through and I am wondering if I can rank that website using a 301 redirect, or would I have to build a new page and include the "get quote" links so that he gets credit for potential future clients? Would his employer see that the referrals are coming from the new domain and get him into trouble?

Any advice is appreciated

Thanks

Heckler,

If you are talking about referrals in the sense that newdomain.com would be showing up in reports as referring traffic to companydomain.com, then yes, if the employer is tracking the site, they will see that. If you are talking about referrals in the sense that links on the company page are how your friend gets paid, then no, that link would still appear to be coming from the company site.
The new domain would, in essence, be like a little arm out there gathering up traffic for the company domain but all activity from a sales perspective would be happening on the company domain (unless of course you set up those links on the new domain).

So, if you want it set up like I think you do, just buy the new domain and redirect it.

Although with this scenario it may be hard to rank the new domain if there is no or little content on it. You might want to try building a nice landing page that directs people to the other site in order to convert as his customer.

Here is a good post on landing pages,

http://getadvisordeck.com/2012/10/elements-of-a-killer-landing-page/

I hope that helps,

Shawn