Splitting down pages

[SamBayPublishing]

Hello everyone,

I have a page on my directory for example:
https://ose.directory/topics/breathing-apparatus

The title on this page is small yet a bit unspecific:
Breathing Apparatus Companies, Suppliers and Manufacturers

On webmaster tools these terms hold different values for each category so "topic name companies" sometimes has a lot more searches than "topic name suppliers". I was thinking if I could split the page into the following into three separate pages would that be better:

https://ose.directory/topics/breathing-apparatus (main - Title: Breathing Apparatus)
https://ose.directory/topics/breathing-apparatus/companies (Title: Breathing Apparatus Companies)
https://ose.directory/topics/breathing-apparatus/manufacturers (Title: Breathing Apparatus Manufacturers)
https://ose.directory/topics/breathing-apparatus/suppliers (Title: Breathing Apparatus Suppliers)

Two Questions:

1. Would this be more beneficial from an SEO perspective?
2. Would google penalise me for doing this, if so is there a way to do it properly.

PS. The list of companies may be the same but the page content ever so slightly different. I know this would not effect my users much because the terms I am using all mean pretty much the same thing. The companies do all three.

[SamBayPublishing]

Yeah, perhaps they will all naturally rank better for each term. Thats not to say they are not ranking well now I was just in the process of optimising everything I possibly can. Thanks.

[MattRoney]

Personally, if the list of companies os going to stay the same, I'd keep it all to one page. Google is smart enough to see the topical similarity, and the risk of appearing spammy doesn't seem worth it.

[EGOL]

it all comes down to thinking about what my target customer wants

I understand that completely.

I have found that in order to please the target customer, I must first please google.  Pleasing google must be done to earn visibility.

_Added after clicking the tab...   _Information behind tabs is often disregarded by Google.  I would get that information visible and onto the page.

[SamBayPublishing]

I like the concept of what you are saying and it all fits in with what I know from past experiences but it all comes down to thinking about what my target customer wants. When someone searches for "Breathing Apparatus Companies" as an example, logically it is pretty clear what their search intent is. My 30% bounce rate and 20% exit rate (for that page) tells me that people are getting what they need. They do not seem too want an education on what it is, making sure they get information fast and accurately seems to be more important to them. If you click the info tab I have actually added some rough info, it is just hidden by default.

Please do not take this as disregarding your answer because in most cases I would agree but a directory seems to have a different issue. What do I do?

[EGOL]

I don't see these pages going anywhere.  They will either be filtered from the SERPs or fall victim to Panda.  They might have a couple company names on them, but other than that, there is absolutely no content.

Adding a couple paragraphs about what these products are, what they are used for, and a little more about them will make these pages more visible for the queries that you are trying for, plus many more based upon the long tail keywords in your text.

If I really wanted to attack all of the terms you are targeting, I would do it with one single page, with substantive, unique, detailed content and images about the products.