What is evergreen content and why does it matter for SEO?

What is evergreen content?

The term “evergreen” is well known even outside of the marketing world. It is used to refer to something that is everlasting and stands the test of time. This comes from evergreen trees which keep their green leaves throughout all seasons. Like the evergreen trees, evergreen content is content that lasts over the long term whilst staying relevant.

Evergreen topics and evergreen posts are pieces of content that remain high in the search rankings because they retain their relevance over time. 

Creating this content for your site will help to drive traffic and leads over the long-term whilst building a steady ROI. Trending and topical content will only be relevant to a certain time period. Over time, searchers will stop searching for these topics as they become less and less relevant. On the other hand, evergreen topics are based around search terms that remain relevant over the long-term. 

If you create evergreen content, it can become a great resource. Creating helpful, relevant content that answers searcher’s questions will help to build links between other sites that see your content as useful. As a result, your content’s performance will be boosted and it will help you to gain authority in the search engine results. 

Examples of evergreen content

You might think that content such as news articles or blog posts that are always on the internet are evergreen. But, this is not always the case. Whilst posts stay online for as long as you want them to, it doesn’t mean people will be searching for that topic months or years down the line or that your content will be the most relevant out there. Over time, traffic to the blog will drop off. 

However, some blog posts can be evergreen. Here are a few examples of evergreen content: 

• “How to” guides
• Reviews
• Case studies
• Lists 
• Top tips
• Videos

These formats do not guarantee that your content will be evergreen, however it is a good place to start. Videos are an up and coming format and a great way to demonstrate content such as “how to” posts.

Content to try and avoid if you want to make your piece evergreen are:

• News articles
• Topics that are currently trending
• Latest fashion trends
• Content about specific times of the year
• Reports that can go out of date

The above types of content are more than likely to become obsolete the longer it is online. This means that people may stop searching for the topic and your piece will stop driving traffic.

How to implement evergreen content into your content marketing strategy

When you’re writing evergreen content, you need to make sure that the topic you are writing about is always relevant to your industry. This means that no matter the changes to your industry or the world in general, people will still want to know more on the topic you are posting about. For example, parenting tips are a topic which is evergreen and always searched for. 

Once your topic is out there and is lasting the test of time you can then look into updating the content every now and then. This does not mean that you will need to completely re-do the content, it means you can reshape, reshare and reuse the content as you see fit as it is a topic which is always relevant. 

Another factor you will need to focus on is keyword research. An evergreen piece is great but it will not rank well if people are not searching for the keywords you have used. Doing your keyword research will help you to discover the keywords you would like your site to rank for. You can then implement these into your piece.

Creating evergreen content can also free up your time for other projects later down the lie. This is because the topic will remain relevant so you wont need to spend time tweaking the piece for it to show and be searched for on search engines. 

Why is evergreen content important for SEO?

As mentioned above, a piece of evergreen content can drive a steady ROI, it can build authority to your website if it becomes a resource, and it will stay relevant throughout the years. These are all an important part of SEO and building a constant flow of traffic and leads to your website. As the piece you have published stays relevant, so does your website, and this ultimately will boost your SEO.

If you want to know more about SEO and how evergreen content can drive results for your business, request a free digital marketing audit from our team. 

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