Possible reason for internal pages ranking well, but homepage not?

[Quaren]

If a site has strong internal pages (1st - 3rd position) yet the homepage struggles to stay on page 1 (for a similar term or variation), what is the most likely explanation?

It's important to note that the keywords for both the homepage and internal pages are very similar. The only difference is the internal pages are more targeted/long tail.
"Competitiveness" of the keywords is high across the board and the same competitors are found for both homepage + internal rankings, however, the homepage target keyword has much higher search volume than the longer tail keywords that the internal pages rank for.

Why would the internal pages consistently outrank the competition yet the homepage performs extremely poorly in comparison against the same competition?

My best guesses would be either the homepage is considered spammy (content), the homepage has spammy links (but wouldn't that affect the entire site?), or perhaps achieving a high rank for the homepage target keyword is much harder than first thought (yet that wouldn't necessarily explain why the internal pages rank so well compared with the exact same competition, considering the keywords are very similar). The competition doesn't really outperform the site in question in any regard (links, content, branding). Perhaps the homepage has a soft penalty that's bringing it down? This is the only logical explanation to me but there may be something I'm missing.

I'd like to provide extra info but at the same time I want to keep this as general as possible and I'm mainly looking for anyone who has had a similar experience and solved it. Having said that, any and all help is greatly appreciated.

[aristotle]

The home page should be a general introduction, guide, and overview for the site. For a small site it could include links to individual articles and for a large site links to categories.

The individual articles should have the detailed information on the topics, so they should generally rank higher than the home page.

The home page shouldn't compete with the articles for the same or similar keywords.

It's best to get traffic for a lot of different keywords, rather than for just one or two main keywords.

[tangor]

Home page is just one of many entry points for your site.

I don't care how the user gets on site, happy from any entrance! From the point on it is MY JOB to make them click on MORE of my pages by having just what the user was looking for, interest them in other things on site, and keep them entertained, happy, and clicking.

Actually have two pages on one site that get more first visits than the home page. Research shows that both of those pages are good for AT LEAST three pages more before visitor exit. Compared to home page visits where only HALF of the visitors go on to more than one other internal page.

Take your traffic wherever it may come. Once they are on site your content, writing and presentation is what will keep them on site.

That is where the "money" is.

[chaser]

Post-filters are possible (re-optimization, spam). Therefore, the main one is ranked. You need to check and see the site.

[RedBar]

Practically, and this is for 20+ years, all my product pages outrank my home page and that is the way I designed them from the very start in the early 90s. For me the homepage is an overall, generic view of what the rest of the site is about in more detail.

I would be really concerned if a keyword1keyword2keyword3 product / link ranked on the homepage ahead of the designated product page.

Obviously the homepage needs to be "good" however it probably also varies with B2B / B2C but many people may not visit it and the reason I say this is that one large specialist UK retailer I have used over the years I very much doubt whether I have ever visited their homepage ... Maybe I did with EBay back in the 90s and possibly with Aamazon, I wonder how many ever do?

[tangor]

With serp targeting for INFORMATION over the last decade I'd be more surprised is the home page ranked higher than "money" inner pages.

I take my traffic as it comes. Then do all I can with content and internal linking to keep the visitor on site for "at least one more page"...

YMMV

[RedBar]

Of course the importance of the homepage also varies depending on the "industry". Whereas my own sites have many product pages for which I want them to rank highly when people are searching for those specific products, it is also very important for some sites to have their homepage as high as possible simply because that's how the engines like them.

I'll refer to one specific site I run, a hotel / pub with live music.

When searching for keywords hotel(s) / accommodation / town / county, it is very important to have the site rank well since the majority of people using search generally have no idea of what is available in that area let alone business names etc. One should not farm out all resonsibility to the various hotel booking sites, there are many establishments that, quite simply, do not appear on those sites therefore for such places ranking well is essential.

However when searching for live music / town / county, a dedicated well-ranked inner page does the job, the homepage cannot usually rank well for several key products unless there is very little competition for them.