Did you know that 7.5 million blog posts are published every day? It’s difficult to imagine how content could remain relevant in this fast-paced, ever-changing digital world.
Yet “timeless” content is not a myth.
In fact, like the trees that never lose their leaves, it’s also possible for your content to never lose its relevance.
It may sound too good to be true, but evergreen content is the answer you’ve been searching for. By producing informative and engaging content for your audience, you ensure that your articles, guides, e-books, or tutorials stay relevant for a long time.
Ready to upgrade your content’s relevance and add evergreen content to your strategy? Then, keep reading!
Evergreen Content 101
Evergreen content is not time-sensitive, that’s why it stays relevant — no matter the season or ongoing news or trends.
Here are some common evergreen formats:
- “How-To” content
- Guides
- Listicles
- Product reviews
- Resources list
- Best or worst practices in a specific niche
- Step-by-step processes
- Case studies
- Glossaries with terms and phrases
However, producing content that fits these formats does not guarantee that it’s timeless. That’s why it’s also crucial for the topic to be evergreen.
For instance, writing a listicle doesn’t automatically mean that your content is evergreen. It can be about a time-sensitive topic such as “10 innovations from 2021” that will be irrelevant in the following years
That being said, an evergreen topic never goes out of date as it provides the users with useful and consistent information. Let’s take this very article as an example. It is an evergreen article, as the fundamentals of creating evergreen content won’t change much.
Need other evergreen content ideas? Well, it all starts from your customers and prospects — which are at the heart of every business. So, it’s essential for your evergreen content ideas to match your target audience’s interests and desires or to offer them solutions to their pain points.
The Benefits of Evergreen Content
Evergreen content will not only bring value to your website’s visitors, but will also drive higher ROI and improve your brand’s overall authority.
So let’s examine the benefits in more detail.
1. Attracts Organic Traffic
Organic aka unpaid traffic comes from visitors who access your site after discovering it through visitor searches on search engines.
Considering that 68% of online experiences begin with search engines, and more than two- thirds of all clickson the first page go to the first five organic results, driving organic traffic to your website should be prioritized.
And what better way to attract organic traffic than through evergreen content?
After all, organic traffic is highly targeted, as users who land on your website like this have specific search intent. Evergreen content can provide this type of users with the answers they have been searching for.
2. Builds Authority
This type of content is timeless because it’s mostly educational. Educational content remains relevant as it aims to inform the reader about a certain niche or industry.
So, while educational content doesn’t necessarily sell your products or services, it educates your readers while also engaging with them.
Educational content will not only position you as an industry thought leader, but will also increase brand awareness and trust.
Think about it: internet users are accustomed to promotional content from businesses. Therefore, by publishing educational content, you are offering them something different and gaining an edge over the competition.
Besides, 81% of consumers say that they need to be able to trust the brand before making a purchase. So, producing valuable and informative pieces will not only gain your audience’s trust, but will also facilitate the business’s growth.
3. Delivers Higher ROI
We’ve already established that evergreen content is relevant for more than just a season.
Consequently, this type of pieces become cornerstone content.
The foundation of your website, cornerstone content, is insightful and useful as it helps you establish what you have to offer in your niche. Cornerstone content should provide readers with a basic understanding of your niche, while also determining your authority in the industry.
Having said that, this type of content can boost the overall growth of the company as it continuously drives traffic and builds backlinks.
Besides, with evergreen pieces being longer, visitors spend more time on your website, hence lowering bounce rates.
In fact, backlinks as well as a lower bounce rate and continuous traffic prove your website’s usefulness to search engines, hence improving search rankings.
Moreover, evergreen content delivers higher ROI as it costs less than other marketing strategies while also generating a steady stream of incoming traffic.
How to Build Your Evergreen Content Strategy
From articles about the history of fries to “how to build a treehouse” or “A Guide to Performing Competitor Analysis”, evergreen content varies from industry to industry.
Although evergreen content is highly versatile, the answer to “how to create evergreen content?” is the same for any industry.
By setting up a strategy. Let’s examine how you can do that.
1. Conduct Research
Put yourself in your customers’ shoes, think about the questions that they might have, their pain points, and their interests.
Luckily, in the digital era, the research doesn’t stop here.
Thanks to analytical tools like Google Trends, you can discover whether a topic is evergreen. For example, trending posts have a highly seasonal interest spike, with search volume increasing quickly and dropping just as quickly.
Meanwhile, evergreen content attracts a high volume of traffic in the beginning, but it also keeps a sustained level of traffic over more seasons.
To come up with evergreen content ideas, you need to discover evergreen keywords.
So, brainstorm keywords that relate to your topic and then look them up on SEO research tools such as SEMrush or Ahrefs to discover their search volume. You can also use such tools to uncover what your competition is ranking for and use the results to prioritize content gaps.
As a general principle, finding keywords with high-volume but low competition means you’ve hit the SEO jackpot.
2. Create Insightful yet Simple Content
First of all, your content needs to be in line with your brand. If you want to be perceived as a trustworthy and credible source, your online branding needs to be seamless.
In addition to this, your content also needs to be accessible. Most probably, your audience doesn’t have the same industry knowledge that you possess, so don’t alienate them with industry jargon and technical language.
3. Optimize for SEO
Your readers need to first find your articles so that they can benefit from them.
Although backlinks are important, your evergreen content should be bolstered by additional SEO practices:
- Use short and descriptive URLs
- Avoid keyword stuffing but include keywords in URL, title tag, and heading tags
- Add a compelling and short meta description
- Optimize your images by adding alt text
- Add outbound links to trustworthy, authoritative websites while avoiding links to competitors
If you want to find out more about how you can optimize your content, read our article on creating content that ranks.
4. Update Your Content
Fresh content is vital for a strong evergreen content strategy. So, you need to update your content regularly if you want it to maintain its relevance.
Here are some periodical tweaks that your content will benefit from:
- Include new links
- Actualize updated details
- Add new statistics
- Tweak your images
5. Repurpose Your Content
Evergreen pieces are valuable. They deserve to reach a wide audience, and the way to do that is by repurposing content in different formats.
Here are some ways to do that:
- Remarket your evergreen pieces on social media
- Build an infographic
- Create an e-book with your top-performing evergreen pieces
- Repurpose your evergreen pieces into a video or podcast
Tips & Tricks to Maximize Your Evergreen Content’s Potential
1. Create a section for evergreen content on your website
Your evergreen pieces are too valuable to end up being buried among other posts. Highlight your evergreen content by building an educational section on your website so that visitors can easily notice it.
2. Build a social media campaign around your evergreen content
Share your pieces on social media platforms to raise brand awareness and build engagement.
3. Link to your evergreen posts on other pages on your site
By linking evergreen posts, you will display your evergreen pieces while also building internal links.
“Timeless” is not a word you would necessarily associate with the digital world. However, thanks to evergreen content, this is possible. By following the strategy outlined in this article, producing timeless pieces will become easier.
Still, this doesn’t mean that you should give up on timely content altogether. Instead, you should spice up your content strategy by incorporating educational content that will remain relevant throughout different seasons.
Still not sure where to start? The team at CadenceSEO is here to help you build your brand and strengthen your online presence!
What are you waiting for? Book a free consultation with us today!
