If you’re keeping up with the Internet Jones,’ old news is only 15 minutes old. That makes things difficult for publishers of quality content—because no matter how genius your writers may be, it is likely that their heads may catch on fire if asked to produce that quickly.  Luckily, they don’t have to.

It is true that your website content should be updated as frequently as possible—but what exactly does that mean?

We aren’t talking about design here (that’s another topic with a timeline). We are talking simply about content: do what is realistic.

It depends on the size and type of website AND your resources.  If the point is audience engagement, remember that publishing shoddy content frequently can do more harm than publishing quality content less frequently. So:

• Assess your resources.
  • How many staff/contractors do you have devoted exclusively to content development?
  • How often can they contribute?
  • Do you have an efficient web Content Management System in place to manage workflow to easily generate, edit and post content in multiple formats?
• Come up with a plan.
  • Determine what is realistic for refreshing content on a weekly and monthly scale.
  • Use a workflow system to delegate tasks to the appropriate writers, based on expertise, topics and availability.
  • Integrate social networking into the plan to get the most interactive mileage from your content.
  • Include regular monitoring (at least every 3 months) of existing content to ensure that it is up-to-date.
    • This includes testing embedded links to make sure they are still active.

Remember these three general rules:

1) Adding a new page each day or even each week is ideal—once a month is the bare minimum.

2) Consistency is key. Stick to your plan and your audience will stick to you.

3) Relevancy keeps them engaged.

If you focus on what you can do, you may look up one day and read something on the Internet, that you already covered—fifteen minutes ago.