Publishing high-quality content is an effective way to reach targeted customers with a product or service that fits their needs. With a growing amount of content available on the Internet, competition is fierce for high rankings on search engines and social media.
As a result, you need to work hard to get your content to the top of search results. With all the effort you put into each and every article, it makes sense to explore ways to get more out of each piece of content you create. One of the best ways to maximize the long-term value of your content marketing efforts is to develop content that will stay relevant for years to come.
What is evergreen content?
Like the tree, evergreen content includes resources that stay “green” or relevant all year round, not just seasonally. Evergreen content seeks to get more value out of materials published online by targeting topics that are likely to remain relevant to potential customers in the long run.
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In contrast, ordinary content marketing often relies on breaking news or temporary trends to get results in the short term. Evergreen content is ideal if you have a stable business model that is unlikely to change for several years. Once your evergreen content has been published, it will continue to bring in passive traffic for an extended period of time. If you build evergreen content the right way, you can look forward to revenue that will accrue over many years with minimal additional effort.
Write About Timeless Topics
When writing evergreen content, you should try to focus on timeless topics that are very unlikely to change in the years ahead.
For example, if you had a landscaping business, you could write a blog post about how long grass takes to grow. Grass has grown at the same rate for thousands of years, so you could count on an article about the growth rate of grass remaining relevant forever.
You should, however, keep in mind that the modern world changes at a rapid rate and any industry could face disruption at any time. It is always possible, for example, that a fertilizer company could invent a product that slows the growth rate of grass. You will, therefore, have to account for the possibility of some evergreen content becoming outdated due to unpredictable changes, but the vast majority of your content will remain relevant if you stick to timeless topics.
Seek to Answer Common Problems
In general, issues that are faced by a broad range of people tend to remain problematic for a long time. Problems faced by a smaller group of people, in contrast, are more likely to become less relevant as society evolves.
Additionally, articles targeting broad topics are better able to conform to disruption since most evolution builds on what already exists. When you write evergreen content that solves problems for many people, you can also enjoy the possibility that your articles could start ranking for broad keywords that bring in a high amount of traffic.
Focus on General Information
Many business owners make the mistake of publishing content that is excessively technical or too focused on minor issues. When writing evergreen content, you should aim to offer general information that is useful to a broad range of your existing or prospective customers.
Keeping content simple is almost always the best approach for attracting plenty of readers over a long period of time. You should also use general stock images to ensure that your content appeals to a broad audience.
General information is less likely to get outdated if you decide to modify your product mix, and it is less prone to becoming irrelevant as times change. Publishing general information is the most effective way to keep content ranking high over an extended period of time. However, the information you provide should be factual and backed up by data if it's an especially bold claim.
Target General Keywords
Keyword selection is a critical factor to consider when seeking to build evergreen content since search engines are likely to continue driving a majority of website traffic in the years ahead. With ordinary content marketing, it can be tempting to target keywords that are unlikely to remain relevant for long but have low competition. In contrast, general keywords are the best targets for evergreen content because these phrases are likely to continue driving traffic for a long period of time.
A good rule to consider when trying to determine whether a keyword is general enough is to consider whether the issue would have been relevant a decade ago. If a keyword has been historically relevant for a long time, it is almost certain to remain relevant over the next decade.
Continue to Engage Commenters
When you run a blog for your business, engagement is critical for starting conversations that can lead to a sale. Evergreen content will drive people to your blog posts for many years, but there is no reason to stop responding to commenters after a set period of time.
Many business blogs that publish evergreen content stop responding to comments after a couple of months, and this is a huge mistake. Plan to continue replying to commenters irrespective of how long ago a post was made.
Refresh Your Content Annually to Bi-annually
You can get a lot of run-time by applying the above strategies. However, all content eventually goes stale. Once a year, or once every two years, take the time to go through and refresh your content that has fallen out of relevance.
You don’t need to refresh all your content. Instead, focus on high-performing content and content that used to perform well, but has recently dropped off. For your lower performing content, explore if there are opportunities that you could take advantage of by updating it, for example lots of high-traffic keywords with low-competition. If so, make the changes necessary to improve your content. If there aren’t any opportunities, it might be worth deleting the content altogether.
Prepare for Technological Changes
Evergreen content will continue to drive traffic to your website as long as it remains updated. Responsive design is, therefore, crucial because it will ensure that your content continues to perform regardless of what new screen technologies emerge. At a minimum, your website should look great on both desktops and mobile devices to avoid losing traffic due to usability issues.
Maintain a Strong Social Media Presence
Evergreen content will bring traffic to your website for many years, but this does not mean that you can neglect to maintain your social media presence. As with all content marketing, a strong, consistent presence on social media will drive traffic to your existing blog posts. If you stop posting on social media, your followers will stop engaging with your brand. When engagement stops, traffic from social media sources will plummet.
Additionally, search engines will notice your failure to remain active and begin penalizing all of your existing content. You must, therefore, continue to maintain a strong social media presence in order for your evergreen content to continue getting results.
Missinglettr makes it easy to maintain an active social media presence and by automatically promoting your blog content for a year after it goes live. All you have to do is approve the campaign and your 12-months of social media content is queued to go. We can also remind you to update your content, at an interval of your choosing.
