Hierarchy - front page or sub-pages?

[hasek747]

Hello,

Suppose we have an Info website. The website focuses on a specific line of products, of which there are multiple variations. Reviews, guides and rankings are the primary three categories the website deals in. The front page of the website targets the most important keywords ("best widget", "widget reviews"), while hundreds of other pages are devoted to more specific keywords. My question is regarding how you would recommend linking to the hundreds of sub-pages from the front page. Would you have front page links directly to all of the important articles even if it means having 80+ links from the front page, or would you only narrow it down to a handful of links (say 15, including "contact", "privacy" etc) and have a separate hub-page for each category of articles? In other words, would you have on your front page (say in the top menu, with drop-downs):

[Best Widgets By Category] (drop-down on mouse hover)
+ Best Widgets For Women
+ Best Widgets For Men
+ Best Widgets For .....
(there may be 10-15 of these)

[Widget Reviews By Manufacturer] (drop-down on mouse hover)
+ X-Manufacturer Widget Reviews
+ Y-Manufacturer Widget Reviews
+ ........ Widget Reviews
(another 15-20)

etc.

And so on. Or would you completely SKIP the drop-downs, thereby narrowing down the number of links on the front page significantly, making it:

- [Best Widgets By Category] (no drop-down; once clicked, the new page includes all of the "Best Widgets For Women, Best Widgets for men, etc. links)
- [Widget Reviews By Manufacturer] (no drop-down, same as above)

As far as achieving the best possible rankings for both the front page as well as the various sub-pages involved, which approach would be better (assuming everything else - links, on page SEO, relevancy etc. remain unchanged)?

Thanks.

[goodroi]

Usability takes priority. Do what is best for users on your homepage and overall your SEO will benefit. Some sites I have over 80 links to deep pages (counting links in top nav, sidebar & footer links) on other sites that just overloads my users so I keep it simple. By keeping users happy I improve my chances of convincing other websites to link to my homepage and my deep pages. I worry less about linking from my homepage to my important pages. I worry more about developing 80 important pages that are so useful and valuable that they gain backlinks from external websites and don't need to rely on link power from my homepage.

[hasek747]

Thanks. How about duplicating internal links between the top bar (Drop down menu) and the side bar) list of links. What would be your take on that?

[goodroi]

Usability takes priority. If you have a link that is important to users and a long page, it might makes sense to include that link in the top navigation, sidebar and footer. Google devalues to a certain level your run-of-site navigation links, so if you are thinking SEO generally better to focus more on embedding relevant links within your content than link stuffing your navigation links.