Web tradition demands that every personal site have a bare minimum of three pages: the About, Blog, and Home page.
Some people have added to that list with Now, Projects, and Work pages.
I think you should try to squash all of them into one home page, or provide at least a teaser of each of those parts. Even if it’s just to save visitors an extra click while getting to know you. Justin’s site does this really well, as does .
History
Where you come from, where you’ve been along the way. Work history, personality history, mission/purpose history.
You may use history as a way to display your credentials. Or artifacts of your skills. Same thing, really. Just don’t be as cringe as the guy listing patent numbers for ideas that only he was lame enough to demand IP protection for.
Now
Everything that you’re doing now (or in the last few weeks) that you think is worth sharing. It’s also useful to mention your plans/ideas for the near future, if it’s something that would benefit from having interested people see it.
Projects, practice, location (geographic/cyberspace), music, reading, groups, struggles, triumphs, most-used reaction meme, relationship status, movies, classes, etc, etc.
What you’re looking for
Some of us must resort to sales pitches right on the front page of our otherwise pristine sites. A modern capitalist tragedy. But even if you don’t need actual dollars sent to your bank account, you should probably be letting people know if there’s something they can help you with.
Maybe you have a dating doc or resumse or portfolio on some other part of your site. Link to it! Don’t make people click through three pages to learn of the existence of information that might change your life for the better.
Site
How should users navigate? What parts of the site do you recommend they look at if they’re X kind of person, or just looking for Y? Let your home page have pointers if you need them, not just navigation.
What features should they know about? Does it have search? Is there an RSS feed? Can they sign up for a newsletter? Is there a secret site-wide scratchpad that they can access? Can they sign your guestbook?
What plans do you have for the site? A list of ideas is a public good, make it easier to steal. Let people know what your intentions are with this site; so they can decide to check back in soon, or sign up to notifications, or to close the tab and never come back. Is there a part of the site you’re working on now?
If you’re the kind of person to archive previous versions of your site, link to them so old visitors can still visit the site that they were expecting to see.