Have you heard of evergreen content and wondered how it could benefit your content marketing plan? In essence, it’s content that remains significant over time, doesn’t have an expiration date, and can still attract traffic long after its initial release. We have outlined the most suitable content formats for this strategy and how you can adopt it for your company.
Evergreen Content
Content that remains perpetually relevant and maintains its freshness for readers for a prolonged period of time is called evergreen content, which is optimized for search engines.
You might assume that every online material can last; once posted, a blog post doesn’t just vanish. However, evergreen materials are distinct, as they remain pertinent even after their publication date, resulting in an increase in search traffic over time.
Common Evergreen Formats
Consider creating some of these popular evergreen formats:
- Listicles
- Tips
- How-to content
- Product Reviews
- (Some) videos
Your content being in these formats doesn’t guarantee it to be evergreen, but these formats typically suit evergreen writing more than others. Informative instructional videos such as tire changing guide have more enduring value compared to less practical videos.
Evergreen content examples can be found below.
The following are a few concrete instances of evergreen articles that would be deemed suitable for diverse sectors:
- The Essential Guide to Social Media Marketing – this can be narrow in scope and extremely valuable for someone who is new to developing and implementing campaigns on social media.
- How to Care for a New Puppy– Animals and the internet are a pretty strong combination but pieces like this are fun and instructional for new pet owners.
- 10 Ways to Enjoy Hot Chocolate – Coming into the colder months, a blog like this can provide a lift in traffic. Twists on old classics can be a great starting point for an evergreen article.
Naturally, your business may not find all or some of these subjects applicable. It is vital to produce content that caters to the needs of your specific audience. The challenge when creating evergreen content lies in the fact that the leading industry topics have presumably been tackled numerous times.
To enhance your content’s value and increase its chances of ranking higher in search engine results, consider incorporating your own distinctive perspective on the subject or exploring long-tail keywords with reasonable traffic but less competition.
Tips for Writing and Researching Evergreen Content
After familiarizing yourself with the true definition and various effective formats of evergreen content, use these pointers for creating it:
1. Make a list of topics
Consider the topics that are pertinent to your business and their potential to benefit your audience. For instance, as an insurance firm, your selection of topics might incorporate these:
- Certificate of insurance
- Liability coverage
- Deductibles
2. Use a keyword tool
Even though the topics hold significance, they do not constitute the content. The evergreen content can be found by using relevant keywords. To determine which keywords suit your needs, you may employ a keyword tool like Google Trends or Moz. Your objective should be to identify terms that:
Possess substantial search volume. This refers to the frequency of searches conducted for a specific keyword during a given time frame. In cases where a term lacks significant search volume, it becomes unlikely for audiences to stumble upon it. However, it is important to note that keywords with high search volume are likely to have more competition. Therefore, the ideal keywords should possess both high search volume and low competition.
Perform well in trends. When a keyword reaches its highest point and then declines, it indicates that it is not appropriate for long-lasting content. Keywords that maintain popularity over time, either by consistent performance or increasing trends, are more ideal.
Maintain a consistent search intent by identifying search intent (the motive behind a search) that remains unchanged over a period of time. For instance, a person could have previously searched for “best face mask” to discover a beauty product before 2020.
It is probable that within the last year, people were in search of masks to use outdoors due to the pandemic, which caused a need for them. Consequently, the search intent for that specific keyword is not steady. Adhering to the mentioned guidelines will aid in developing appropriate keywords. In the provided insurance company scenario, the keyword outcomes might resemble this:
- Certificate of insurance
- “What is a certificate of insurance?”
- “How to get a certificate of insurance”
- Liability coverage
- “What is liability coverage?”
- “How much liability insurance do I need?”
- Deductible
- “Deductible vs. copay”
- “Deductible vs. coinsurance”
It is important to select the appropriate keywords. As we have mentioned earlier, longtail keywords may prove to be more effective. It is pointless to have an enduring evergreen content if individuals are not searching for that particular subject matter. Therefore, it is essential to carry out thorough keyword research.
Ensure SEO optimization. After selecting your keywords (one per content), remember to apply on-page optimization best practices for SEO. Incorporate alt text to your images and include the keyword in the URL, title, and body text, but avoid excessive keyword usage. Additionally, interlink related evergreen articles for enhanced SEO rankings.
When writing, consider beginners: Even if you have a lot of knowledge on a subject, make sure to gear your content towards a beginner level. Keep in mind that experts won’t be looking for general information, and aim to produce content that will appeal to a broad and long-lasting audience.
To prevent confusion among beginners, it is advisable to minimize the use of highly technical terms or language.
Discover Alternative Formats for Your Content: After crafting a brilliant piece of content, you can explore different ways to revamp it and recycle your splendid concepts into diverse formats. Check out some helpful suggestions for content editors on-the-go.
Evergreen content importance
Evergreen content is an invaluable resource that continues to yield results over time. Ahrefs, a search engine optimization firm, attributes the growth of its blog from 15,000 visitors monthly to roughly 200,000 to evergreen content. Evergreen content holds significance since it can assist in accomplishing the following objectives:
By using appropriate keywords and creating evergreen content that stands the test of time, you can increase your ranking on search engines. Typically, these types of content are lengthy and of excellent quality, which can help you secure a top position on search results pages.
If you want to boost the number of visitors to your website, consider creating evergreen content, which has the potential to achieve high rankings on search engines and attract a steady stream of traffic over time.
Develop your backlinks. Evergreen content remains relevant for an extended period, enabling it to generate backlinks, which occurs when other websites link to yours, continuously. Backlinks enhance your website’s credibility, thus increasing your search engine ranking.
Whether you create these pieces in-house or hire a freelancer, evergreen articles have the potential to offer great value to both your audience and your business for years to come. Position your company as a thought leader by choosing subjects that are relevant to your field, and ranking highly for these keywords on search pages will inspire confidence in your brand’s expertise. In addition to increasing your website traffic, this timeless content gives you more opportunities to attract and engage potential clients. The benefit of evergreen content is that it can be frequently promoted on your social media channels, saving you time and effort in creating new content. Investing in evergreen content can mean doing less work for maximum output in the long run.
The main point to remember is that creating evergreen content can lead to numerous advantages, such as attracting visitors to your website and establishing yourself as an expert in your field.
Don’t bury evergreen content on your blog
After creating evergreen content, avoid burying it on your blog. Merely publishing it and forgetting about it will not yield desired outcomes. To make the most of it, you must promote your high-quality evergreen content and make it easily visible and accessible to visitors. You can do this in several ways.
- Build training guide pages on your website that are targeted to beginners in the industry and help your audience quickly and easily point to your how-to and terminology content.
- Highlight your evergreen blog posts in the sidebar of your blog or in a banner on your homepage.
- Re-run top evergreen posts on your blog periodically (with updates, as applicable) to showcase your work to the largest audience.
- Create a “start here” page on your website that helps people with the basics and features tutorial content.
- Build a social media campaign around your content, across all of your networks.
What matters is not which call-out method(s) you choose, but that you emphasize the content and provide it with the best opportunity to succeed.
Update evergreen content regularly
Apart from emphasizing your content, it is also important to keep it current. Even though evergreen content requires minimal updates, you need to add new hyperlinks to latest articles, findings and other developments.
Furthermore, SEO rankings can improve through the updating of content and modification of its publication date. Numerous credible sources, including Neil Patel, have confirmed that updating evergreen content can greatly enhance SEO rankings. After the content has been updated, it should be promoted as if it were a new release.
Use the Ahrefs positions tracker to determine if your content has experienced a decline in search rankings over a period and needs to be refreshed. By using this tool, you can review the weekly digest email to identify which of your pages require additional effort if you aspire to improve the discoverability of your content.
It is important to keep in mind that there is constantly fresh material being produced, and a portion of it will be vying for the same search terms as your own. To remain ahead, it is necessary to regularly update and enrich your content.
When you’re updating content, keep the following elements in mind:
- Usefulness (Can users take action immediately?)
- Clarity (Is there any confusing terminology? Does the piece flow logically?)
- Tone (Is your writing friendly, approachable, and full of expert advice?)
- Shareability (Can readers easily share the content on social media via sharing apps or otherwise?)
1. Correct any outdated information
Although evergreen content typically remains relevant over time, there are instances where modifications may be necessary due to changing circumstances.
Suppose you have posted an article on using Twitter a couple of years ago, it could be obsolete as the social media platform has undergone changes such as the expansion of the character count in tweets. Even if the fundamental theories and basics mentioned in the article remain valid, it’s necessary to ensure that the specifics and statistics are current.
2. Add new text
Take another look at your work and reflect on any perspectives you may have overlooked initially. This could include input from professionals or a complete section that was excluded. As an illustration, in your article about “How to Utilize Twitter,” it could be beneficial to include a new segment that explains the process of becoming a verified user.
3. Check your links
Have you checked for any invalid URLs in your text? Have you used the most appropriate links available? Can you locate more trustworthy sources to link to? Examine all your links to ensure they remain coherent and contribute to the content.
4. Include fresh media
To revitalize your content effortlessly, consider incorporating new media. For instance, forming an infographic to condense the details of a specific segment, or integrating a podcast to elucidate the article’s main points. Additionally, you may opt to insert videos or slideshows.
5. Make it interactive if possible
Incorporating interactive features like polls and quizzes can prompt your audience to stay engaged for longer, and even potentially share your content. This will indicate to Google that the material is pertinent and deserves a higher ranking.
6. Double-check your grammar and spelling
Reading your piece aloud or in reverse order can help you catch spelling and grammar mistakes even if you were already diligent before publishing it for the first time. This technique can reveal patterns and errors that you might have overlooked.
Key takeaway: To ensure your evergreen content continues to rank highly in search engines, reevaluate it periodically for complete and up-to-date information and links, opportunities for new media and interactive elements, and spelling and grammar.
