How to split up a big page into multiple pages properly?

[deeper]

Hi,
I have a big page, about 5 screens long, containing several related niche topics, which is hit by panda.

I want to split it up in "blue widgets" and "red widgets".

How to manage this properly? What should I consider?

For example there exists a HTML tag which "says" that both pages belong to one. Must be a paginating link or somethink similar. I don't know this tag.
Does this make sense?

[phranque]

these would all be useful for linking a collection of documents:

http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/types.html#type-links

Start Refers to the first document in a collection of documents. This link type tells search engines which document is considered by the author to be the starting point of the collection.
Next Refers to the next document in a linear sequence of documents. User agents may choose to preload the "next" document, to reduce the perceived load time.
Prev Refers to the previous document in an ordered series of documents. Some user agents also support the synonym "Previous".
Contents Refers to a document serving as a table of contents. Some user agents also support the synonym ToC (from "Table of Contents").
Index Refers to a document providing an index for the current document.

Pagination - Webmaster Tools Help:
http://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/1663744 [support.google.com]

[nomis5]

Thanks to the OP for the question and thanks to phranque for the links, new to me.

One further consideration though is at what point is it best to break up a long page into multiple pages? "best" includes SEO considerations and page viewer considerations.

Another consideration is that breaking a long page into two or more pages may well result in more page views per visit, more chances to place ads in front of the viewer and more time on a site in general.

My take on this has been to allow laziness to be the main driver, just adding more to a page is easier than creating a second page. But I suspect that maybe laziness is not the best way to determine what solution is best. Anyone any experience of how a page does after it has been broken up?

[JD_Toims]

One further consideration though is at what point is it best to break up a long page into multiple pages?

I'd go with breaking on the <hN> tags. They're an implicit start of a new <section> even without a <section> tag, so they're a natural "breaking point" not only for visitors, but also search engines.

[deeper]

@phranque:
Thanks for first hints. I just have read them.

If a article page is splitted in three and I apply prev/next, do page 2 und 3 still have any chances to rank? Due to Google they prefer the first page then, but when page 3 is about "woman mini-skirts" why leading the user to page 1 about "woman fashion"?

nomis5:
A second page has a disadvantage: you can't split up your backlinks too, so one of them will have 0 backlinks. So it makes IMHO sense to create the second one as the easier ranking one (niche KWs). That is easier when creating two independant pages. Let's say "widgets" becomes "red widgets" and "blue widgets", two pages which can rank independant from each other. No prev/next.

In your case, when splitting one certain article, you don't have many ways of being "creative" and you have to respect your personal reality of document structure, backlinks, KWs and ranking chances.