A Full Guide To Evergreen Content

Creating content that consistently drives traffic to your site can be difficult and everyday blogging likely won’t be the way to do it. Evergreen web content is targeted content written on a topic that is always going to remain relevant and is always driving traffic. For example, this could include ‘social media marketing’ or ‘how to become a yoga instructor.’ Think about this: Yoga instructors are required to learn the practice, teach it, and continue to keep up with certifications. It’s a method of relieving stress, increasing strength, and benefits your health. Finally, over 20 million Americans practice yoga; therefore, there will always be a search volume for it. ‘Social media marketing’ and ‘how to become a yoga instructor’ are also almost always relevant searches as they’re not seasonal.

Creating evergreen content vs an evergreen topic

There is a difference between having an evergreen topic to create content around and actually making your content evergreen.

A topic, like ‘how to boil water’, can be evergreen but if the content written around the topic is no longer relevant, your content is not evergreen. Let’s say it’s the year 3000 and there is a new stove that begins boiling water when you clap your hands. Your previous content is no longer relevant but the need to boil water still is. Have you seen a loss in traffic? If so, it’s not evergreen.

Writing evergreen content for your site

Now that you know how to find topics to write about, let’s get into creating the content.

Evergreen posts needs to remain relevant for a long period of time, so putting together 500-700 words in a quick ‘how to’ isn’t going to cut it. Spend time researching the topic to add expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness, to your piece.

In order to refresh and create evergreen content that is respected by search engines, it’s best to be seen as an expert on the topic. If your site or brand isn’t knowledgeable on sewing buttons, you should steer clear of writing the content just to drive traffic. It won’t work.

Below are some other quick tips to consider:

1. If possible, avoid dates or discussing time frames as it will immediately date your content
2. Build links internally and externally in order to establish authoritativeness and gain traffic from other sites
3. For older content, republish and re-promote via social media and email to make sure your evergreen content is noticed and shared

Sometimes, creating evergreen posts occurs naturally and the topic you chose to write about ends up being permanently relevant. Some examples of this could include a how to guide for a new product, consumer reviews and testimonials, or case studies. Because your piece was helpful and referenceable it became evergreen despite never being your intent. This content now consistently drives traffic and leads to your site – be sure to keep it that way.

Maintaining content that's evergreen

While your topic may be evergreen, your content can get stale. Are there aspects of it that are no longer evergreen? Outdated images, invalid or old statistics that are no longer true, and references to 1997 would all contribute to your article no longer being relevant. To keep your content up to date and evergreen, establish a regular cadence to refresh and replace older content and data.

Let’s take the example of a case study. Case studies are a great way to attract new customers by showing your audience that your products or services work and work well with other brands. They can also wind up being evergreen content if your study is still relevant to your business.

In order to keep your case studies evergreen, you need to keep them up to date. Add new and updated internal links where they fit. Keeping irrelevant and out-of-date content linked won’t keep your case study fresh. Include keywords that are also up to date. For example, if you’re referencing Google Adwords in your case, your content is outdated as Adwords became Ads in 2018. Finally, be sure to create new case studies with current customers. It’s great to show expertise over the years but to remain trustworthy, it’s important to show you have current happy customers as well as past happy customers.

Another red flag that your content may no longer be relevant is when your competitors start outranking you on the same topic. Pay attention to what your competition posts, to highlight what your content is missing and update it accordingly.

How do I find evergreen topics to write about?

Finding an evergreen topic can be tricky. Not every broad topic will remain relevant, and there’s likely to be hundreds, if not thousands, of posts out there for any given area of your expertise. A thorough keyword research project is your first step to evergreen success.

You can utilize DataCube to find topics you’re already ranking for by searching for keywords and tracking their keyword rank history. You can filter by date and determine when you saw an increase, decrease, or for how long you’ve been owning the top SERPs. Use this information to better your already ranking pages with evergreen content or to find high-value evergreen keywords you’re not ranking for that you should be. Use Data Cube to determine your content performance compared to competitors. Research what your competition is writing about and boost your own strategies using the knowledge gained.

Then, use BrightEdge Instant to evaluate your keyword list and identify potential topics. With Instant, you can see a keyword’s volume trend to determine its potential as an evergreen topic. For example, ‘social media marketing’ has a fairly level volume history, making it a contender as an evergreen topic.

Let’s look at ‘how to become a yoga instructor’ too. This keyword has a relatively flat trend line with a steady search volume, making it evergreen.

When a keyword is evergreen but has a low monthly search volume, it may not be worth your time to write about. However, keywords with lower monthly search volume tend to have less competition and they will still drive monthly visitors. If you’re not able to get traction targeting keywords with large search volumes, writing evergreen articles around smaller topics may be a good strategy.

Creating evergreen content can be a philosophy that drives your content strategy or something your team works on from time to time. Before you begin working on a piece of content, consider whether or not you can make it evergreen. By growing your evergreen content, your site will become more authoritative and be a go-to for traffic.