Home Page Advice

Tonight, I read the article "Home Page Goals" and it was extremely helpful!

Early today I had had a meeting with Mr. Fuentes, whom I am working with on the design for the SIP website, and we were playing around with design ideas. Before the meeting I decided to mix the home page up a bit from what I had originally intended and was glad about the decision.

After reading this article I am even more happy about it, but I still obviously have a LOT of work ahead of me.

One of the main things that I took away from it, and you should too, is that it is beneficial to design and complete the home page last out of all other elements of the site. In addition, a home page must do the following:
1) Answer the question, "What is this place?"
2) Not get in the way of repeat visitors
3) Show what is new on the site [via suggestions, links to different sections, etc.]
AND
4) Provide consistent, reliable global content