What is the best way to organize a catergory for SEO purpsoes?

[ThatKwameGuy]

I work for a organic vitamin and supplement company and we are looking to rank for our categories by making more specific categories.  For example we are going to try to add under the category "vitamin d"  some smaller more relevant (longer-tail) categories like "spray vitamin d" and "vegan vitamin d" and try to rank instead for these searches and also searches containing words that we already have more authority from Google like "natural" or "organic".

I know that putting the product pages a level deeper will only hurt us so I want to avoid that but I'm wondering if anyone has some advice on how to organize categories for longer tail keywords that we actually have a chance to rank for.

Any help to figure this out would be greatly appreciated. Here is our page as it is currently, like I said we want to create sub categories that are effective for SEO, but also make searching and navigating the site easier.

http://www.mynaturalmarket.com/Vitamin-D.html

Thanks,

ThatKwameGuy

[sergio_redondo]

In my opinion, web architecture has a lot of importance for SEO. You must keep your site as flat as possible. I see your website has 3 levels deep for a product page. That's OK. Furthermore, your website looks very intuitive.

I'm doing SEO for a supplements store too. So I want to share with you how I've considered optimize the website:

1. Divide your keywords in categories: main, secondary, category specific, product specific and branded in               my case.

2. How I distributed my keywords:

-Homepage: main + branded (company name)

-Nav Menu pages: main + secondary

-Brands pages: main/secondary + branded (brand name)

-Categories pages: category specific + main/secondary

-Products page: branded (product name) + category name/branded (brand name)

I can tell you that with this method, the vast majority of our products are positioned in the first page for their names. A big number of categories in first page too. And we have only 3 levels deep for a product page too!!!

The more levels you include, the more disperse the link juice.

If, from a business point of view, you need more categories for making internal navigation more specific, then do it. But if you only looks for SEO benefits, consider the following:

Is it necessary to lose user's experience quality to gain more traffic? What will happen with these new users when they find the new navigation structure?

Hope it helps.

Sergio

[josh-riley]

If you want to rank for more terms, then you have to have a place to put that content so Google can make the association, right? We also believe in three levels and it's pretty justified for many business (us: printers -portable printers - brand name portable printers). That's not unusual and your audience most likely won't think much of it.

As long as the content and long tail words make sense to your site and will be of value to the user, you should be fine.

[ThatKwameGuy]

That is very helpful and great information thank you for your response. That advice will help me a lout as we plan to make these changes!

Thanks again Sergio,

ThatKwameGuy

[ThatKwameGuy]

Thank you Andrea. This is very helpful. The example you gave really clarified for me! We are going to make sure any changes we make will be of value to our users

Thanks,

ThatKwameGuy