How To Write Evergreen Content For Your Blog
If you’re associated with SEO or any other kind of Internet marketing, you’ve probably heard the phrase “evergreen content,” and you’ve probably been told that your site needs it all the time. So what is “evergreen marketing” and why are evergreen articles so good?
Every company wants to be at the top of Google search results all the time. A post on a hot topic or a viral ad campaign can bring you a moment of fame – a pleasant and short-lived one. But some brands dominate the digital space year after year. How?
If you’re associated with SEO or any other kind of Internet marketing, you’ve probably heard the phrase “evergreen content,” and you’ve probably been told that your site needs it all the time.
So what is “evergreen marketing” and why are evergreen articles so good?
What Is Evergreen Content?
Evergreen content is SEO-optimized content that is constantly relevant and stays “fresh” for readers for years.
The term “evergreen” is familiar to all of us and is always associated with something unchanging, constant. Like the familiar Christmas trees, evergreen content is considered to be long-lasting and ever-present. Such articles or other types of content will remain relevant for a long time (months and years).
For example, if a review-review of the latest gadget or car model can be useful only some time after the product is released, a review-instruction on the general principles of profitable purchase of such a category of goods (tips on quality check, what to focus on when choosing a seller/supplier) can live for a very long time yet.
Evergreen content is content that never gets old, like evergreen trees that never shed their leaves. Audiences never cease to be interested in such content. It’s relevant today, and it remains so for years afterward; it can lead search engines for years and attract hundreds or thousands of readers, so that the site’s audience and the company’s credibility continually grow.
Everyone understands the value of evergreen content: competing sites use it for links, because that content drives visitors to the site; Google, while loving fresh content, also values what passes the test of time and continues to attract an audience.
Evergreen marketing is strategic marketing. The secret isn’t the date of publication: an interesting post or video that appeared on your site several years ago won’t necessarily attract traffic. Evergreen content should be optimized while it’s still being created, and then it should be periodically updated. In this case, not only does it improve your SEO and drive traffic, but it also increases conversion rates and attracts leads.
Using Evergreen Content In Your Promotion Strategy
Creating evergreen content is a great idea for boosting your site’s search engine rankings. Content marketing and SEO aren’t exactly the same thing, as content doesn’t have to be created solely to improve search engine rankings, but it still needs to be optimized.
On the other hand, content that works for your audience can also be content that works for search engines. This topic is seen as particularly relevant when promoting information sites.
Benefits Of Evergreen Content
The main advantage of evergreen content is that it has a cumulative effect – the benefits of it are added year after year:
Time Savings
Once created, evergreen content requires minimal editing and updates. You also won’t have to coordinate new content within your company.
Cost-Effectiveness
Because evergreen content stands the test of time, every ruble you spend on it works overtime and increases ROI.
Profitability
Evergreen content brings potential customers to you.
Automation
Evergreen content is ideal for automated campaigns: set it up and forget it.
Split Tests
You’ll be using evergreen content for years and so you can run split tests with any sample you want and figure out how to increase conversions.
Still, it’s important to remember that some search engines, such as Google, prefer sites that are regularly updated. Even evergreen content needs to be kept up to date so that it doesn’t become outdated or contain broken links.
Signs of Evergreen Content
There are a number of factors that determine an article’s shelf life:
Quality
The article should be interesting and useful to readers, not an exhausting and pointless wall of text. Complement the article media content, add convenient navigation and table of contents. Quality can also include the E-A-T (Expertise-Authoritativeness-Trustworthiness) factor.
Accuracy In Answering The Question/Eliminating Users’ Pain
If the content answers the question your audience is looking for an answer to, the publication has a better chance of success. Answer accuracy is especially important in the context of implementing algorithms that recognize the nuances of natural language.
Header Visibility
Meaning not a clickbait, but a “live” headline that provokes an emotional response, such as: “How to pet raccoons to earn their trust,” and does not contradict the content of the article, engaging more people.
Generating Long-Form Click-Through Statistics
If users see something useful in the evergreen content and spend time on the page, it is a positive signal for search engines and indicates that the text met the user’s needs and deserves high positions in search results.
Writing with SEO in mind
Before writing an article, at least SEO-analysis of competitors in search results should be conducted, a list of key phrases should be determined, the content itself should be easily accessible for indexing. The article should mention LSI-words – synonyms or words describing the topic.
Thematic Longevity
The topic of the article should be chosen considering that the topic area, on the one hand, has some practical value and, on the other hand, will not become obsolete with the release of a new law/update/product model. The article will not require regular updates.
Writing Tips
So how can you ensure your content can be used for evergreen purposes?
Write For An Audience
Sometimes it’s tempting to show expertise in the field you’re reviewing. If the resource on which the content is posted is aimed at the average reader, and the article is full of scientific terminology, this leads to perception problems. The hard-to-read text becomes unattractive to an untrained audience.
The rule also works in the opposite direction: “water” on an expert resource has a negative effect on long clicks.
Try Not To Use Time Reference
Both from the point of view of search engines and visitors, markers like “this year”, “2022”, “a month ago” and the like may reduce the relevance of the article due to binding to a specific period.
Update Content
As mentioned above, themed content shouldn’t need to be updated regularly. But that doesn’t mean that content won’t lose traffic over time – the decline in traffic will be smoother. Updating and updating evergreen content, even after 2 years, can bring audience interest back to the level of the original publication. We’ll talk about this later in the article.
Evergreen Content Is NOT:
- A news article.
- A statistical piece that doesn’t show a long-term trend.
- An article about a current cultural trend, contemporary fashion.
- Descriptions of a specific event or season.
Evergreen content has virtually no shelf life and ideally will retain its value for a long time.
For example, anything written about marketing trends in 2022 is not evergreen content, because in twelve months it will all be hopelessly outdated and many keywords related to the topic will end up in Google’s graveyard. In 2023, no one will be searching for information about last year’s trends.
Popular Formats
- Topic lists, lists (a collection of facts about a topic).
- Recipes.
- Review of mistakes/how not to do.
- Stories of (un)success/biographies.
- Interviews, insights.
- FAQs, expert/popular opinions on the topic.
- Encyclopedic articles (“Wikipedia”).
- Lessons-in-training, guidelines, style (general rules and principles of formation).
- Tips and calendar programs.
- Holidays, attractions, and traditions.
- Useful tips;
- Product reviews;
- Videos.
These formats alone won’t make your content evergreen, but the structure of the text feed fits perfectly with the concept of “evergreen content. Videos are especially effective if you need a visual demonstration of how to do something (make a dish or fix something).
If for some reason it’s not possible to post a video, use images – photos, illustrations, diagrams, infographics, etc.
Recent trends show that people are more attracted to visual content.
Suitable Topics
There are many type of content but below are some that give particularly evergreen article subjects:
- Love and romantic relationships.
- Medicine, health.
- Tourism.
- Auto, moto.
- Pets.
- Career and profession.
- Losing weight, sports.
- Raising children.
- Finance, saving.
- Cooking, food.
- Household appliances, furniture.
Examples of Evergreen Content
“How to build a dog kennel” – consistent, clear instructions with beautiful photos make your content “evergreen.”
“10 Ways to Cook Chicken” – can you imagine a future where people don’t cook chicken? And no one can. The verdict is that content is evergreen;
“How to Soothe a Crying Baby” – this topic is a veritable Klondike, for there have always been, are and will always be young parents whose screaming babies drive them to a frenzy. Your advice will always be relevant. And if, in addition to all that, to write content in the format of concise and clear recommendations, your article is likely to become even viral.
5 Tips For Writing Evergreen Content
You might think that any article can be evergreen but that’s not always true – here are some tips to ensure your content is as evergreen as possible:
Don’t Write For Experts
I understand that sometimes it’s tempting to demonstrate your fundamental expertise in a certain field, but you’ll be making a big mistake by doing so. Experts generally don’t need help. Your target audience is beginners and amateurs, so create content geared toward them.
Don’t Get Carried Away With Technical Terminology
Since most of your content is aimed at beginners, dry technical language can scare them away and make them look for help on another resource. Keep your writing simple, high-pitched and abstruse terms for another occasion.
The Length Of The Article And The Title
Depending on the topic of your article, its volume may vary from a few hundred words to several thousand. If the topic requires a detailed explanation and you have something to say, spare no words. I’ve come across some great articles the size of a small book – for 40-50 minutes of reading.
Writing such an article can take several weeks. But one such article can fill your site with traffic for years. And do not forget about the title. It should also be relevant today and in a few years.
Internal Linking: Link Articles Together
For example, if you’re writing an article on “Bicycle Care Guide,” break up that fairly broad topic into smaller sections of “How to Lubricate Bicycle Brakes” or “How to Change a Tire,” and then link those articles together using links.
This is a great SEO tool that not only allows a person to find a solution to their problem as quickly as possible, but also redirects them to related material on the topic.
Get The Most Out Of Your Content
Writing a great evergreen article is not enough, you need to adapt it to different formats, so as to reach the largest audience. Use this theme to create content in different formats. For example, one long article can easily turn into 2-3 short videos for Youtube, an infographic for Pinterest and 5-10 posts on Facebook. Keep these options in mind, they can help you get the most out of just one article.
Evergreen Content Should Work For You – Draw Attention To It
One way to do this is to highlight evergreen articles on the home page of your site. You can also group related articles together. Keep them relevant and repost them to make them more visible to new readers.
Integrate your evergreen content: Post it on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn with pictures. Make videos of your content. Have you noticed the “Video” button on Google and Yandex? Getting to the first page of these search results isn’t that hard because few companies make videos.
Forms on your landing pages and error messages can also become evergreen and draw traffic to your site. Because the landing page is cleared of information noise and distracting details, this kind of content can become your calling card.
Conclusion
Evergreen content, because of its features, should be given more attention in search engine optimization and content plan development.
Remember these positive features of evergreen content:
Relevance
Such content is increasingly in line with search engines’ focus on the “humanity” of the published material, especially recently, with the involvement of artificial intelligence technologies, when the user’s motives and interests are understood by the ranking algorithms in more and more detail.
Universality
On the one hand, promotion of evergreen articles – the basis for information sites, on the other – a good and stable source of additional organic traffic for the projects of highly competitive and filled aggregators commercial sphere.
Efficiency
From the SEO point of view, evergreen content is very advantageous in terms of cost/benefit ratio. In addition to the fact that high-quality evergreen content can steadily attract traffic for a long time, its updating and actualization have a truly “rejuvenating” effect – the article becomes popular again.
Speaking of the latter feature, note that the cost of creating evergreen material can be somewhat higher on average than creating other types of content. It is advisable to use professional literature and publications (textbooks, manuals, scientific papers and articles), factual descriptions (biographies) or verifiable expert opinions (interviews) as main sources. Particular attention should be paid to layout: use lists, media content, formatting, and so forth. The result in the form of a loyal and interested audience will pay off many times over.
Final Thoughts
Evergreen marketing will improve your SEO and give you credibility in the eyes of potential buyers. Like any good strategy, evergreen content also needs updates from time to time to keep it relevant and keep visitors and potential buyers coming to your site.
- Follow Viktoria Arsenteva on:
