A lot of content marketing articles talk about creating evergreen content for your campaigns, but what exactly is that? It’s content that doesn’t grow old quickly. Think How To guides, articles on long-term strategy, that kind of thing. The key to evergreen content is that it’s useful (like all other forms of content), and it doesn’t need to be updated often. Unlike, say, a topic post using something that’s popular in the news this month. In another month or two, readers won’t remember why that reference was useful, and won’t share that content.
In order to create some epic evergreen content that is always useful, here are a few tips.
Always stay fresh
Your evergreen content should always feel fresh, regardless of when you actually wrote it. This is why using topical references can be an issue. Use the active voice when you write, and keep it conversational. Keep your writing quality high in these posts, as they’ll be around for a long time.
Do some research
Seeing what posts keep popping up for the keywords and key phrases that you’re targeting will help you with your writing. Why do these posts keep rising to the top? Usually it’s because they’re well-written and have lots of social shares. When Google sees that, it keeps the content at the top of the SERP.
Get specific
Along with your search engine research, take a look to see what terms and phrases your visitors are using to find your site. That’ll give you a good idea about what to write.
Watch the calendar
…but don’t ignore it. This means you should avoid writing about timely topics that can instantly date your article or post, but write about other times of the year that happen every year. Talk about a holiday or season, rather than a specific date or event. These cyclical times of year can help boost your site traffic at specific times of the year, so creating evergreen content for them is a good idea.
Make’em laugh
Eliciting an emotional response from a reader is vital if you want to make them remember your content. They’ll be more apt to share your content as well.
Create natural links
Linking to both internal pages on your site, as well as external sites is key for search engine results. It also helps lead readers and visitors to the places you want them to visit on your site, kind of like leaving a trail of breadcrumbs.
Help readers out
All of your content should already do this, but make doubly sure that your evergreen content is useful. If you don’t know where to begin with this, start typing in a search query into Google. With the latest Hummingbird update, the search engine is now matching how people search, and delivering content based on questions people ask when searching. “How do I write evergreen content?”
Keep your content useful and evergreen
And you’ll see it pay off for you on a continual basis.
This is the first in a series on evergreen content. Read the next article in the series here.
