What Is Evergreen Content? A Complete Guide

Evergreen content is one of those buzzwords that seems to get thrown around a lot by marketing experts. But, what exactly does it mean?

To put it simply, evergreen content simply refers to content that remains relevant no matter how much time goes by. However, there’s a whole lot more that goes into this idea than just that. 

If you’re interested in creating content that continues working for you no matter how much time elapses, this guide is for you. Let’s take a deep dive into the world of evergreen content and why it matters. 

Let’s start with the basics: what exactly is evergreen content?

Evergreen content is simply content that maintains its relevance regardless of how much time passes. It’s content that remains “fresh” and will generate or even increase search traffic long after the initial publication date. 

The term evergreen content comes from the idea of evergreen trees, which keep their leaves in all seasons instead of losing them. 

Just like these types of trees, evergreen content maintains relevance regardless of what the business and online climates look like.

While most people think of evergreen content as being blog content, it can actually refer to social media posts, videos, and other types of content as well. The point remains the same—whatever it is, the content stays relevant for extended periods of time. 

Many people make the mistake of thinking that all online content is sustainable since once published, it remains online until someone takes it down. However, the truth is that a lot of content becomes outdated over time. 

As a result, it loses relevance and ceases to drive traffic to businesses’ sites.

But when we talk about Evergreen and enduring, we mean that the content as such continues to be relevant long after its publication.

Evergreen Content is achieved through strategic writing that consistently generates interest over time.

The idea behind it is that there are always readers who want to consume this type of content.

Some characteristics of Evergreen Content are:

Although that’s not an exact recipe for evergreen content, those are characteristics that many pieces of this type of content contain. 

So, you’ve got a clear idea of what evergreen content is. But, why does it matter?

There are a couple of different reasons why businesses and marketers specifically tend to focus on evergreen content. 

Let’s take a look at a few of those reasons in detail.

The key to this evergreen content is that it will always be interesting for your audience. 

As a result, the clicks can maintain steady or even increase over time. This is important for driving traffic to sites in the future. 

Much like how passive income generates continuous income without additional work on your part, evergreen content drives continuous traffic without additional work on the end of the author.

Another benefit of this type of content is that evergreen topics are frequently searched for.  

This allows for rapid ranking within search engines and achieving growth in results.

As a result, it can provide serious boosts in businesses’ positions on SERPs, helping them increase the amount of traffic to their site in a short period of time. 

As mentioned earlier, evergreen content will constantly drive traffic to your site. 

Since this isn’t trending content, the impact on organic traffic tends to be much greater. You can boost your organic traffic without it dwindling and causing your business to fall back off the map. 

Evergreen content is a great way to reach new audiences. Even though the content remains the same, the target audience may shift over time. 

This can give you access to new markets without having to take any additional action on your part. 

Thinking about topics for content is tough. And, when you publish a large number of topics at a time, it can be an incredible amount of work. 

In contrast, evergreen content saves you time. Instead of publishing articles that will lose validity and importance in a little period, you can focus on fewer topics that will remain relevant well into the future.

Evergreen content tends to have a few main themes and formats. 

A lot of the time, this type of content consists of: 

Let’s take a closer look at each of these types of evergreen content. 

This is one of the best-known formats of evergreen content.

Often, you’ll find these types of guides follow step-by-step formats, providing clear direction for how to complete a task. 

Other times, these guides consist more of a question-and-answer format, where the answer is something that has been proven and will remain static in the future. 

Reviews are usually long-form testimonials about a practice or the use of a product. 

While you have to be careful as some products can go out of date, many times, these types of reviews continue to be relevant to future users. 

As long as the statistics speak of data that will not fluctuate for at least a few months, content backed by numbers tends to stay relevant. 

This tends to be particularly true when talking about hard and fast case studies. Case studies can be a great way to drive traffic and increase the authority of your brand, too. 

Listicles are articles that feature lists of products or items. They’re easy and entertaining to read.

Listicles may need to be updated from time to time, but depending on the topic, you can generally create content that won’t drastically change over time. 

Of course, these aren’t the only formats that fall under the umbrella of evergreen content. A few other examples that work well include: 

Remember, writing in these formats doesn’t ensure that it will be evergreen. But, these are structures that work very well for this type of writing.

Topics are another major part of determining what constitutes evergreen content. After all, if the topic you select will lose relevance over time, the format you use to write about it won’t matter. 

A few examples of sustainable topics include: 

Of course, the exact topic and niche you pick need to be focused on your particular business. However, you want to come up with topics that are repeatedly searched, and that won’t change drastically over time. 

By combining your niche with keyword research, you can successfully come up with valuable evergreen topics. 

Now that you’ve got a clearer understanding of evergreen content let’s talk about what doesn’t constitute evergreen content. 

Having this clear from the get-go will make it easier for you to develop the right type of content for your business. 

In general, topics related to trends or time-sensitive topics would not fall under the umbrella of evergreen content. Likewise, topics such as fashion, stock market, the coverage of events, updates on sporting events, or style since these topics change relatively quickly. 

At some point or another, these types of content lose momentum, and people stop searching for them. When people stop searching for them, they stop driving traffic to your website.

Now, that’s not to say that this type of content is bad. It all depends on what your goals are for your content. 

For example, a daily newspaper certainly doesn’t specialize in publishing perennial content as its goal is to keep the public informed about what is happening recently and in almost real-time. Instead, they seek to sell news.

A few other examples of things that aren’t considered evergreen content include: 

How to Write Evergreen Content

With all the ins and outs of evergreen content out of the way, let’s get down to what you really want to know: how to write evergreen content of your own. 

The exact process may vary slightly depending on your business, but in general, you’ll want to follow a four-step process. 

Here’s how to go about it. 

Choosing the right topic may sound simple, but it’s a task that requires a bit of research and a strategy.

Look for topics that are relevant to your website, and that can drive real traffic. Then, determine if this topic has short-term or long-term relevancy. If it does, you’ve got a good foundation for evergreen content. 

Of course, the topics must be relevant both to your website, current readers, and future users. 

A good strategy to analyze what type of content your customers identify with is analyzing the metrics of your posts and deducing which ones have been most read or shared. Use that as a jumping-off point for coming up with topic ideas.

You can start with the selection of keywords according to user searches and specialized tools. When looking, try to include varied terms that allow you to cover a broad spectrum of searches.

Keep in mind that keywords are time sensitive, so it’s best to find out what’s been trending for a while. You’ll want to look at what keywords have historically generated large amounts of traffic vs. which are relatively new.

Likewise, it doesn’t hurt to take a look at the competition. Find out what others are doing and how you can make it better and more attractive to readers.

Once you’ve got the topic selected and have conducted keyword research, you’re ready to get to work. 

Remember to give it a unique, singular tone and provide quality information. 

You’ll also want to use user-friendly language. Language that’s overly technical can be off-putting to certain audiences, limiting the number of users you’ll actually reach. 

Another thing to keep in mind is to avoid using dates or pieces of information that will date your article. You want to make sure that the article stays current, and things like dates and time-sensitive information tend to date your article. 

Even though evergreen content remains relevant over time, that doesn’t mean it remains the best over time. As new competitors start writing about the same topics, your post may not have the same impact that it once did. 

A good way to prevent this from happening is to go back and update your content from time to time. 

You don’t have to do this every month, but even just going in once a year can be a savvy way to keep your content at the top of SERPs. 

A few other tips for updating your content include: 

While there are tons of different types of content out there that you can leverage to grow your business, evergreen content is one of the best. 

With this type of content, you can take advantage of constant traffic increases without additional effort on your part. 

Are you ready to implement this type of value on your own site? Get in touch with our team to learn about our content marketing plans and how we can help you grow your company.