So you have this great new site design filled with information. You have pages and pages of content and all sorts of special navigation systems installed down the left hand side. But what do you put on your homepage?

Filling your homepage can be very tricky as there is nothing special to go there. Most pages have a reason they were created. They contain information, articles, pictures, etc. However the homepage is just there because you have to have a homepage.

So what should your homepage contain? Well the homepage is the first screen that users see when they visit your website. It needs to grab user's attention and say "Hey, look what I have on my site!"

A common section for a homepage is a news section. This lets your returning visitors see what's new on the site. If you include a news section you should update it whenever you update your website.

You can also put some of your content on your homepage. Depending on what your site offers you might want to put the first part of the latest article or the latest story from whatever you publish there.

Layout wise, you are probably best keeping each second separate using 2 or 3 columns such as are used on portals like MSN (http://www.msn.com) and M World (http://www.mworld.us).

Your homepage should tell you user what is inside your site, just like the cover of a magazine, however your homepage can be interactive and contain more information like full news stories and articles.