How to name folders and html pages for SEO

[PowerUp]

I'm creating a webpage for credit cards. And my domain name is widget.com. How should I name my folders and html files to achieve maximum SEO effect?

1)How should I name my folders?
http://www.example.com/creditcards/ OR
/credit-cards/

2)Assuming I go for option 1 above, then how should I name my files?
/creditcards/creditcard.htm OR
/creditcards/credit-card.htm OR
/creditcards/index.htm

Thanks for feedback.

[edited by: Webwork at 10:31 pm (utc) on July 30, 2006]
[edit reason]
[1][edit reason] Please use Example.com, Example.net, Example.org for "example domains" [/edit] [/edit][/1]

[Quadrille]

Credit cards is possibly not the best example, as people do search for 'creditcard' as well as "credit card".

But consider "interest rates" - no-one searches for interestrates (except a webmaster who has used that term!).

So if you feel the need to use two words, use hyphens.

Never use spaces, which will appear as 'interest%20rates"

Which comes to the second point which is 'what will your users think?

[example-####.com...] looks pretty stupid, as does

[example-####.com...]

In general, one hyphen is enough, and more than two makes you look pretty spammy.

[edited by: Webwork at 10:33 pm (utc) on July 30, 2006]
[edit reason]
[1][edit reason] Please - no hotlinks that resolve to live domains. [/edit] [/edit][/1]