Content marketing is an impactful marketing strategy that more and more businesses are implementing. Not all content is created equal, though. Some content is trendy and relevant for only a short period, while evergreen content stays relevant to your target audience — and your business — for a long time.
Now is the perfect time to start if you’re not already creating evergreen content to drive traffic. You don’t want to miss out on the incredible value that evergreen pieces can bring.
In this article, we’ll be talking about what evergreen content is and why it’s important for your content strategy.
What Is Evergreen Content?
Evergreen content is any piece of content that continues to be relevant long past its publication. You could say that evergreen topics don’t have an expiration date like seasonal topics do. That’s not to say that evergreen articles never need updates, but once you’ve updated your content, you probably won’t need to do so again for a long time.
An evergreen piece often covers common questions or concerns your customers have. For example, a plumbing business could create evergreen content about how to unclog a sink. This topic has long-term relevance, won’t need frequent updates, and likely pairs well with keyword research for the plumbing industry.
When creating evergreen content, try to find topics that are relevant to your business and your target audience. There are likely some topics that your audience always wants to know more about, and that’s the perfect place to start. Topics that involve constantly changing information, such as current events, time-sensitive statistics, and industry updates, aren’t ideal for evergreen content.
Why Is It Important?
Evergreen content is important because you can rely on it to drive results for your business for a long time. You don’t have to worry about changing trends or events making the content irrelevant to your audience.
Adding evergreen content in your social media campaigns, newsletter, and blog comes with many benefits, including the following.
Return on Investment
You should always try to maximize your ROI with your marketing campaigns, including your content marketing campaigns. Luckily, evergreen content offers a strong ROI because you can draw value from it over an extended period. After the initial investment of writing or purchasing the evergreen content, you can just let it drive value for your brand. You don’t have to worry about taking the time to update it and adapt it to keep using that content for years to come.
By comparison, trending content requires an ongoing investment. You need to either consistently publish new content to keep up with changing pop culture trends or constantly update your existing content. Either way, you have to invest more in trending content compared to evergreen content. An evergreen piece like a blog post will likely offer a better long-term ROI.
Greater Shareability
When you create content that people want to share, you’re growing your audience beyond your existing readers. Shareable content can expand your reach and help you connect with new customers.
Evergreen content is typically more shareable since it contains reliable information your audience wants. If someone reads something interesting and useful on your website or social media feed, they’re more likely to share it with people they know.
Backlinks
Backlinks — links to your website from other sites — are incredibly important to your search engine rankings. Generally, as you accumulate more high-quality backlinks, your website will rank higher in the search results. Higher search engine rankings make your website more visible and help you gain more traffic.
Other websites are more likely to link to evergreen content than seasonal or trending content. After all, other businesses don’t want to link to content that’s likely to change or need updates. They’d rather link to authoritative, reliable evergreen content on your site. As a result, posting evergreen content can help you accumulate more quality backlinks.
Reliable Traffic
Evergreen content addresses topics that receive consistent search traffic. Since people regularly search for these topics, you can generate reliable traffic for your website by posting about them.
If you’re struggling to come up with evergreen topics that will generate strong web traffic, try using a tool like Google Trends to explore keywords. This tool will show you how often people are searching for different keywords over time. For example, the search term “how to clean a pool” will typically generate more traffic in the summer, while a term like “how to change a tire” will get more consistent traffic all year.
You can create all sorts of evergreen content, from case studies to social media posts. Some examples of evergreen topic ideas include:
Evergreen content will continue to drive traffic and provide value to your business long after you publish it. Make sure to include some evergreen pieces in your content marketing campaigns going forward.
Not sure where to start? Optimize can help you with your content marketing strategy, including creating evergreen content that will appeal to your audience. If you would like to learn more about how Optimize can work with you to develop a content strategy that helps you stand out online, schedule your free consultation today!
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