Conventional Wisdom states you should use Sub-Directories to organize your web Pages. Unfortunately the Page Indexing Tools Penalize your Page Rankings when you Do this, Many of the Page Ranking Algorithms in use today deem that pages closed to your Root are of a Higher Value then pages that are further away from your root. If you have 2 Web Pages with the Exact same content (web1.html and web2.html) http://yourdomain.com/web1.html and http://yourdomain.com/articles/training/web2.html

All things being equal Web1 will have a higher ranking then Web2.html because Web1.html it is in the Root Directory.

As a Web Designer or a Home Based Business owner wearing a Web Designer Hat it seems you have 2 Choices, do what seems right and in many ways best and use a Pretty Directory Structure and Loose Ranking points or Throw out the Directory Structure and Gain Ranking Points. Many People Choose the Directory structure either because they don't know about the page Ranking Algorithms or they feel a strong need to be organized and are willing to sacrifice ranking points.

There is a 3rd Choice. You can use what we shall call a Pseudo Directory. A Pseudo Directory is a simple tool that you can use that will not only keep you organized but has the added bonus if used properly can actually increase your ranking points because you will have file names that are extremely optimized for the Page Ranking Bots.

A quick lesson on File Naming if you have 3 Web Pages with identical content and they are named page1.html,bathroom.html and Home-Repair-Bathroom.html which file do you think will have the Lowest ranking and The Highest Ranking for the phrase "Bathroom repair". Page1.html will be lowest ranked and Home-Repair-Bathroom.html will be the highest rank.

The Pseudo Directory takes advantage of this page naming structure to allow you to organize your Web Pages and still maximize your page ranking.

So you have a Web Page that is Promoting products and Services to Homeowners and Would be Homeowners. You want to build some content rich web pages using articles that you find and Reprint. Using the Conventional Method you would have a Directory Structure that looks like

root/articles/Home-Loan/file.html,
root/articles/Home-Repair/file.html and
root/articles/Home-Selling/file.html etc.

With the Pseudo Directory method you keep all your files in the root Directory you just name them using the Optimal naming rules. An Article on Roof Repair would be named home-repair-roof.html not roof.html. Similarly an article on Kitchen Repair would be named Home-Repair-Kitchens.html and on Bathroom repair would be named Home-Repair-Bathrooms.html

This next step is optional but it does have a few advantages and will help increase your page rank even more. Create a Table of Contents or Site Map for each Pseudo Directory. So continuing with the above example create a File called Home-Repair-Contents.html and list all the files that start Home-Repair.

Next (If you have more then 3 or 4 sub topics) Create a Page called Home-Contents.html where you have links to Home-Repair-contents.html and Home-Loan-contents.html and Home-Selling-contents.html ...