You don't have to spend a fortune – quality content will often differentiate the haves and haves nots in the online world. 

That was the message from Ivan Wong, CEO of Maple Commerce, in the Innovation for Free session at the Web In Travel Ideas Lab on Friday. 

"Content is still king", said Wong, and it has a significant impact on the generation of traffic. Equally, analytics are very important to help you understand who is interacting with your website. 

"If you don't have a handle on the traffic, you won't know what is working," he said. While social networking is increasingly important, just taking part however is not enough. "Quality, relevant and timely content is very important."

Those involved in web  marketing also need to define their target markets carefully, he said. "To promote your content, you have to have the knowledge of your market. How relevant are you going to make your content to the user?"

Once you understood your audience, he said you need to have content that will appealed to "the looker, the booker and the goer." Each of these groups needed dedicated content.

The lesson from the session was that the smartest, not the biggest online players would be those that benefitted most from the online medium. 

"Even the smallest operator, by providing timely and quality content, can out-rate the big guys."