What Is Evergreen Content and Why Does It Matter In Content Marketing?
Feb 17th, 2021 by Angela Ruth
You’ve probably heard the term “evergreen content” tossed around by marketers. But what does it mean, exactly? We’re laying out the definition of evergreen content, why you need to start creating it, and ideas for evergreen content.
What is Evergreen Content?
Evergreen content is a type of content that is continually relevant and interesting for readers regardless of time. Typically, Evergreen Content does not need to be updated or refreshed and will continue to generate readers for months (or even years) to come.
Just like an evergreen tree, evergreen content is content that is always green. “Green” meaning that evergreen content will continue to be relevant and “fresh” to customers long after you publish it. Evergreen content stays relevant to customers, with search traffic only continuing to grow over time. And as the search traffic grows, so does the content’s value to your website.
Not every piece of content will carry value over time on your website, so you want to have some pieces of content that will stay evergreen, with minor tweaks here or there to keep current. This ensures your content marketing strategy will stay just as good tomorrow as it is today.
Why Your Content Should Be Evergreen
Because evergreen content is always “fresh”, like the evergreen trees after which it’s named, it is an essential tool for online marketers to ensure a steady flow of traffic to their websites. Because evergreen content is sustainable and long-lasting in nature, it proves to be an inexpensive yet highly profitable form of content for all types of web marketers and businesses. Regardless of the time of year, through SEO, evergreen content will be the type of content readers will steadily flock to, thus increasing the growth of web traffic over time.
What Content is Not Evergreen
Just like a dated joke, content can go out of style very quickly. When planning your content strategy, it’s important to keep in mind the types of content that will come and go, fall out of favor and recollection, or even disappear entirely out of search history.
Content like news, the latest pop culture, trends, seasonal content (think holidays, sporting events, seasonal outfits), and announcements (product and otherwise) are all topical and won't stand the test of time. evergreen content is relevant regardless of time, thus, anything time-related, statistical, or seasonal is not considered evergreen.
Evergreen content is timeless. It’s content that won’t go out of style, isn’t event-specific, and will be searched months and even years after you’ve published it.
Updating Content to Make it More Evergreen
If you’ve been in business for a while, chances are you have content that could use some updating. A little spring cleaning now and then can help content stay or even become evergreen. Think of anything that does not need to be updated, refreshed, or considered a ‘trend’ to be evergreen content. Here are a few examples of evergreen content for you to use within your marketing:
Tips & Advice
Product Insights
How-to guides
Listicles
FAQs about a product, service, or your company
Content that is still relevant, but just needs a little refreshing
Why Long-Form Content Lives Forever
The best kind and consistently best ranking kind of evergreen content is long-form content. Some marketers consider long-form content to be anything over 700 words, while others only consider a 1800+ word count to be long-form. Whether you subscribe to one length or the other, the fact of the matter is that Google prefers content-rich sites. Your content is generally going to rank better with long-form content sprinkled in regularly. This doesn’t mean you should add word count simply for the sake of word count, but it does mean that you may want to rethink consistently short posts. A healthy mix of both long and short-form content is what you’re going for.
Long-Form Content and Evergreen
Long-form content helps establish your business as an authority on a particular topic. Evergreen content helps customers find you when they search topics in your industry or questions you’ve answered. Both long-form and evergreen content work together to make it more likely for you to appear higher up in search results. There are, of course, many factors in search engine optimization (SEO), but for now, focus on building a repertoire of useful information and quality evergreen content.
Evergreen Content Ideas
Having difficulty thinking of evergreen topics that will work for your business? Here’s a comprehensive list to get you started.
How-To Guides
Everything you need to know about X
Resource or Digital Catalog
Best Free and Paid Tools to Do X
Good Books to Read for Goal X
Lessons Learned or a Unique Viewpoint from an Industry Influencer
Common mistakes in your industry
Do’s or Don’ts in your industry
The history behind a product or business
Some common evergreen searches:
Money advice
Parenting tips & tricks
Weight loss & nutrition
Pet care
Home care how-to guides
Cooking tutorials/classic recipes
Creating evergreen content is meant to be an ongoing process, so don’t worry if you haven’t covered all of the topics yet.
Putting Evergreen Into Practice: An Issuu Example
Let’s say you publish a seasonal catalog with the new spring lineup, the latest color palettes, and seasonal trends. You can write about specific designs and materials you are selling, embed videos, and even link directly to your store so customers can purchase the items they see on Issuu. But products included in the magazine are only valuable to your customers for as long as you sell them, or during that particular season and style trend.
You may be thinking, how can I make a catalog evergreen? Here are a few ideas to consider writing about how to get a stain out of a silk scarf, a beginner's guide to accessorizing, building a wardrobe around a few statement pieces, and evolution of the modern dress. You can even reuse content from your magazine published to Issuu, by easily transforming sections into Articles or Social Posts to create bite-size pieces of content to use on social media.
Get Started
Now that you understand what evergreen content is and have a few ideas to get you started, all that's left to do is get started!
