And as the bumper sticker clearly states, “If momma ain’t happy… Ain’t nobody happy.”

I have spent the last 7 years  optimizing sites for search engines and content aggregators. Making sure that every piece of content is syndicated and notifying systems to generate non paid traffic. Over this time I have heard, and repeated, over and over that “Content is King”.  This is true, the more content you generate the more content will likely be indexed by search engines and and the more traffic you are likely to get from long-tail keyterms. This simple idea created a a tsunami of content. Write write write and post post post. Have you noticed how everything has a blog now. Every TV show has a blog and every character on the show has a blog (a hint of relevance).  For a brand new site this is not a bad strategy to get traffic moving. But then what. If you keep posting content without purpose  you will begin to see your bounce rates sky rocket. So people are stumbling on to your site through long-tail keyterms only to leave immediately. What a waste.

This is where relevance comes in.
I should really say relevance and timeliness.  Relevance in content goes beyond simply writing good copy that will explain what the majority of visitors are asking. Relevance is purposeful content plus the ability to segment that content into specific categories and extend that content into other systems. Most importantly, relevant content in this meaning is content that can be grouped so that it is relevant to the individual. WordPress and other Web 2.0 platforms have really beaten the path when it comes to making content relevant. By creating categories and automatically tag pages and automatically syndicating through RSS and automatic emailing of particular content and on and on and on. Content is sliced and diced so easily with Web 2.0 systems such as blogs and forums. However, relevance means elbow grease if you are maintaining an enterprise or a corporate website, with content that needs to change and or grow over time. OK that is pretty much common sense. What I am trying to say here is update your content while maintaining the URL and make sure that content aggregates and search engines are aware of the changes you are making.

Now add timeliness.
Timeliness for online marketing means “Today”. It means timely, relevant content for today, and if possible within the last few hours.

Here’s a scenario. You are interested in creating content for a blog or community for your company. You have prepared a few posts and while they are generally interesting they are unlikely to really spike traffic. You need a tie into current events. Some topic that the masses are currently interested in. So as an example I will take a look at Google Trends and I see the top ten items people are searching on today. Perhaps I can tie one of these items into my post. For example item #6 is “safety reliability methods” (just yesterday Chesley B. “Sully” Sullenberger III safely landed flight US Airways Flight 1549 safely in the Hudson) so it is likely that people are searching on safety and reliability information today. So here is a timely reference that can help place a timely spin on your post or even inspire a new post. Your probably thinking OK that is pretty short lived and in this case you are correct. The interest of the masses changes quickly and while this did spike traffic this week, what about next week. Well this technique is better for blogs and next week you will have a new relevant post.

The point here is that content alone will not bring qualified traffic to your site.  Sure content is King but without relevance the King will be a peasant in no time.
Writing timely unique content plus the ability to group, syndicate and notify content aggregators will establish a strong long term strategy.