Should digital marketing agencies treat SEO differently when it comes to homepage content?

[randomagency]

When I review competitor digital agency sites, they seem to have very little homepage content. But how would this be beneficial in gaining a higher SERP rank?

[McTaggart]

I can't see it's a sensible strategy, really... style over [SEO] substance, perhaps. Some larger brands have told me they understand there's an issue with their lack of words (on homepages and elsewhere), yet argue their pages can "take it" due to strong backlink profiles, etc. - and that the design impact matters more than words - I spend much of my life arguing for more words (or at least some!).

This is useful re: how many words/page: http://www.hobo-web.co.uk/how-much-page-text/

[Ray-pp]

It's not - the agencies most likely rely on brand appearance and driving traffic through other means (blog content, ppc traffic) for conversions.

Digital marketing agencies compete in a tough organic niche. It's a growing business niche and has very low barrier to entry. Therefore, websites need to find other ways to compete rather than targeting the broadest terms and ranking their home page organically for them. Sometimes, leaving information out and having a luxurious or successful appearance is enough to convert traffic.

[MibuKotaro]

I agree with both posters before me. I find many times digital agencies use their homepage to grab attention, and to build a strong sense of branding, but typically build strong internal pages loaded with content to help drive organic search results.