Need help ranking niche directory

I want to start a niche business directory site and I'm trying to figure out the best way to rank it. I know there is tons of information on backlinks, but I'm mainly looking for info on the best layout to use. The item can be shipped so being local isn't really a concern. I want to be able to rank for the main keyword. Ranking for the keyword + state or keyword + city isn't as big of a priority. So basically I'm wondering what the best way to structure the directory would be.

Right now I'm thinking about setting it up so that the main page is a directory with a list of specific types of products(my keywords). When you click on those you get taken to another page that then has a few business included on it. So the page name would be "product" and then each of the businesses listed on the page would have a write up with unique content and the keyword used an appropriate number of times.

Does this sound like a good strategy to get ranked for a keyword and still have businesses listed in a directory style? Hopefully this makes, I'm new to SEO so I just want to make sure that the content/layout of the page gives me the best chance to rank for my keywords.

thanks

that will be almost impossible, google excluded the biggest directory , digg.com

I want to do something that's more similar to yelp than digg. Obviously it would be on a much smaller scale and not locally focused. Something kinda similar to lawyer.com. Only instead of having a bunch of different types of lawyers I would have a bunch of different products related to the niche. I would provide the businesses that sell the product when my visitor clicks that particular product category.

I'm just not exactly sure which way I should layout the site so that it still has good on page SEO and can rank well with proper backlinks.