How important is "fresh" content on site with 98% new visitors?

Because you can turn those visitors into repeat. Maybe not daily, but weekly. People come back if they find the topic relevant and your info to be informative.

It will drop % wise when you add new content regularly. Especially if you can email them or RSS update them.

Unfortunately I have nothing new to show them, except more free content from the same companies I'm allready sending them too. And I DON'T want them coming to me for content updates and videos. I'd much rather them return to the sponsor for the next few days and catch updates their. I don't make money off them being on my site, so I've always been of the mind to get them to the sponsor, and let them dazzle them with updates etc.

I have some sites ive been testing on and with the high first time visitor traffic (SE) I'm noticing less sales on sites that are fresh and give them a reason to stay on my site, as opposed to the sponsors. I suppose because they have a reason to click around my site, instead of the paysites.

With similar traffic numbers, and identicle sources, its paying about 30% MORE to not give them stuff to watch or look at. But also they are differant niches so that number is not so convincing to myself.

But I suppose lots of what I see could be chalked up to marketing method, since my main objective is always to get them to the sponsor asap, I guess it would only make sence that on those sites I do better. (I know the approach/principles/theory much more)

Oh and just to get this out there before someone says it.

NO regular updated content is NOT needed to help search engine ranks. Its always about consistancy, not always about new. Being unique is standard, but having it constantly changing and updating is not a requirement. In fact with a historically ranked website that has static content, you stand more to lose with content updates then you have to win. (if your ranked, and your top, why change anything exept how much you make off the clicks)

It really depends on what you're offering I guess. I try to find new information all of the time - however I have a few medical sites and one of them hasn't been updated since 2005 and there's not much I can update. It's a PPC only site anyway, so new content means little.

Depends on the situation - that's my final answer. ;)

heh, I certainly don't disagree with anything you've said, just trying to spark some conversation about this.