Link structure and internal linking for rankings?

#1

This is the setup and my thoughts. Let me know how I'm doing and your thoughts on the matter. We have hundreds of product pages and there is a top 10 list of products which rotates depending on demand. The current link structure is...

Index > Brand > Product

Top ten products structure.

Index > product

The top ten products are also listed in a drop down menu on my main nav. We have a blog where we do write news and reviews about the product which point to the product pages.
Is this the most effective way to use internal linking to help the product page rankings?
We are also thinking about putting news snippets take from the blog posts directly on the product page linking back to the blog.

#2

how many pages/products?

What's your sitemap structure like / if any at all?

#4

Take a look at zappos urls and link architecture.

#5

@Rongi brings up a execlent point when it comes to SEO.

It may sound super beat up, but grindstone once said it

SEO is not hard. Google ranks sites #1. Analyze them. Lots of them. Find
commonalities. Exploit. Rinse and repeat. Don't be lazy and stupid.

It may seem really tough, but I have succesfully done it in many niches.

The thing is by copying you wont get to number 1. That's where you need some Blue Hat Tactics but you will get to top 10.

What's crazy is if you do enough niches, what works to get you top 10 in one niche, might be enough to move you to top 5 in another, etc.