Lots of sites have a very simple homepage design.  Google is a perfect example of this.  However, I have found that loading up the homepage with information has increased sales, pageviews, visitor time-on-site, and linkbuild rate.  (Rand and Matt's new design for seomoz.org - shown at right - also puts a lot of info up front).

For a long time I worried that changing my homepages would put my rankings at risk but learned that I was wrong as long as I maintain basic SEO.  Here are a few ways that I have used my homepages that have yielded good results. 

RETAIL SITE:
  - announce new items
  - suggest holiday gifts
  - suggest in-season items
  - show off hot selling items or historic best sellers
  - link to product category pages by manufacturer and product type

INFO SITE:
   - show off new articles and resources
   - point to newsy posts in my blog
   - link to my most popular pages
   - link to category pages by topic, geographic area, format
   - promote pages that I hope will attract natural links
   - inspire return visits by having new stuff above the fold every week

My homepage goal for both retail and info is to give the impression... "This site has everything!"  I believe that this encourages visitors to go inside and snoop around.  It also should promote bookmarking and linking.

How do you manage your homepage?  Do you have ideas or a philosophy of homepage content that you can share for discussion here?  What other items are worthy of homepage real estate?

We would love to hear your comments and ideas.  Thanks!