When it comes time to list our site with a directory, we need to place it in the most appropriate category. Starting from the top of the directory, we navigate through the directory tree like this:

TOP > RECREATION > PETS > DOGS > GROOMING
> [GROOMING PRODUCTS]

The actual link from DMOZ is here.

As our theme of this hypothetical website is about grooming of pet dogs, we logically enough want to place our site in the grooming category. You should be able to see now, how directories structure through logical placing of subjects and topics (essentially themes).

The purpose and the theme combined is what our site is advertising and we are naturally enough targeting people who are seeking related information on pet dog grooming (and or, a grooming service if that's the case).

With a focused theme of our website, we neatly address the wants and needs of our target audience.

When we address 'content issues' later, we'll want to generate pages with loads of valuable information as they will act as doors into our website.

We'll need to organize our web site by keeping on-topic, something that can become quite difficult as your website evolves.

Taking a hypothetical domain name of "petdogrooming.com" (using our most important keywords), we could typically structure our site with pages like this:

• http://www.petdogrooming.com/techniques.html
• http://www.petdogrooming.com/products.html
• http://www.petdogrooming.com/breeds/specfic_breed.html
• http://www.petdogrooming.com/service.html
• http://www.petdogrooming.com/grooming_faq.html
• http://www.petdogrooming.com/...

By naming our pages logically (e.g. "products.html") we can instantly tell what the sub-theme is about. This will help keep us focused and bodes well for good search engine indexing and ranking.

A correctly themed structure will help you maintain clear architecture between the different areas of your site.

You may not notice (or even understand) but we have included a 2nd level directory under the name of "breeds" (the third example down). It would be logical to structure like this if we wanted to include several dog breeds within our theme or anything else that required individual attention. Having a dedicated directory will keeps things orderly and complements the structure of our theme nicely.

Now we know the purpose and theme of our site, we move on to addressing who it is we have created this website for.

If you have any questions or comments please call me on 0720390184 or e-mail me on webmaster@webcraft.ws.