If you’re consistently updating your blog content, it’s likely that many of these revolve around seasonal topics or current trends. It’s a smart move for capturing your readers’ attention when these particular topics are ‘trending’. But, what about content that stands the test of time? The kind that remains relevant for months, even years? This is what’s known as evergreen content. We share why you should prioritise creating it for optimal SEO success.

What is Evergreen Content?

In a nutshell, it’s content that does not go out of date, and much like an evergreen tree, it remains lush and green (aka relevant and valuable) all year round. For blog posts, this means that your evergreen posts will continue to attract readers to your site continuously for years. Examples include FAQs, ‘how-to’ blog posts and in-depth articles.

So, Why Should You Be Writing Evergreen Content?

There are several reasons why you should be writing more evergreen content on your website:

It has long-term value: Writing this content is guaranteed to bring you traffic all year round, for many years.

It’s great for SEO purposes: It’s SEO-friendly content, as long as you use keywords that have the potential to be relevant all year round. For instance, your baking business might look at writing a recipe blog post using the keyword ‘homemade chocolate cake recipe’. This is a great example of an evergreen topic since most people would be searching for chocolate cake recipes all year round, and for many years to come. If the content you create is informative and helpful, your audience will likely be more inclined to stay on your website longer and explore more blog posts or recipe ideas. One way to see if a keyword consistently performs throughout the year is through Google Trends. Enter your keyword (make sure you select the right country) and see if the search volume is relatively stable over a year or even a couple of years. That way you know you have an evergreen keyword. To maximise the value of this content, regularly update it with any new information.

It helps to build backlinks: Backlink building plays a vital role in any SEO strategy. It is advisable for websites and businesses to include links to external sources who have written similar content to theirs, or who are an authority on that particular topic, such as well-established websites or government websites. Blog writers would likely link to these sites for additional information, to provide more context, or to substantiate what they’ve written. If your evergreen content is relevant, informative and well-written, you may find people backlinking to your site for years after going live. Every time you earn an organic backlink, it helps to increase your rank authority on the search engines.

What Isn’t Evergreen?

Types of content that are not considered evergreen include:

• News articles (very topical and trend-based)
• Statistics or reports (this information frequently changes and generally only applies to a small amount of time)
• Fashion trends
• Pop culture news and trends

Bottom line is, anything with an expiration date and no long-term value is not evergreen. Timely content is still very important to your content strategy, so don’t forget to mix it in with evergreen blog posts.

The Best Formats

Here are some of the most common format types you should be considering for evergreen content:

• How-to content
• Guides
• Checklists
• Top tips (numbered lists work well)
• FAQs

These formats don’t automatically mean you’ve got an evergreen blog post. It’s all about what you choose to write about in these formats.

Our Top Tips

Now that you understand more about what evergreen content is and isn’t, and why it’s beneficial to your business, here are our top tips for writing:

Find the right keywords.

As previously mentioned, keywords that show stable and consistent results will work best for this type of content. Using tools like Google Trends and researching the stability of a keyword over a year or more can help you determine whether or not a keyword is worth using.

Write for beginners.

Evergreen content is generally catered to those who may not know an awful lot about a topic. Experts typically don’t search for how-tos and help, so avoid your content for them.

Avoid technical language.

Overly technical language may isolate some of your potential customers and turn them off from either continuing reading your post, or exploring your blog further. Keep it simple!

Optimise for SEO.

This goes without saying! Every piece of content should always be SEO optimised. So, make sure you know exactly how to write a blog post for SEO.

Want to Know More About Evergreen Content?

If you need help creating a content strategy or coming up with evergreen blog post ideas, our team of copywriters at Lance Montana can help you create a strategy that mixes both evergreen and timely blog posts. Get in touch to see how we can help you.