As a kid playing tag, you always had the safety of "base" to rely upon. If you could get to base, you could re-think your evasion strategy, take a breather or simply taunt whoever was "it." Ultimately, however, it gave you some degree of comfort and was always there for you. You could restart from base.
Site operators and marketers are now realizing that the homepage is not always a user's entry point, nor will it always be the optimal converting point of a user's path. Targeted, optimized landing pages are a must-have component of effective advertising, and the homepage is rarely the focus of successful search engine optimization. However, for many users, the homepage is still "base" for them. They can regain their navigational footing or mark it as a place to return to once they've become a customer.
There still are a few other traditional forms of "base," such as site search, a site map and consistent global navigation. These are the few cardinal directions that a user may rely on as a means of navigating any unfamiliar site. These tools are becoming increasingly important now that users are entering from other areas deep within the site, particularly as it relates to users coming from search results pages.
With search engines continually improving and providing deeper, more relevant results, clearly the issue of users quickly finding exactly what they want poses an interesting challenge for marketers. Ultimately, marketers want to propel users into a path that ends with buying something, subscribing to something or receiving ads. Traditionally they have fabricated their desired users' paths from the homepage. But now they have to re-think that practice as potential customers are coming from anywhere.
Where they come from tells you a lot about who they are
Conversion funnels can begin from nearly anywhere on a site, though it is important that marketers focus on a logistically realistic few -- or few categories -- if they want to optimize for desired results. For example, product detail pages are often critical entry points from search results. Those who've entered your site as a result of searching on a specific term (thereby communicating purchase intent) are highly lucrative users, and these pages should be considered "a new homepage" and given critical design attention for product- or sales-driven sites.
Alternatively, landing pages for advertising present a different situation, where a marketer may feel more in control of the experience. Minimizing choices for the user -- even those cardinal navigations as mentioned before -- typically help optimize the path toward a desired result. These circumstances often reduce the dependence on the homepage as part of the experience and actually reinforce that personalization as a useful way to optimize.
Personalization, while maintaining global consistency, is imperative for today's websites. Savvy marketers and merchandisers are now putting more effort into personalizing the homepage based on what they know about the user, which can often be as little as knowing that they typed in the domain. However, every little bit, or every visit, provides more information about the user. By maintaining flexible design and promotional space, marketers can deliver targeted, personalized information regardless of the user's entry point on the first or any subsequent visit.
Ultimately, as acquisition tactics continue to diversify, and as the web consumer becomes savvier, discriminating -- or perhaps those simply overburdened by options -- homepages will no longer be the starting points they once were.
For some users, homepages will simply become the familiar "base" or hub. Whereas, for others who are on a dedicated path to conversion, homepages may serve as a future resource where marketers will make more personal offers based on their growing knowledge of that user.