What Is Evergreen Content? A Guide to Long-Lasting Blogs that BOOST SEO

Written by Bridgette Weller Brown
on 06 Oct 2020

There is no denying that content is an essential part of any marketing strategy.

However, when it comes to organic search growth, not all types of content are equal and can contribute to the success of your business in the same way.

Evergreen content is content surrounding topics that have sustained a level of interest and do not experience seasonal peaks in demand. Whatever time of the year it is, people want to consume content around these topics. Put simply, these topics never go ‘out of fashion.’

An example of this for us here at Caffeinate Digital is the “What is the Customer Value Journey?” blog.

By effectively utilising evergreen content as part of your marketing strategy, it can become a powerhouse to drive growth to your business.

Common Evergreen Content Formats

Some examples of types of content are

Listicles
Tips
How to’s
Case studies
Resource Lists
History of product or service

Writing in these formats doesn’t necessarily make your content evergreen. Still, these key formats are a great place to start when formatting your evergreen strategy.

What ISN’T Evergreen Content?

News articles
Statistics or reports that will go quickly out of date
Articles focused on current trends

True evergreen content has no expiration date and retains its value in the long-term.

How Do You Create Evergreen Content?

A great place to start is to look for questions people are asking related to your business.

Provide industry tips and how-to’s explanations or advice
Experiment with different types of content
Explain common Industry concepts or terms that may be confusing for readers

For example, let’s say you have a business selling products online for dogs. You should take a look online at commonly-asked questions to create content around.

You can do this by using the free platform ‘Google Trends,’ and searching for ‘dogs.’

The two top searched questions (relating to dogs) are ‘Can dogs get coronavirus?’ and ‘Can dogs eat watermelon?’.

When you break these findings down in Google Trends, we find that the question ‘Can dogs get coronavirus?’ has only become a recent trend, whilst ‘Can dogs eat watermelon?’ has developed a more sustained level of search interest over time.

So using this example, a listicle about what foods dogs can and can’t eat is an example of evergreen content.

(READ: Why Social Media Management is Important)

Tips for Writing Evergreen Content

Don’t Write for the Experts – Now and then we all get the urge to write in complex language to show off our knowledge about a specific topic. Remember, experts are less likely to search for help, so keep in mind that the person stumbling across your blog is probably a beginner.

Avoid Overly Technical Language – Remember your content is for beginners, and complicated and technical language could scare them off. Keep your words simple and easy to understand. Hint: Most of your content should hover around a Year 10 English level.

Narrow Your Topic – Keep it simple, and stick to one topic. If a blog idea can be broken up into smaller blogs, do so, more content for you and more accessible for your audience to digest.

Links Posts – Link your bogs to other blogs of a similar subject. For example, if you’re doing a complete guide to dog care, divide that subject into specific pieces such as ‘How to talk your dog’ or ‘The best dog food on the market’.

Repurpose Content – When you create a great piece of evergreen content, look for ways to repurpose that information. If it’s a blog post, make it an infographic. If it’s a video, make it a podcast. The options are endless.

Update Evergreen content regularly.

It’s one thing to write great and relevant content, but you must also ensure that it stays up-to-date. While there shouldn’t be much you have to do to keep evergreen content updated, are there new findings? More recent examples? Can you hyperlink to newer content?
Handy Hint: Update the published date can boost SEO rankings.

Evergreen content’s value is huge. It has the potential to bring traffic to your site for many months, or even years into the future. The best content marketing strategy relies on a mix of both topical articles and long-lasting evergreen posts.

(READ: The Customer Value Journey: How to Create a Digital Marketing Strategy)

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