Evergreen content is content that is everlasting and will never get old. Evergreen content has lasting power and is a must-have for online marketing.
Evergreen content is search-optimized content that remains relevant to readers over a long period of time – as its name implies – and you may think that all online content is sustainable – after all, a blog post doesn’t just disappear after you publish it – but evergreen content is different, with search traffic growth over time.
Ways to Make an Article or Blog Evergreen
- Answer frequently asked questions from your users
- Provide industry tips, how-to’s, explanations, or advice.
- Explain common industry topics that may be confusing for different audience personas.
The tricky part of long-tail content is that often the most popular industry topics have been covered, maybe hundreds of times, so you should add your own unique spin to the topic or search for long-tail keywords that have a decent amount of traffic but not as much competition to make your content more valuable and more likely to appear higher in the search engine results.
What isn’t evergreen content?
To further explain what is evergreen content, let’s take a closer look at what it is not. To better clarify what kind of writing is considered to be “evergreen,” articles on pop culture or current trends should remember that evergreen content has no real expiration date and retains its value long term, so an article about a presidential election or marketing trends of this year may be popular content. Still, it won’t make the cut as evergreen content.
Tips for Writing Evergreen Content
Now that you know what evergreen content is and is not and how well they work together, here are some specific tips for writing evergreen content.
- Keyword selection – long tail keywords often perform well as evergreen content.
- Focus on SEO optimization – Add alt text to images and put the keyword in the title, URL and throughout the body copy.
- Usability – Repurpose your content in as many ways as possible (videos, podcasts, infographics, etc.)
Evergreen content is great, but don’t think that everything you create must be evergreen (or should be). Timely and topical articles are also important. These pieces are perfect for short-term marketing campaigns when you want to drive a lot of traffic and lead in a short amount of time. The best content marketing strategy includes a mix of long-lasting evergreen posts and more topical articles.