Organizing content on an eCommerce site?

What's the best structure for buyers and Google?

[sun818]

Let's say I sell widgets and gadgets. I want to appear under more keywords so I add new relevant content such as technical info, reviews, frequently asked questions. What's the best way to organize this new content?

Say the site is currently structured like this:

Home
-> Products
-> -> Widgets.htm
-> -> Gadgets.htm

The two ideas I'm considering is either organizing the content underneath the product page (first example) or organizing by information type (second example).

First Example

Home
-> Products
-> -> Widgets.htm
-> -> -> tech-info.htm
-> -> -> reviews.htm
-> -> -> faq.htm
-> -> Gadgets.htm
-> -> -> tech-info.htm
-> -> -> reviews.htm
-> -> -> faq.htm

Second Example

Home
-> Products
-> -> Widgets.htm
-> -> Gadgets.htm
-> Tech Info
-> Reviews
-> FAQ

The benefit I see to the First Example is that it follows the "Theme Pyramid" structure (if I understand correctly). The benefit I see for the Second Example is that it would require less maintenance to keep up. Are there better ways to structure the site for buyers and Google?

<edit>the bullet points didn't come out the way I thought, now -> </edit>

[edited by: sun818 at 8:54 pm (utc) on Mar. 22, 2003]

[Marcia]

There's hardly a situation the Theme Pyramid structure isn't good for and adaptable to. Also, in some cases it makes maintenance easier; when new pages are added, there's a built-in site infrastructure that makes it easy to know just where they go.

If there are pages across sections that correspond, like technical information, they can be tied together with a page that serves to index them like a site map would.

It also avoids unnecessary dilution of Page Rank distribution throughout a site, routing homepage links to the most important and/or most competitive pages. Opinions vary, but some also believe that having too many links on the homepage can confuse site visitors as well.

Look at the difference in total number of links between examples 1 and 2. It's probably good to have the technical information within the corresponding subdirectory if those are used, but the tech info might not be the money pages, and if there were 10 product types there would be 10 homepage links to tech info, leaving less PR to distribute to the pages doing the selling, if you look at all the links that would add up to.

Admittedly, this is a challenge in site structuring in cases where there's common navigation that runs across an entire site. There probably are constructive ways to deal with this, but that should most likely follow to conform to the navigation design chosen.

[sun818]

Marcia, thanks for your reply. Yes, the pages that actually sell the product is Widgets.htm and Gadgets.htm.

but the tech info might not be the money pages

To me, the word "money pages" [searchengineworld.com] (tech-info.htm) are the same as "4 keyword phrase page". The money pages don't actually sell the product. It just helps Google to see that I'm an authority on those specific products, right?

Search engines aside, the First Example also allows me to add content flexibly without worrying about the type of information I'm adding. But, if I were to tie all the tech-info pages together "like a site map", where would one place this page? And would this be for the benefit of my customers or GoogleBot?

Anyone else have opinions as well?