Fresh Content Strategy - What does it look like?

[AmyLB]

I understand the growing importance fo content freshness, but I have some questions about how to incorporate content freshness components into an existing SEO strategy:

Here are some specific questions I would love some help with:

If I have a specific "product or services" page that is properly optimized, and getting a decent amount of traffic, would I benefit from updating/modifying the content on a routine basis to improve rankings?

In general, should I be considering an occasional re-fresh of content on my site even if I don;t necessarily have anything new to say?

For my homepage, if I am pulling in headlines from various news and events sections within my own site, and those sections are updated pretty frequently, is my homepage going to be viewed as fresh when the site gets re-crawled? In other words, is updating my homepage via rss feeds that pull from content areas from within my site keeping my homepage "fresh"?

Thanks!

[UnderRugSwept]

I'd say to stick with the standard rule here of designing for users first and foremost. If it doesn't make sense to update content, don't just do it for the search engine's sake. Or at least try to rack your brain for some type of content that is severely lacking from your site that it truly needs.

As mentioned in a recent SEOmoz blog post, the best way to keep your homepage fresh to the search engines (other than adding new content to it) is to link to it from fresh, new pages, such as blog posts.

[AlanBleiweiss]

I generally agree with Marisa.  User experience is vital and top priority for successful sustainable SEO.  I would add though, that having your home page be a point of display for regularly updated content elsewhere on the site is a good strategy, as long as it's not the only content on the home page (or unless you only run a news site or blog, and have no other primary product or service content).  While routinely getting new inbound links is vital, that by itself does not say your site has fresh content. it only says "this site continues to remain relevant from an off-site perspective".