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The only thing I can think of is a "dual pyramid" approach. One pyramid is centered around the real targets of the site - it will probably be too small and narrow for good theming. But the site can include a "Reference" section, which would be a large collection of pages relating to the topic at hand, well themed.
The Reference section doesn't have be to prominent on the pages - we don't care if the users go there, as long as the spiders do. And we would link from every page in the reference section to the most appropraite target page in the target pyramid (this might lower the ranking of the reference pyramid, but will increase the ranking of the target pyramid).
As for finding good material for the Reference section, all we need to do is search for the kw's, and pick high scoring documnents (provided that they can be redistributed). And I guess it would be better to chop them up into multiple pages, instead of one large .html file for each document (Is this correct?)
What does everyone think? Is my analysis correct? What about my ideas for implementing the Reference section?
Please guys, rip this apart, I wanna hear what you have to say!
The crawling bots isn't really the focus -- attracting new visitors is.
The first two problems you are trying to address is:
1. only a small number of users look for something very specific (your products), and
2. the more generic the keyword you target the more competition there is and the harder it is to be found.
Pyramid theming marries these two opposites together by way of associated content.
The one factor that most site owners seem to forget is getting a person to your site is relatively easily when compared to physically motivating them to buy a product from someone they have never dealt with before.
The Reference section doesn't have be to prominent on the pages - we don't care if the users go there...
A likened analogy to your statement is (going back to Brett's original post) -- All the forum's and threads in WebmasterWorld are not really important; we don't care if noone goes there, reads or posts, as long as they DONATE MONEY!
In reality this would never occur and if your content provided is "just for spiders, noone is going to buy -- you have to motivate visitors and quite honestly "you" jump through alot of hoops to accomplish this, as each visitor will have different needs and concerns, like: trustworthiness, security, privacy, product quality, free stuff (added value), return policies, shipping policies, product comparisons, testimonials and ultimately your track record, just to name a few.
A million visitors to the site and no sales is not what you want.
Can you theme pyramid on a small site -- well... yes, but the size is actually based on how generic your primary keyword (theme) is and how much competition you need to go by to get within reach of your target markets and then you will still have to motivate them to buy.
