Need Some Help: Using Sub Directories/Long File Names In Site Redesign

I have a couple of newbie questions that I hope you guys can help me with. I'm redesigning my site and wondering if using sub directories and longer, descriptive .html file names will aid in SEO, as compared to what I'm using now.

Some background info.. It's a small site, 5-10 pages, it's been up for 15 + years, sorely outdated. Current structure has all html files in the root directory with very short names (3 characters, i.e. xyz.html).

I'd like some feedback as to whether getting more descriptive (using subfolders and more specific file names) will help or hurt. Pros or cons to either method. And will abandoning or redirecting the old short urls hurt me? (Not sure if their longevity has any positive impact). There wouldn't be more than 2 levels of subfolders and only 1 or 2 files in the final directories. Assume I'm only selling 5 or 6 tools at a hardware store....

Old example: myhardwarestore.com/abc.html

New example: myhardwarestore.com/hammers/steel_framing_hammer.html

Thank you in advance for any input!

I use descriptive file names and folder names on all of my sites. My goal is to have the file name and folder name tell exactly what the content is about - and include the most important keywords.

File names can be read by search engines. People see file names in the search result URLs.

If I was rebuilding a site I would use keyword-rich, clearly-descriptive file names without making them unreasonably long.

You said that you have a few old URLs. I would do a 301 redirect of those pages to a new page on the site that has equivalent content.

What EGOL said but 5-10 pages, I'd probably leave all the files in the root directory. If you had hundreds of product that needed categorized, I'd probably use sub folders.

As far as I'm concerned, the best SEO page name is a file in the root directory. We host large Ecommerce stores with thousands of categories and some of them are doing some 301 redirects to make every product URL appear in the root directory, even though technically they're in categories ...

Yes I'd be interested to know the answer to this. Do search engines take any notice of directory and/or filenames.

I have a site http://www.santas-christmas-letters.com

we have an order page for example - currently order.php
with a url www.santas-christmas-letters.com/order.php

would there be any benefit in creating new directories and changing the filename to something like
www.santas-christmas-letters.com/christmas/santa/letters/order-xmas-letter.php

( a little over the top but you get the idea )
??

As far as I'm concerned, santas-christmas-letters.com/order.php is best.

You wouldn't need a subdirectory for such a small site, but you might gain if you made your filenames more descriptive and specific.

personalised-letter-from-santa-sample.htm

instead of "example.htm".

Best is ofcourse to get more content so you could use a subdirectory such as:

site.com/samples/personalised-letter-from-santa.htm
site.com/samples/letter-from-father-christmas.htm
site.com/samples/letter-from-santa-claus.htm
site.com/samples/index.htm

Make sure the subdirectory itself also returns content, in this case an introduction and a gallery of samples linking to the specific example letters.

Thanks for all the input so far. EGOL, sounds like we're on the same page.

-Webwest, leaving all the files in the root would be much easier and that's the way it is now. But with such a small site, easy vs. difficult isn't a big deal. My intent isn't organization, it's strictly SEO related.

-Jesus, (never thought I'd be talking to Jesus via the web ) I don't really plan on putting anything other than a blank index.html file in each root directory, and the descriptive.html file. I won't have the kind of content that will warrant multiple pages in each sub-folder.