Look Here, Do This
While your home page may not be from where most of your traffic comes it’s still important to direct users to the content that they want as efficiently as possible. After all, your web site has a purpose, and regardless of whether that purpose is to propagate information, encourage people to sign up for your newsletter, or to sell widgets, the content on your site can help to focus people’s attention toward solving their goals (and yours).
A great example of focused attention is the home page for SimpleTest, a PHP unit testing framework (tool for web application developers):
It’s easy to tell what you can do with this site by scanning down the large graphics on the left hand side of the page. You can download the code, get started writing tests (although maybe this should have been called “Tutorial” or “Documentation”), get support, or contribute to the project.
The upper right of the site even contains a callout summary about the latest version and what is important about it:
By offering these highlights, you’re giving your visitors options even if your site serves different audiences simultaneously.
