Fresh content has been the rallying cry of SEO consultants since the earliest days of search engine optimization. It was important then and fresh content is still important today, maybe even more so. If you had any doubts about this tactic in the past then it’s time to put some of those doubts to rest. Fresh content published on a regular basis can be very important. However, the latest technology being adapted by search engines is making its value significantly higher.

In the past, fresh content was promoted because it:

• encouraged visitors to return on a regular basis,
• provided more opportunities for inbound links,
• encouraged the search engines to crawl your site more regularly, and
• provided more diverse content and covered a wider range of keywords.

Now we can add a few more reasons to that list. In particular, real time search.

Search engines are now providing results that include the very latest pages to hit the web. By regularly publishing content you increase the possibility of that content being listed in search results today – not next week or next month.

To this you can add real time channels. Google has been showing Tweets since the Mayday update. These results  display the latest Tweets related to the search term. If you Tweet your content, it will show up in these search results.

Bing is not far behind when it comes to publishing real time results including those from Twitter and the newly inked deal with Facebook (more on that in another post) . With this in mind, publishing regular new content could result in an increase in exposure through the search engines with an increase in visitors.

However, don’t just publish any content. It needs to be content that readers are going to want to read and content that adds value to your site. Content development has always been important and it is becoming more important all the time.