The home page of an business site is very important, although it may not harken thoughts of the security of a traditional home’s warmth and protection.  Still, it does get its nickname of “home” for a reason.

In fact though, for most business websites, the home page is far from the most important.  That is probably the page that contains an “order now” button or a prospect lead form.  On the other hand, the home page is probably the page that will attract more first time traffic than any other page on your business site.

Assuming that you have followed a traditional link building plan, more external links will be directed to your home page than any other.  It probably also has its share of internal links from other pages on your site, if only because it typically appears on the navigation menu of every page.  Should your visitors lose their way, due either to taking a wrong turn or due to poor design by your website’s architect, they probably will return to the home page to serve as their base of operations in order to launch another quest.

That simply means that your visitors will use your home page more than it might merit, although I took a circuitous route to get to that conclusion.  While they’re there, you might as well make good use of them and their time.

That brings us to our central question, which is what are the purposes of a well constructed home page in an appropriately designed online business site?  Consider what follows to be a menu from which you may choose, ala carte:

*  Provide a corporate office atrium to set the mood for your business’ corporate climate–laid back and informal, or efficient and orderly or however else you position the company.

*  Provide directional signs to all of the locations that your most prized customers are likely to want to visit.  Of course, your navigation menu will provide this service on all of your site’s pages, but, since this is often the first visit by many of your guests, the home page is an opportunity to help them understand the road maps that you will regularly provide.

*  Subtly and efficiently communicate the mission of your business through the copy on the page, the images, a video or some combination of all channels.

*  Be explicit in explaining to your visitors what you want them to do.  Don’t make them guess!  You might want them to buy a product, sign up to receive valuable information, learn about the topic in which your business is the expert or even all of those.

*  Keep the whole place neat and tidy, making it attractive without seeming pretentious.

Those are some of the things to keep in mind for your home page, whether you already have a large, established, authority site or you hope to construct a small site for a business.