Content Strategy - Do "news" sections provide real value to users?

[Sherisa]

Twice this week I have been presented with the question of how to
optimize the "news" content produced by a content writing service on
behalf of a client. In both cases, the content has been generated
without a strategy and with an assumption that there is value from
simply having more cached pages in Google with targeted keywords
included. (I know. I know.) In both cases the client sites have blogs
with relevant quality content produced in house and the "industry
news" content being produced by the service creates a daily article
using targeted keywords that link to targeted urls on the site.

The clients seem to have an expectation that this content should
really be working for them. But, upon close review there are several
pitfalls.

- The supposed "news" content has no author and no social integration
- The content is flat and doesn't provide much value to a user
- The same keywords are being used repeatedly
- The bounce rate is insane
- They are not utilizing an editorial calendar

I'm frankly befuddled by this approach and want to help the clients
get more value from their investment in the content service. My
conclusion is that abandoning the "news" section and working to
develop a content strategy to provide more value through the blog,
whitepapers, newsletters etc would produce better results.

Does anyone have a compelling argument for why this "news" tactic is
or could be a valid one? Thoughts and examples much appreciated!

Sherisa Aguirre
SEO Content Strategist
Rimm Kaufman Group

[Rick Yagodich]

Sherisa,

I think the compelling argument is the one that you have given: an
insane bounce rate and no value (clear or otherwise) being given to the
end customer. The only values of a strategy like this is to sully the
company's name with their client base, to hurt their search ranking as a
result of factory-churned content, and to make the news organisation
easy money (they are probably pumping the same news to the competitor -
try some exact sentence searches).

Rick