An evergreen tree has leaves that stay green throughout the year. Likewise, evergreen content receives its name because these pieces are relevant to readers at all times.
If you’re new to the world of evergreen articles, it’s understandable to be scratching your head in confusion. Content Marketing Life is here to help you learn how to create evergreen content.
You’ll also learn about creating evergreen content, evergreen topics, and much more!
Table of Contents
What are evergreen articles?
Evergreen content involves text, images, or videos containing information that’s always relevant.
It’s understandable if the term “relevant content” has you a little confused. After all, shouldn’t content always be relevant? Yes, but the relevancy, in this case, has to do with time sensitivity.
Examples of evergreen subjects vs. non-evergreen subjects
Now, we’ll break things down by showing you examples of evergreen and non-evergreen content. These hypothetical examples should help understand the ideas behind a great, evergreen article.
Examples of evergreen articles
- 10 Natural Remedies To Get Over a Cold – Many great evergreen article ideas involve time-tested remedies. Sure, there might be a few recently developed ways to get over a cold. However, most websites will share the same cold remedies that have been around for ages.
- How To Paint Your Living Room (and Not Make a Mess) – Painting is a fairly straightforward activity to explain. This topic could make a great list-based article with detailed steps.
- The Best Chicken Fried Steak Recipe – Recipes can also be considered evergreen articles. While people can make adjustments to recipes, the standard ones never go out of style.
Examples of non-evergreen articles
- 5 TikTok Trends to Start Making Videos About in 2022 – TikTok is a popular social media platform. While TikTok probably won’t lose popularity anytime soon, trend-based articles aren’t evergreen content. That’s because trends change over time. If that wasn’t true, we’d all still be doing the Harlem Shake.
- The Latest Updates About the Newest iPhone – Technology moves incredibly fast. That’s why news-related articles about this subject are topical articles. What was breaking news about something a month or even a week ago will soon be outdated.
- What are the Most Popular Social Media Websites in January 2020? – Another example of non-evergreen articles involves internet popularity. Combining this subject with an article only covering information from a specific month might get a lot of traffic for a brief period. But, after that month passes, most people won’t have use for quickly aging statistics.
Why should you create evergreen content?
Before you start writing evergreen articles, it’s understandable to wonder if these pieces are worth your time and effort. Fortunately, there are many beneficial reasons to create evergreen pieces.
Receiving consistent traffic
One of the main benefits of creating evergreen content is that it’s always relevant. Pages and posts about evergreen topics can get a ton of traffic. Since evergreen topics enjoy a steady range of interest over time, these waves of traffic could last for years.
Improving your chances of showing up in search results
Many business owners understandably think of SEO as a frustrating topic. One of the most common SEO-related issues companies struggle with is how to get and maintain first-page results in search engines. Fortunately, creating evergreen articles might be the answer to your problem.
Updating content less frequently
If you look through this website, you can tell that we love content marketing. But who wants to do extra work if you don’t have to? I don’t know about you, but I like the feeling of working hard to post something and moving away from that specific topic for a little bit.
That’s not the reality for people who are competing to show up in search results for non-evergreen search terms. Some websites in this realm update their content around the clock!
Of course, we still recommend updating your quality evergreen articles regularly. But, in this case, regularly means three to six months instead of every other minute or hour.
How to keep your website’s content evergreen
With a solid understanding of evergreen articles, it’s time to create content of your own. Whether you’re creating something new or updating already published content, follow these tips for stellar results.
Choose the right formats
Before you get too far into your content strategy, it’s helpful to understand evergreen content formats. Learning about and using these formats can speed up the rate your company outputs content.
Here’s a quick run-down of the most common formats used for evergreen articles:
List-based articles: Whether you love or hate them, there’s something about a list-based article that taps into that pleasure area in our brains. And this isn’t just an urban myth – the human brain loves lists.
How-to guides: According to the Pew Research Study, 87% of adults learn new things by using the internet. If you want a share of this traffic to your site, consider creating howto guides. While this topic might seem daunting at first, we’re sure there are many things you can help people with.
Interviews: Other examples of evergreen articles involves interviews. Not only are interviews interesting, but they’re a great way to gain evergreen content. Since interviews consist of another person or company’s statements, you also don’t have to worry about updating them. Interviews are types of content that are best to leave alone after they’re published.
Case studies: Another format that’s great to have in your content strategy is the case study. Case studies provide deeper-than-normal dives into a subject.
Most companies follow this format when it comes to case studies:
- Intro: Every good case study begins with an intro. An introduction gives readers a brief bit of background into what they’re about to read.
- Problem or situation: Next, it’s important to include some type of problem leading to this case study. These problems might be specific events or challenges.
- Steps taken to resolve a conflict: This section should offer specific examples of solutions. For example, a company’s case study could use this section to detail how its products or services solved problems for customers.
- Results: In this last part of your evergreen articles, it’s good to wrap things up by detailing what happened after the previous step. If a customer used your company’s products or services, what good things happened as a result?
Best X or Y articles: Lastly, it’s also wise to have some best-type articles in your event content marketing strategy. These articles include the word “best” in front of whatever topic is being discussed or compared.
Some websites publish lots of evergreen articles comparing the best products in a certain category or from a specific brand. These examples might look something like this:
- What Are the Best Social Media Marketing Services?
- My Picks for the Best Movies of 2023
- The Best Neighborhood in Tallahassee, Florida
Update evergreen articles regularly
So far, you’ve learned that evergreen content is great for year-round results. But there’s a small caveat we should include: you still need to regularly update evergreen content for it to perform as well as possible.
Here are the most important things to watch out for when you update evergreen content.
Facts and statistics
No content is complete without facts and statistics, especially if you’re presenting informational posts. If you include and properly cite sources in your content, you get the hang of this whole content marketing thing.
If you really want your evergreen articles to go above and beyond the competition, it’s smart to go over your search-optimized content and see if any statistics need updating. As a general rule of thumb, I’d try to look for an updated source for any statistics that are more than three to five years old.
In some cases, there simply won’t be much new information about a particular subject. If that’s the case, it’s also okay not to worry about finding brand-new statistics.
Content length
Sometimes, what’s holding your evergreen content back is that it’s not long enough. I wish I could tell you a magic number of words to put in your article. Unfortunately, that doesn’t quite exist.
According to Hubspot, it takes about 2,100 to 2,400 words of content to show up on the first page of search engine results. Different keywords with their own competition levels will have ideal word lengths for optimal search rankings.
You might find that stepping away from a topic helps you come back refreshed and ready to add more content.
Links
With tools or plugins like Broken Link Checker, it’s thankfully much easier to keep track of your website’s incoming and outgoing links. When a link on your website doesn’t work properly, it’s classified as a broken link. And you don’t want these types of links on your websites.
In the eyes of search engines, a website with broken links offers a poor experience for site visitors. Double-checking the links in your evergreen articles helps you offer a confusion-free reading experience.
New keywords
An important aspect of successful evergreen marketing is to make sure that content contains lots of popular related keywords. Coming back to previously written content is the perfect time to add in a few relevant keywords.
Some companies use a keyword tool to gain this information. If you don’t have any tools to use, you can conduct keyword research by using the stellar free program called Google Keyword Planner.
Leave out the overly technical language
There’s nothing wrong with being passionate about the subjects you write about. With that said, such passion typically comes as the result of years or decades spent learning about a subject. Unfortunately, most members of your audience don’t love the subject you’re writing about quite as much as you do.
You won’t risk losing your audience’s attention if you avoid overly technical language. Replace any jargon with words that are easy for a general audience to understand. Or, explain the terms clearly, if you need to include anything technical.
So, how do you know when something might be too complex and fall under the category of overly technical? Ask yourself this question: If you mentioned this topic to the first person you saw on the street, would they understand it?
If they wouldn’t understand it, it’s an overly technical topic. Either use another, simpler word or throw in an explanation of a topic that’s easy for the average person to understand.
Do you need help coming up with evergreen articles? Make things easy on yourself. Hire a digital marketing agency specializing in creating great evergreen content. Content Marketing Life creates professional, long-lasting evergreen posts that search engines and your readers will love.
Alex Eagleton is a copywriter and digital marketer passionate about helping companies connect with customers. Throughout the past decade, he’s worked with companies including Referral Rock, Connecteam, and Ramsey Solutions. He’s a versatile writer who understands how to align with companies, truly matching their voices and tones.
When he’s not writing, he enjoys spending time with his dogs, reading, and playing guitar.
You can reach him by emailing alex@contentmarketinglife.com.