Your comprehensive guide to understanding and creating impactful evergreen content. Complete with helpful examples to explain and inspire!
What is evergreen content?
The easiest way to define evergreen content is that it is content that doesn’t “expire”. It is content that remains in demand no matter the season or what’s happening around us. Put another way evergreen content is always relevant and can be depended on to bring in new readers.
To summarize, evergreen content is:
- Timeless
- High quality
- Appreciated by its target audience
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Evergreen topics vs evergreen content
An evergreen topic is one that has stable interest over time plus the corresponding search volume to go with it. Evergreen content, therefore, is content centred on and developed around an evergreen topic.
For example: For as long as we continue to own pets, we’re always going to want to learn how to stop our beloved puppies from doing their toilet business just about anywhere in the house.
A blog post titled “5 simple steps to potty train your puppy in less than 6 months” would be an example of evergreen content resulting from the evergreen topic of “puppy potty training”.
What is the opposite of evergreen content?
If your content is a news article or related to the news cycle; about current events; trendy or fashionable; or statistics for a specific period of time—it’s not evergreen content.
For example: An opinion piece on your country’s election, daily updates on the coronavirus pandemic, a list of this year’s top 10 fashion must-haves, or 2017 social media usage statistics are not evergreen content.
They may be timely and interesting for now (and perhaps sporadically in the future) but they aren’t likely to draw as much attention and traffic on an ongoing basis.
Why is evergreen content important?
There’s a reason marketers and copywriters work hard to develop evergreen content and that is because the advantages are both far-reaching and substantial. Let’s take a closer look at the top five benefits of evergreen content.
Evergreen content helps you rank on search engines
Evergreen content (which, incidentally, usually happens to be long-form content) tends to do really well on search engines. In fact, this type of content can get you ranking for your desired keywords and search terms even in the long run.
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It attracts and brings you organic traffic
Because you have a better position on search engines, your evergreen content brings more organic (that is non-paid) traffic to your website. And since evergreen content doesn’t expire or lose popularity, you can expect that post to bring consistent traffic throughout the years.
Evergreen content can generate important new leads
Content is a great way to introduce products and / or services to an already-interested audience—and spontaneously garner new leads for your business. But before that can happen, you need to land your pages in front of the right people. That’s where evergreen content can give you a significant advantage over competitors.
It earns you valuable backlinks
The nature of this type of content – timeless, always of interest, and normally in-depth – makes it particularly suitable for others to refer to and naturally link back to.
TIP: Backlinks give you credibility—online and offline! Because when others link to your pages and materials, that signifies that they are, in essence, guaranteeing the quality of your content.
You can enjoy BIG savings
This is an advantage everyone can appreciate! Rather than churn out 10 pieces of content per week to stay relevant, you can just focus on select evergreen content. In turn you save time, energy and, if you’re hiring a content writer to do the work for you, even on costs for content development.
How do you create evergreen content?
By now you ought to be convinced that evergreen content has to be part of your content marketing strategy. So what is the best way to go about creating it? These steps will help you get started.
Find evergreen topics
Your first step is to research relevant topics that have a long shelf life. As you can imagine, this task involves keyword research.
Namely, you will need to find out:
- Which keywords will be valuable for your site;
- What people are consistently looking for throughout the year;
- And their search intent.
Naturally, you will want to make sure that there is sufficient search volume for those topics and their corresponding keywords.
In other words choose an evergreen topic that readers want and would deem useful while ensuring that such content would also serve your marketing goals!
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Decide on format
With your research out of the way, you now have to choose what kind of format or content you want to create. You should, ideally, choose a format that (1) works well for the topic at hand and (2) is favoured and appreciated by a wide audience.
Evergreen content ideas
- Case studies
- Product / service reviews
- Testimonials
- How to guides
- Beginner’s guide
- Best practices guide
- Lists
- Checklists
- Top tips
- Tutorials
- Pros and cons / analysis
- Frequently asked questions
- Interviews
- Origin stories / “history of” posts
- Definitions, glossaries
TIP: The great thing about evergreen content is that it can be repurposed, so you can later use the contents of a blog post or page for a video or even infographic.
Write your content
Finally, we’re at the fun part! Once you’ve chosen a topic, built your keyword list, and chosen a format, then it’s time to start writing.
There are a few things you should always keep top of mind when writing. When it comes to evergreen content, you want to:
- Put in the extra effort to develop something unique—that might involve approaching the topic from a different angle or including information that no one else has. As much as reasonably possible, the goal is to be unique and offer readers something original that doesn’t already exist elsewhere on the web.
- Avoid terminology that can ‘date’ your materials, e.g. indicating a specific period of time like “in the first half of this year” or “last month”.
- Offer a comprehensive and convincing piece that will be respected not just by your target audience but by industry peers.
Clean up your content
Don’t forget that classic content writing best practices still apply!
That means you should go back and check on spelling and grammar, logical flow and structure, and make sure that your tone, voice and style are on-brand. Also use headings, ensure sufficient white space and throw in suitable visual elements. Last but not least, add internal and / or outbound links where applicable.
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Evergreen content creation strategies
Of course, there are other important things you want to do for the greatest return on your writing investment. That is to get the most out of your evergreen content, you also have to:
Think of an eye-catching evergreen title
Evergreen content needs an evergreen title. The best titles stand out on the search engine result page—they draw the reader’s attention and make the person want to click through to read more. In other words, an evergreen title is interesting (and different) but not clickbait-y.
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Don’t be generic
In order for your content to stand the test of time, neither title nor content should be too generic. Put another way, don’t be afraid to narrow in on a topic—be precise.
For example: An article or blog post titled “Where to get the best souvenirs” isn’t going to perform as well as the more specific “Where to get the best souvenirs in Siem Reap for under $20”.
Here’s why:
- The generic (read: basic) title doesn’t get you excited;
- It doesn’t give you much insight into what you can expect (best souvenirs where?) or even much reason to click through;
- And it doesn’t indicate who this post is suited for.
On the other hand, the detailed title answers pertinent questions searchers have and therefore has a higher likelihood of appealing to your ideal audience.
Check in on it once in a while
Revisit your evergreen content every now and then. You don’t really have to but you just might find that there are useful updates you can make to it or even new links you can recommend that will add even more value to the post for your readers.
Evergreen content ideas
Still not entirely sure what you could write about? Here are a few examples for different industries.
Examples of evergreen content for hotels and the travel / tours industry
- Definitive / mini / themed destination travel guides from your business’ distinct perspective and with your unique spin put on it
- Neighbourhood walking guides
- All the must-try cuisine and regional variations in your destination
- Detailed information on national holidays at your destination
- Seasonal guide on what to bring / how to pack for your destination
- Spotlight on cultural events and happenings in your destination
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Examples of evergreen content in the pet industry
- How to guides on topics like training, grooming, nutrition and overall pet care and ownership
- Pet product reviews for products under $X-amount
- The most common pet health conditions and how to treat them
- Pet breed characteristics, temperament and maintenance
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Examples of evergreen content in the real estate industry
- How to guides for home buyers and sellers, e.g. How to stage your home and sell your house fast; staging a house on a budget
- First-time home buyer / seller checklists, guides, tips
- Definitions and frequently used real estate terminology
- Pros and cons of debated topics such as buying vs renting, working with a realtor vs agent, condo vs house
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Examples of evergreen content in the healthcare sector
- Guides on the causes, symptoms, diagnosis and potential treatments of a condition or illness
- How to guides on relevant topics of interest according to your specialty / sector, e.g. How to eat healthy on a tight budget; how to read food packaging labels and what to avoid
- Top tips for healthy living with a certain condition
- Illness prevention guidelines
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And there you have it – a few ideas to inspire you and get those creative juices flowing.
TIP: If you’re struggling to come up with great evergreen content ideas or worse, finding it hard to put those ideas into words, then it’s time to work with a professional content writer.