Content marketers often struggle to create original content because it involves extensive research and distinct SEO considerations. Yet, your goal is to still bring in traffic for your brand.
So, what’s the alternative?
As a content marketer, you can do two things to help with rankings:
- Jump on the trend bandwagon
- Create something that lasts
Evergreen content is crucial for your content marketing strategy as it stands the test of time and stays relevant to your target audience. It receives backlinks, ranks for relevant keywords, and gathers organic traffic even years after its publication date.
What is Evergreen Content?
Evergreen content is sustainable, timeless content optimized for SERP to attract organic traffic and backlinks. It includes topics that never go out of date—the ones your target audience will always search for.
Topics are vital to creating evergreen content. They constitute tutorials, ultimate guides, and FAQs relevant to your target audience. Done well, evergreen content establishes your authority as a market leader and improves your search engine rankings.
Examples of Evergreen Topics
Evergreen topics stay relevant over many years. Related keywords for these topics have a high search volume.
Example: How to Lose Weight?
Non-evergreen topics are incredibly popular at the beginning of a trend but the traction fades away with time.
Examples:
- Election Results
- Football Scores
This is a Google Trend result for “football score.” The trend for the topic rises around September, thanks to the NFL season, and falls flat after it ends.
On the other hand, “how to lose weight” stays relevant throughout the year.
6 Steps to Create Evergreen Content
Evergreen content has no expiration date as it’s based on the recurring needs of your target audience. You must focus on providing solutions and optimizing the content for SERP. Here are 6 steps to create evergreen content.
1. Search for Relevant Topics With Keywords
Topics like ‘how to write a will’ or ‘how to do SEO’ will stay relevant as long as people die and the Internet lives. Every industry has relevant topics people always search for.
Use tools like Google Analytics to find topics with consistent traffic potential. Search for various topics in your industry, and pick the ones getting high traction. You can also check your website for articles that got high engagement over time and write on similar topics.
Next, use tools like Ubersuggest or Ahrefs to find keywords with high search volume. You also get a list of blog posts that use these keywords; pick topics of your choice. Check related long-tail keywords to maximize visibility.
Search for relevant questions and include them in FAQs, so you can rank for the “people also ask” section.
2. Create Credible Content
A content piece becomes credible when it solves searchers’ queries and contains legit data to prove points. Types of credible content include:
- Ultimate Guides
- Case Studies
- How-to Guides
- Tutorials
While creating content, you must also be mindful of your audience’s preferences. For instance, case studies may not work with B2C brands as they’re more suitable for B2B audiences.
Tutorials and how-to guides get attention because many people search for advice. Ultimate guides establish your expertise as they provide detailed solutions to users’ queries.
3. Remove Time-related Words
Time or date-related words like ‘this year’ and ‘2022’, defeat the purpose of evergreen content as it becomes outdated as time passes.
Neil Patel suggests you remove outdated content as Google considers it “meaningless information” and deems your content as ‘low-quality,’ which can negatively impact your rankings.
If the time is necessary to the context, the topic is most likely non-evergreen. For instance, the “Impact of COVID on Schooling System in America” is only attractive until the pandemic continues and may be irrelevant after schools reopen.
For date-related topics, keep the base information the same. For instance, in an article titled “Digital Marketing Tips for Small Business in 2022”; the context and information won’t change much so you can update it every year. Martin Splitt, a developer advocate at Google, says it’s better to revamp the information than create new content around the same topic.
4. Update the Content Regularly
Moz suggests that original content loses popularity over time. Content repurposing — reusing old content for more reach — helps you tweak your content to make it brand new.
Updating old content has proven benefits. Neil Patel suggests that it significantly improves rankings. Also, a case study by Single Grain shows how they got 96% more traffic by updating old content.
Here are a few tips to update your content:
- Update data and statistics
- Add audio and visual content to the blog post
- Add updates from your industry
5. Link Internal Content
Many businesses already have informative evergreen blog posts on their website, but this content usually gets buried under new posts. Make maximum use of older blogs by interlinking them with newer ones.
This way, your evergreen blog posts continue to get visitors. Interlinking also helps SEO and increases website authority.
Here’s an example of how you can interlink your content:
- Create a resources page on your website containing product guides.
- Add buttons titled ‘know more’ to guide visitors to specific blog posts explaining a concept.
- Categorize your blog pages so visitors can manually select what they want to read.
6. Promote Content on Social Media
Quality content is your greatest asset in content marketing. You publish a blog post once and promote it forever.
With the right distribution strategy, you increase your content’s shelf life and it keeps on attracting visitors. Ross Simmonds, the CEO of Foundation and Hustle & Grind agrees.
Your brand on social media can be a traffic source for your website. Here are a few ways to repurpose your content for distribution:
- Use blog posts to create short carousals for Instagram.
- Use bullet points for LinkedIn posts and quotes for Twitter.
- Use graphics from your blog post on Instagram.
Create Evergreen Content to Earn Traffic
Follow this six-step process to create evergreen content that attracts organic traffic and boosts your rankings. Remember that your job doesn’t end with publishing; top it off with promotion strategies like interlinking and social media. Repurpose evergreen content across various channels to drive continuous traffic to your website.
About the Author
Pooja Uniyal is a SaaS and marketing writer, who loves to add wittiness to B2B content and talk to experts. She’s the flagbearer of “B2B doesn’t have to be boring.” Follow her on Twitter: @PoojaUniyall.
