There is a view current nowadays that content is not the king anymore.  However as things stand today content is much more than just being a king. It is at the crux of all online marketing (for products and services available both online and offline) as well as all online commerce.

Content acts as a bridge. Content provides shape to the abstract ideas and aspirations of customers captured through psychographics. It understands and expresses the untold hidden needs and desires of the consumers and leads them to the product or service like a true friend, philosopher or guide.

The usual structure of marketing content, the popular AIDA (an acronym for Attention, Interest, Desire and Action) structure does nothing more than tap the innate desires and wishes of ordinary people to look, feel or behave in a particular way at the subconscious level and articulate them in a customer friendly language.

Actually, content does exactly what a savvy salesman does. The only difference is that the salesman here does not have the glib tongue. Content earns your trust by talking to you like a true friend, guiding you to buy just the thing you need, comparing the feature benefits and value delivery promises of different products and services, giving you an expert’s opinion, helping you to make up your mind. Again, User Generated Content (UGC) like feedback and product reviews by customers acts as the online version of the highly reliable word of mouth.

Thus in the context of web and advertising, content and commerce are still inseparable. Whenever content fulfils the aspiration of the customer, commerce takes place.