The Theory

When ONE/Northwest set up your site, we tried to decide how the broadest goals each page was trying to achieve corresponded to the content it would show in little boxes in the right column of each page.

So when you set the page goal in the "page settings" of a Pigeonhole page you're basically determining what supporting content will accompany that page.

The premise here is that when people first arrive at your site, they might not understand who you are, and how seriously to take you.  So at that point, you are trying to build credibility with them.  (The simplest way we try to go about that is by showing "quotes" or testimonials where you let other people tell your story for you.)

Our rough assumption is that as a user dives deeper and deeper into your site, the need changes from building trust to helping them find the disparate content that is spread across your site.

In intermediate pages, we're hoping to engage them.  Usually that's by showing quizzes that pique their interest, or upcoming events that are compelling to them. You want to draw the user further into the site and encourge them to explore.

Portlets

In Plone, the little boxes that show up in the right and left columns are known as "portlets".  There are a lot of possible portlets; here is a summary of the ones that are available in a Pigeonhole site.