What is evergreen content, and how can you use it to boost your content marketing efforts? Simply said, it’s material that remains relevant after it’s been published, isn’t time-sensitive, and continues to drive traffic long after it’s been released. The formats that best complement this approach to content development are given below, along with tips on how to make it work for your company.
What is evergreen content?
As the term implies, evergreen content is search-optimized content that remains relevant and “fresh” for readers over a lengthy period of time. You might believe that all online content is long-lasting, but not all content is valuable into the future for months or even years. Evergreen content, on the other hand, is unique. It remains relevant long after it was published, with search traffic increasing over time.
Here are a few common evergreen types of content:
- Tips and Tricks
- How-to Content (for beginners or advanced users)
- Lists – (odd-numbered lists get clicked)
- original research
- Deep Dive Case Studies
- Best free and paid tools
- Best or Worst Practices
Simply creating content in one of these formats does not make your content automatically evergreen. But these formats are very popular and helpful to users compared to other formats.
Instructional videos also are very valuable when aiming to create evergreen content. They can have shelf lives of YEARS! Here is an example video search I look for every summer 🙂 “My Lawn Mower Won’t Start”…
Examples of Evergreen Content.
Here are some examples of evergreen content we have created in the last month for Imprint Digital.
- 5 Reasons You Must Get Reviews For Your Small Business
- We break down the timeliness impacts that reviews have on consumer decision making before choosing a partner.
- 7 Tips To Improve Social Media Presence
- These 7 tips will be valuable for 2+ years to share. We can update this yearly as well as social changes
- 7 Must-Haves For ECommerce Marketing
- Another great “7 tips” article. People love odd numbers compared to even, so share a specific amount of tips and reasons for someone to read.
- How Local SEO Impacts Your Business
- SEO is the backbone of local business ranking across maps and content. This article is going to be valuable as long as Google is a search engine!
Examples of Content that is not Evergreen
As we mentioned, not all content is evergreen. It is good to understand what types of content are not evergreen or have a long-term life that can be used. The below could be considered time-sensitive content.
These types of content are not evergreen.
- News articles
- Stats that are not up to date
- Current Trend articles
- Pop culture and news
- Fashion and clothing trends
You can do more than Evergreen Content
While evergreen content is valuable long term, you also want to have timely and culturally relevant content as well that relates to current events, trends, or what is hot in the news. Evergreen content is a great compliment to function alongside the rest of your content strategy.
While evergreen content is a great lead magnet and tool to build a sales funnel, you also want to be relevant and timely with content that meets the current needs of customers in your market.
Make a blend of time-sensitive and evergreen content for your audience, diversification is key!
Build social campaigns around evergreen content
One great thing about evergreen content is that you can build social strategy and campaigns around it.
If you create a blog or video with 7 tips, or you create an ultimate guide, break that out into multiple micro-social posts or videos.
Use those micro pieces of content to funnel users into your larger form piece of evergreen content. This is one of the most impactful things you can do! Don’t let your content just get lost on your blog. Build micro-campaigns and leverage your evergreen content long-term in unique ways.
Update Evergreen Content Regularly
It is important to keep these long-term evergreen articles up to date and fresh. By doing so Google sees that you are keeping your content relevant with the latest data and the most important information that will impact your users.
Evergreen content when managed well will show a growth pattern in your Google Search Console like this. Monitor your rankings and watch your performance and keep content up to date to maximize results. If you need help with your evergreen strategy, just reach out and we can help.
I hope this helps! These are some great tips to start creating evergreen content for your audience.
Feel free to use our Ultimate Guide on marketing with a $0 budget as an example jumping-off point to create your first evergreen piece of content!
If you have any questions or could use some help on your evergreen strategy feel free to reach out to us, we are happy to give a free consult or to provide value in any way we can, just reach out via our form below.
Make it a great day!