How would you structure this content?

[NoahsDad]

We have a site where we write about our son who was born with Down syndrome. I had a question regarding some content I'm trying to create and structure and hoping you guys can point me in the right direction.

One of the things we are often asked by new parents is what toys we suggest for people to buy for their child with Down syndrome, or as gifts for a friend who has a child with Down syndrome. So I'd like to write some posts that suggest great toys for each year of a kids life (and continue that as Noah grows.) However, there are some variations of key words that I would like to rank for as well and it gets a little messy, which is where I need the help.

For example for each year I could have a post titled:

• Top Ten (I could also change out top ten for Best, etc..)Toys For A One Year Old with Down Syndr
• Top Ten Christmas Gift Ideas For A One Year Old With Down Syndrome
• Top Ten Birthday Gift Ideas For a One Year Old With D.S.
• Top Ten Learning Toys For A One Year Old With D.S.
• Top Ten Toys Under 25 Dollars For A One Year Old with DS
• Top Ten Developmental Toys for a One Year Old With DS
• Top Ten Fisher Price Toys for a child with ds
• Best Light Up Toys For a one year old with ds
• best muscial toys for a one year old with ds

I could also think of other variations as well. Also I can make each of these with the various ages. 2 year old, 3 year old, etc...

So I'm not sure what the best way to go is. I could easily have a ton of content that is all virtually the same (birthday gifts / christmas gifts..although I could suggest different toys) so I'd have a ton of different toys pages trying to rank for one term each that is good for google searchers but probably not so great for folks coming to my site as I would have toy pages scattered all over the site.

I also don't know how landing pages would fit in to all of this. Would I want a "Down Syndrome Toy Guide" landing page, or "Down Syndrome Gift Guide" ... or both...or something else, and then link all of those other pages on that page?

I have a few pages on my site now that I wrote before I started to think about all the different combinations I wanted to rank for: http://noahsdad.com/gift-ideas-down-syndrome/ and http://noahsdad.com/best-fisher-price-learning-toys/

I'm open to any feedback you guys may have on this.

I'd also like to do some posts on "Down Syndrome Books" and hope to use the same info that you guys give me and apply to books. (Therapy books, touch and feel books, resource books, new parents books, etc..)

Hoping some folks chime in as your help would really be appreciated.

[crackingmedia]

OK, yes I understand, no problem. It would be good to hear suggestions from others as there may be a better way to represent all of what you want to be able to do.

Peter

[NoahsDad]

Thanks so much for the very helpful comment.

I don't want to have to write a post for every toy. That would take for ever as I would have to write a review on a post for every toy. No thanks.

I was thinking of making them more like this: http://noahsdad.com/gift-ideas-down-syndrome/

I wouldn't use the same product, and if I did I would say different things about it.

[crackingmedia]

Hi again,

Yes, I understand your reluctance to have a top ten list given that some categories may not have ten, but maybe you could have a "The best of..." category which could have whatever number of toys etc that fitted into it.

What I meant by the top level "top ten page" is just a page that is linked to from your site's home page to be the home page of the "top tens" or "The best of" page, You could just have a dropdown menu from your home page for this, but if this section had its own "home" page so to speak, then it would be an opportunity to make a big splash on that page for various categories of products for Down Syndrome children. It would have more impact that way and would be a good hub for your reviews of these products.

The level below that would be the lists of products that fit that category but just with a summary of each and a thumbnail image with a link from each to a detailed page and review of the product.

Yes, I am suggesting you have a separate page for each toy because by doing that you make it flexible for a toy to appear in more than one "best" list without having to duplicate content. It would just be linked to from each list into which it belonged. See below.

Having said before about not going below 3 levels I have realised that this structure is 4 levels so maybe that is too deep, but it may work.

So you would have something looking like the following:

Home page: "The Best of..." menu item
|_ The Best Of feature (home) page with summary details of all the categories
    |_ The Best Christmas Gift Ideas
        |_ page listing a summary of all reviews for this category with read more links to...
            |_ Gift (full) review 1
            |_ Gift (full) review 2 (same page as Learning Toy review 1)
            |_ etc
    |_ The Best Learning Toys
        |_ page listing a summary of all reviews for this category with read more links to...
            |_ Learning Toy (full) review 1 (same page as Gift review 2)
            |_ Learning Toy (full) review 2
            |_ etc
    |_ The Best of another category

I hope that makes sense and is helpful for you,
Peter

[NoahsDad]

Thanks for your your very thoughtful. I'm not sure I would also do "top ten lists" if that makes sense.

Would this still work for things like Top toys, best toys, etc..

Also, I'd hate to get into doing lists like this then get to a category where I can't find then things and have to make a top 4 things...if that makes sense. And I'm not sure what you mean by the top level top ten page, followed by the 2nd level top ten lists....what would be reason for having  a top level top ten list before the actually list? Sorry if I'm not understanding.

Also I"m not sure if I'm understanding correctly, but are you suggesting I make a new post for every toy? So one top ten list would have ten posts that go with it?

Love to hear ideas from other folks as well.

[crackingmedia]

Hi Noah's Dad

Yes, it can be quite a challenge organising content when you have lots of it. In these cases, I think it is best to try to take a step back and think through the pathway a user would want to follow if they were coming to your site. By doing that it will give you a better idea of how to structure that content so the user's experience is as straightforward and hopefully as intuitive as possible.

I would be inclined to create a structure around your Top Tens, so that becomes your top level menu with its own home page so to speak within that category. Then, branching off of that starting point you can have your top ten sub-categories, i.e.

• Top Ten Christmas Gift Ideas
• Top Ten Birthday Gift Ideas
• Top Ten Learning Toys
• Top Ten Toys Under
• Top Ten Developmental Toys
• Top Ten Fisher Price Toys
• etc

Then you could drill down to the age brackets, but I would avoid going any lower than a third-level. If you can, I would avoid the third-level, but I understand it may be needed.

What you need to be careful of from an SEO perspective is to not have big blocks of duplicate content across the site for each of the toys. You don't really want to repeat the same paragraphs for a toy that appears in more than one sub-category..

My suggestion to resolve that therefore is for the top ten pages to be compilations or lists of the top ten toys in that sub-category. To do that you would write a little bit of summary text on a toy, enough to give the user a taster with a thumbnail image, but then with a read more through to an individual page for that toy where you can include the full information and link(s) to where they can view and/or buy the product online.

By having individual toy pages it means you can include a single toy page in any list you choose to create. Probably on the toy page itself you need to include a list of "top ten fors...". What I mean is on the individual toy page it could say something like "Noah's Dad rates this toy in the top ten for..." and then what you rate it top ten for, e.g. one-year old, learning etc.

It is complicated and which ever way you cut it up, it's not going to suit everyone, but hopefully the above will give you some ideas.

All the best to you,
Peter