There is a vast range of possibilities when it comes to the content you can post on your business blog. One type that is often over looked but very important, is evergreen content. Every blog can use it, so read on as we dive into what it is, why it’s important contributor to successful blogs, and how you can leverage for your business.
What Is Evergreen Content?
The name for “evergreen content” came about because it is content that remains relevant for long periods of time. It’s content that’s useful year on year with little to no upkeep, yet still remains relevant as a reference for readers. So what exactly makes blog content evergreen? It typically contains these three characteristics:
- Timeless: Content that stands the test of time. Maybe it’ll need a few tweaks here and there over the years, but the overall content will barely change and “everlasting.”
- Valuable & High Quality: The content needs to be valuable and of a high enough quality to get noticed. We’ll be looking at this in greater detail later in this post. If a piece of content that is intended to be evergreen but isn’t of sufficient value to your readers, and doesn’t attract sufficient views when first published, the post will not become evergreen.
- Canonical: It is content that is definitive. It will be in depth, detailed, and it will have taken a longer time to create than much of your blog’s other non-evergreen content.
Doesn’t the web change fast? How can evergreen content even be a thing in an environment that changes at such rapidity? This depends on your industry. For some, content that stays relevant for just 1 or 2 years is evergreen.
Evergreen Content is Crucial
Now you have a sense of what makes content “evergreen.” You’re now likely wondering why it’s valuable to a business, specifically your business. There are three primary benefits evergreen content brings to your blog.
- High Search Engine Ranking: Due to the quality and timelessness of this type of blog content, it typically ranks very well in search engines as time passes. This means it is critical for the blogger to have these posts optimized for the keywords in which they’re seeking to establish a high ranking.
- High Traffic: Because of the high ranking position it achieves in search engines, it is found more, and in turn that means it contributes to a steady and continuous amount of website traffic. This continues long after it’s first published.
- Generates Leads Continuously: Since the content is a source of high traffic, it is also an active lead generator and has the power to do this steadily over time. As your audience and traffic grows, you will be able to cite posts that are months or years old that reliably generate leads for your business.
To put it differently, the content is valuable because it continues to work for you to generate traffic and leads long after it has been published. A blog that has a component for evergreen content in its strategy has an advantage. A news-centric approach that only publishes about breaking news has articles with a short lifespan and are soon outdated. Breaking news doesn’t generate long lasting traffic.
With an approach to valuable timeless content, the content then guarantees SEO, traffic, and lead generation over time. In today’s marketing environment, regular and consistent content creation is the job of marketing, what marketer or marketing department wouldn’t enjoy benefits like these that are timeless?
Examples
Are you still unsure of what types of content can fit into the evergreen category? When considering the three characteristics we looked at earlier, these are some examples that hold potential:
- A resource list of curated content (example: 10 Design Blogs Every Designer Should Follow)
- The long standing position of your business (example: How Blogging Benefits Business)
- Answers commonly asked questions in your industry (example: What Makes a Good Brand?)
- Historical Posts (example: How Bauhaus Has Influenced the History of Design)
- How to guides and tutorials on topics (example: How to Choose a Color Scheme? The 3 Cats Labs Guide to Color Theory & The Color Wheel)
Examples of content that is not evergreen.
- Date/time specific content (example: Bright & Optimistic, Pantone’s Color of the Year 2019)
- Breaking News (example: 3 Cats Labs Mentioned in Social Media Video Tips Article)
- Data and statistics (example: 20 Digital Marketing Statistics That Will Amaze You)
- Speculative/opinion content (example: Can Facebook Recover After Year of Poor Press?)
- Content about specific events (example: 2019 STOREYS Theme: “Framing” A Better Home)
Generally, topics that don’t change or at the most change very little have evergreen potential. The best question to ask yourself is, “Will people read this a year from now and still find it relevant?”
The 4 Steps of Evergreen Maintenance
Content that is truly evergreen won’t requite much maintenance over time, but it’s good to audit your content about twice a year to see if tweaks or improvements can be made to the content. Since it’ll continue to generate traffic and leads, you should keep it as fresh as possible.
Step 1: Identify Your Evergreen Content
Begin by consulting your blog or site’s analytics. Sort your articles by most views to help eliminate the content that is definitely not evergreen. The remove the articles that don’t fit the criteria. Eliminate the articles that are about breaking news or other time sensitive events or topics. Now look at the remaining posts and compare them with your keyword metrics to see if these articles are relevant to your top keywords.
Now you should have a list of potential content that you should audit and then also add to over time.
Step 2: Update Your Content
Now that you’ve identified the appropriate content that you already have published, it’s time to make some updates. Ask yourself if there has been any new developments that you can add to your article. Also check to ensure your statistics are up to date or if there is more compelling data available now that you can use.
Bear in mind that you just want to update the existing post and not write a whole new article. This is because you want to leverage the SEO you’ve already built up with the published article.
Step 3: Keep Your CTA’s Fresh
When doing your audits, ensure each post has a call to action, or CTA. If it lacks a CTA, add one. If it contains a CTA, check if it’s the best suited call to action for the post. Try to pair your best performing CTA’s with your best performing posts to give lead generation its biggest kick.
Also, if you’ve added any new ebooks, webinars, or other freebies to include you might want to update old giveaways with your new updated lead generation gifts.
Step 4: Ensure Posts Are SEO Optimized
If you’re creating content consistently, you might not be picking through posts with a fine-toothed SEO comb. Search engine optimization, or SEO, takes time and people do tend to get lazy about it because of the time and the details required for perfect SEO. However, when it comes to evergreen content, SEO is key because you want to be at the top of the search results for your desired keywords.
Read through your posts and identify potential bonus SEO opportunities on posts that are already doing well.
Step 5: Create New Evergreen Content
Keep on the lookout for new evergreen content opportunities. For example there might be some niche topics that have little or no coverage yet. This is a perfect opportunity to create something and get it indexed before the competition does. The more you create the more your website or blog will benefit.
Tips to Leverage Evergreen Content
These are a few things you can do to maximize the benefits of your content.
- Link to Your Evergreen Content from Other Content: Because it’s your most important content and will remain relevant for a long time, it’s recommended to link to it from your posts or articles that have a shorter life of relevancy. This will drive traffic and also harness the the often overlooked benefits of internal linking.
- Social Media Promotion: The long-term relevancy of evergreen content makes it perfect for sharing on social media. Search can of course drive traffic but social media can too. The promotion and sharing of the 3 Cats Labs’ evergreen content is part of our social media strategy because of the traffic it drives to our site.
Lastly, remember that not all of your blog content needs to be long lasting. Having a healthy mix of evergreen and timely or breaking news posts is an excellent approach.
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shane@3catslabs.com | Call +65-3159-4231
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