What Makes Content Evergreen?
Evergreen content refers to content that will remain relevant and useful into the future. It doesn’t have a shelf life and will be just as “fresh” five years from now as it is today. This perpetual relevance means that as you build out the content of your website, you are compounding the number of pages that will be found for crucial keywords, improving search engine optimization efforts well into the future.
Evergreen content was given its name because of its similarities to evergreen trees. The evergreen tree doesn’t lose its leaves, or needles, regardless of the time of year. It is a symbol of longevity and sustainability, and evergreen content should be, too. It’s true that every piece of content you produce is out there and available forever, but not all of it is relevant or useful forever, and that is the main distinction.
Of course, understanding what it means and knowing how to create it is not the same thing. If you begin with using a format that lends itself to evergreen content, then you’ll be off to a good start. Some of the best formats to use for evergreen content include:
Video – creating a video showing how to accomplish a task will play just as well 10 years down the road as it does today.
How-to Posts or Tutorials – this is the same concept as videos, in text form.
Lists – everyone loves a list, especially a numbered list. It can be “steps” or “ways to,” as long as it gets the message across.
Tips – helping people avoid a burst pipe, stop crying when dicing onions or getting more power in their left hook offers relevance that stands the test of time.
Product reviews – as long as the product being reviewed is relevant, the review itself will also be relevant.
For those of you that like to see examples of what not to do to help discover what you should do, here are some types of content that would not be considered evergreen. The information in this kind of content will probably become obsolete sooner than later, and no one will ever search for it again.
Topical pieces that are “date specific” like news articles
Pieces of content centered around a specific holiday or season
Latest trends in fashion, electronics, etc.
Stats that will likely be outdated within a year or sooner
Creating concepts and topics that are evergreen and attract visitors well into the future is wonderful, but you also have to be sure that you are writing for the humans and not just the search engines. Finding crappy evergreen content five years into the future won’t make anyone want to interact with your business, just like it won’t in the present.
You still need to pay special attention to all of the components that make up a piece of quality content, along with keeping the topic and format evergreen. Things like headlines, subheads, grammar and style still matter if you want to engage the real people that find your content. Check out 6 Ways Your Content Turns Readers Away to learn more.
While evergreen content is perfect for engaging prospective customers and search engines in the future, you shouldn’t focus on it exclusively. Posts, videos, and articles about things like product launches, events or exciting company news will always have a place on your content calendar. We recently created a post about our experience at INBOUND16 that surely won’t be relevant in the future, but was still important to share today.
Having a mix of both will engage people today, tomorrow, and into the future, which will help you make that steady climb to the top of your niche or industry. If you’d like some help creating engaging, relevant evergreen content, give The Content Company a call today at 888.221.5041.
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