Links from my homepage

[mascotmike]

I am redesigning my homepage completely. What criteria should I use to decide which pages to link to from the homepage?

[Theo-NL]

In my opinion this should be far more focussed on what a visitors wants to see here instead of what a search robot should encounter.

Make sure your main navigation is search engine friendly (no images, flash, javascript etc) so that all your main pages are linked there. You could choose to link to some of your latest or best articles (to show your visitors that your website is up-to-date), include some testimonials (to show you're credible). Perhaps in your footer you could include some partners (keep it natural), your privacy policy and terms of use?

Try asking your usability testers what they think should be on the main page and work from there.

[EGOL]

This is a huge question and the answer depends upon the type of site that you have.  Retail sites might focus on popular products, new products, special sale products, most profitable products.

You basically want to show visitors the things that they might find most interesting but at the same time link to things that you want visitors to discover.

For best advice tell us more about your site.