Your homepage is obsolete.
It is, anyway, if it's the only one you consider a landing page.
Seth has written about this for a long time. I have too, for not quite as long. People don't enter your site through the front door every time. Increasingly, "every time" can be re-written to read: much. And soon, it'll be even less. So if you're spending all your creative juice on that front page while basically ignoring internal pages, you're not only wasting time -- you're actually doing a disservice to your site.
One of the big leaps that I find it hard for traditional creatives to grasp is the absolute truth that you cannot construct a linear web experience and expect users to follow your lead all the time. They go where they want, directed by the information they're looking for. Even gamers, first time on the game, are seeking ways to jump levels, and go where they want, when they want. The digital experience isn't a linear narrative.
On the web, it's driven by search. Your user has Googled "neon-orange gizmos" and one of the results (assuming you're paying attention to seo on internal pages) is going to be the page deep in your site where you offer your gizmos in neon-orange. They'll click that link -- blowing right past all the animation and cool video you've housed on the home page to tell them why your gizmos -- no matter what color they are -- are better. Happens all the time. And now, it's going to happen more, because Google is going to help them get to where they want to go, faster and easier, by allowing them to search within your site without ever leaving their Google search results (NYT).
What I find really funny is that a lot of people are really upset at Google over this. I pretty much always find it funny when anyone tries really, really hard to enforce control over user behavior. Herding cats.
Google has done users a favor. And if you're smart as the builder of a site, they've done you a favor, too -- although, admittedly, they have made your job harder. Nobody said being good was easy.
So, let's talk about all that cool animation and video on your home page. I'm absolutely in favor of it. It's just that you have to remember that it's not going to be the first thing people see. And that's ok. They're not there to see your video -- they're there to find out about your neon-orange gizmos. Once they confirm that you do, in fact, have neon-orange gizmos -- and once they see that your particular neon-orange gizmo might be something they'd consider -- THEN, your animations and video about why yours are better than the other guy's will help seal the deal, and may, in fact make them like you more for your wonderful sense of humor or your dedication to customer service, or to saving the natural environment of tropical neon-orange fish, or whatever. Your cool content matters. It's just not the only (nor, now, the first) thing that matters.
What matters now is that every page is a potential landing page. That doesn't mean every page should have everything. Far from it. Every page should be pertinent to its particular search parameters. But it's a landing page, too, to be sure.
The opportunity is to weave engaging content throughout your site -- and to give users access to the cool stuff you create to help make friends with them -- from anywhere on your site. From where I sit, Google's move doesn't hurt websites with entertaining content -- it increases the opportunities to present the offer of entertaining content.
The web has always been non-linear. But lots and lots and LOTS of website creators have either forgotten about that, or ignored it. Soon, it'll be impossible to ignore, and some home pages will be, basically, obsolete. You can keep that from happening by treating every page in the site as if it's the first impression you get to make on a new user. Because that's exactly what it is. Every. Single. Page.
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Advertising Marketing Creative Interactive Online Marketing Design Digital Design Blattner Brunner Ernie Mosteller BB Digital
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