Internal links structure for different sections of my Site

Is there a better way to do this?

[johnafrid]

I am in the process of my site redesign and I needed some guidance here. So, here is my Question...

I have a site that deals in 4 completely different businesses. They could be 4 different websites. But, I have put them together because its much easier/cheaper to run them together than to seperate them.

They are Blue Widgets, Red Widgets, Green Widgets and White Widgets.

At the moment, I have the main index page and then I have a directory for each business. Each business has its own index page and all related links. Once you are in Blue Widgets, then you cannot get into Green widgets. When you click on home link of Blue widgets page, it will take you to the index page of Blue widgets. Same is the case with other businesses/categories/sections as well.

What would be the best way to inter link these four different sections of my business. Is it a good idea to link to the home page of each business somewhere on the top/bottom/somewhere of every page of the site. That way, we will have at least four links to those four categories on every page of the entire website.

Is it a good idea to have this kind of site structure or is there are any better way to present this to my site visitors as well as search engines?

[bill]

In a single site like this I think you're on the right track for internal linking. Keeping your business areas separate is fine, but having the links from the individual areas' home pages is a very natural way to structure the site the way you've described things.

I look at it like a product list. As you drill down into each product line's data you want to focus on that specific product and not dilute the page with unrelated links. However, as you get higher up in the site structure I think you can get more general with the links.