Why Your Blog Needs Evergreen Content

Want to create content that will stand the test of time? Developing digital marketing content that will continue to bring your website organic traffic for days, weeks, months and years after it has been published. Two words: Evergreen Content.

What is Evergreen Content?

Its name comes from evergreens - types of plants that retain their green leaves all year round. Evergreen content is content that never goes “out of style”. It’s the opposite of news or trending content. It revolves around topics that will always be relevant to your readers, regardless of the current news cycle or season. Or to be put simply: it's content that remains relevant, it's not time sensitive and continues to drive traffic to your blog long after it is first published.

Evergreen Topics Vs Evergreen Content

Evergreen topics are those with consistent interest and search volume over time.

Some examples of evergreen topics:

• “How to fry an egg” - Eggs are a stable part of English breakfasts and many other of the world’s favorite meals. People aren’t going to stop eating fried eggs anytime soon, which is why there’s consistent interest in learning how to fry one.
• “How to lose weight” - It doesn’t matter if it’s 2020 or 100 years from now. People will always want to lose weight.
• “Rugby scores” - Rugby games get played all the time, and rugby fans are always interested in the latest scores.

Evergreen content is content about an evergreen topic that never goes out of date. 

Here are some examples of evergreen content:

• How to fry an egg - The process doesn’t change all that much, and there’s no need to update the content about this as it will remain relevant.
• 10 ways to lose weight without dieting - The fundamentals of losing weight don’t change much. Burn more calories than you consume. That’s why content can remain evergreen even years after being published.
• Rugby scores - Now you’re expecting me to show a piece of content for “Rugby scores,” right? This is where the difference between evergreen topics and content starts to become clear, because…

There is no evergreen content about the evergreen topic of rugby scores.

If you were to write about the latest rugby scores today, it would be irrelevant in a week from now, despite ongoing interest in the topic.

Why your business should leverage evergreen content

With evergreen content, your business will get consistent traffic. People will always be searching for your content, so you will always get continuous traffic coming to your website. Search engines will notice this and rank your website higher as it will be providing the best value content on this topic. This will also help to increase the drive of prospective new customers to your leads and sales funnel. It will also be a time and energy saver. Once you post your evergreen content, it’ll remain relevant for years. Therefore, you will not need to create multitudes of content every single day to retain your flow of traffic that is coming to your website. 

The top five reasons to create evergreen content for your business:

1. Continually drive traffic
2. Improve search engine rankings
3. Drives perspectives to your sales funnel
4. Connect with your audience on social media
5. Position your brand as the industry leader

But Evergreen content isn’t the only way to success. Evergreen content is great, but don’t think that everything you create needs to be (or should be) evergreen. Timely and topical pieces are also important. These pieces are perfect for short-term marketing campaigns when you want to drive a lot of traffic and leads in a small amount of time. The best content marketing strategy includes a mix of long-lasting evergreen posts and more topical articles.

How to Create Evergreen Content

Now that you know what evergreen content is and why it is great for your business to leverage, here are some tips for writing evergreen content that will stand the test of time:

• Choose the Right Keywords. Longtail keywords may be best. Even the most lasting evergreen piece isn’t worth much if people aren’t searching for that topic, so make sure to do your keyword research beforehand. 
• SEO Optimisation. Once you have your keywords, don’t forget to use SEO best practices for on-page optimisation. Add alt text to images, and put the keyword in the title, URL and throughout the body copy. You should also hyperlink related evergreen articles together to improve your SEO rankings.
• Write for Beginners: You may feel the need to share your expertise, but do so in a way that caters to beginners. Experts aren’t likely to be searching on broad topics, and you want to generate evergreen content for a large and recurring audience.
• Avoid Overly Technical Language: As you are wanting a large audience of people to be interested in your content make sure that your “Average Joe” can understand it, beginners often don’t understand overly-technical language, so try to avoid using it whenever possible.
• Repurpose Your Content: When you create a great piece of content, there are many ways you can spin it and re-use your great ideas in various formats. Use this as your big core piece of content and break it down into smaller pieces that can be used elsewhere.

If you want to get consistent traffic coming to your blog over time, and not tear your hair out publishing ten articles a week, then creating evergreen content should be an ongoing goal for your business. Then, work to maintain your evergreen status by republishing and repromoting often.

Are you using evergreen content to create a successful content marketing strategy?