Every Page Is Now A Homepage

I wrote recently about the changed role of the homepage: Traditionally people think of the homepage as the ‘entrance’ to the website, whereas it’s now more like a central atrium / hallway. Just as that has changed, the old role of the homepage has been picked up across the rest of the website…

• Visitors will enter pages very deep within your site via search results
• Social networking, blogs and email referal means visitors may enter your site via a recommendation & land straight into a subsections & deep pages
• Bookmarking means your repeat visits may not start on the homepage
• If you’ve built large content areas on your site, these subsections may have their own ‘homepage’. If visitors are only interested in those subsections, they may never need visit your main ‘homepage’

What Does This Mean For Your Website?

• If your homepage has ‘context’ information on it to orient new visitors, it may be worth including context elements in other pages
• If your core content can only be accessed via the homepage, you may want to change your navigation so that it can be reached from anywhere
• If a visitor first enters your site via a ‘deep’ page, you may want to try dynamically including a ‘welcome’ message to see whether it improves results
• Keep an eye on your analytics to monitor the top entry pages to your site; add elements to those to welcome users into the site & make sure they’re fully orientated