What is the best website structure for SEO?

[mosaicpro]

I've been on SEOmoz for about 1 month now and everyone says that depending on the type of business you should build up your website structure for SEO as 1st step.

I have a new client click here   ( www version doesn't work)... some bugs we are fixing it now.

We are almost finished with the design & layout.

2nd question have been running though my head.

1. What would the best url category for the shop be    /products/     - current url cat

ex:   /products/door-handles.html

2. What would you use for the main menu as section for getting the most out of SEO.

Personally i am thinking of making 2-3 main categories on the left a section where i can add content to it (3-4 paragraphs... images maybe a video).So the main page focuses on the domain name more and the rest of the sections would focus on specific keywords, this why I avoid cannibalization.

Main keyword target is "door handles"

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

[seomasterbrasil]

Hello!

1. The best URL would it be if you just put the door-handles straight from the home, less deeper. Like this:

http://doorhandle.ie/door-handles
http://doorhandle.ie/door-hinges
http://doorhandle.ie/door-locks
....

2. To optimize your Home, you have to put the minimum links you can. Put just one link for DOOR HANDLES, or for DOOR LOCKS. But you choose where to put, at the left column or the top bar. Now you have to think about your users.

When you create a www, you have to use one as the main one. So redirect this actual one to the www version using 301 redirecting.

I would recommend you also put some keywords in H1 (just one tag of these in each page), about what the page is.

And use some rel=nofollow on the links that is not strictly of your business, like support, privacy policy or about us.

Hope it helps! =]

[mosaicpro]

More or less that was were we are going. My concern is that if we leave the categories on the left as main target for the keywords cat/keyword  we would loose the importance of the main nav.

Will google treat the same way(importance) even if it's on the left and not in the main nav bar?

If so what would you suggest to put at the top if all categories/keywords are targeted?

[seomasterbrasil]

I putted a Heat Map down there. I should you know it.

So, as you can see, the navigation bar don't even shows any color. So i would recommend you to use the links just in the navigation, and use the left column spot to put other thing, some very attractive link, like best selling products maybe.

You should use some Breadcrumbs below the navigation bar as the user gets deeper in the site. This is more for usability.

I would suggest you to put in the Main Bar just a major category, like Door Articles. And then in it the user can choose between then, if he wants door handles, door hinges, door locks...

It helped this way?

GoogleAdsenseHeatMap.gif

[KeriMorgret]

Also think of website structure for analytics. The URL structure can make it easy to get some good information about the site. Lunametrics has a great post on this at http://www.lunametrics.com/blog/2010/09/22/designing-google-analytics-friendly-site/.