couple reading timeless content

How To Create Evergreen Content And Grow Your Traffic

You might have heard the term evergreen content been thrown around, but you aren’t really sure what it means. Evergreen content is relevant for many years to come, so people reading the content 5 years ago will still find the content applicable today.

Evergreen content is the complete opposite to trending news stories. You want to create content that will last a long time. This type of content is great because if you can nail a good piece then you don’t really have to do much to ensure it remains relevant.

This doesn’t mean that writing trending stories isn’t important, but you should certainly have a mix of the two. Your potential traffic for the story is so much higher if the content is evergreen. So, when developing your content strategy, make sure you think about the type of content you are planning to create.

For example, if someone is looking for “NRL 2020 grand final tips”, the content you create is only going to be relevant for a short period of time. However, you could create a story about the “greatest NRL grand final games of all time”, which would be something the people could keep coming back to.

Group all reading timeless content

Evergreen topics are things that people are constantly interested in and there are certainly a lot of great topics out there. You just need to know where to look, no matter what industry you are in, you’ll certainly find some great evergreen topics to include on your website.

Unless you are a bigger website and have the resources to pump out a lot of new pieces of content per day, you will need evergreen content. Because people are always interested in the evergreen content, you know you will get a steady flow of traffic (as long as the page is ranking well in search engines).

You do have to maintain your evergreen content; you can’t just leave it sitting there for years on end. All it takes is a little freshening up every couple of months and you’re set to go. This sounds a lot easier then trying to post multiple trending news articles everyday, right?

Have a think about topics that people will always care about and what to know. See if you can find any topics that relate to your website. Remember, if you are going to put in all this work to create evergreen content, make sure it is properly optimised so that you give the article the best chance of holding a high ranking.

Creating evergreen content does seem like it creates more work in the short run, but long term, once your site is beefed up with a number of evergreen content articles, it will actually end up saving you a significant amount of time.

So, this all sounds pretty good, but how do you actually create quality evergreen content that will provide you with all the benefits listed above? Have a read on below on the best ways to create evergreen content:

Tweak Your Content

Some people aren’t convinced about evergreen content because the world is rapidly changing, so how can there be content that stands the test of time? Yes, it is true that evergreen content does need to be updated to ensure the content itself is still relevant, as well as the best SEO practices used.

But if you can get the tweaking right on the content, it will give you sustained traffic over a long period of time, more then can be said with a trending news article that no one will really care about after a couple of weeks! Tweaking your evergreen content will determine its success in the long term.

There are generally three areas you need to look for when you are going in and refreshing your evergreen content:

  1. Review searcher intent – Google and other search engines are placing a lot of emphasis on user intent these days, and you’ll see that quite a number of Google’s algorithm updates are focused on intent. So, you need to ensure you understand what intent your content is trying to fill and tweak it around if necessary.
    A user’s intent will change over time, so make sure your content matches the intent of today’s user! Generally speaking, there are three different types of user intent, informational, navigational and transactional, so make sure your intent matches up with one of these.
  1. Update any data or links – It is always a good idea to include data and links in your content. Obviously, things happen as the years roll on and you will need to check that the data is still accurate and the links still working. There is nothing worse then a user reading a statistic that is clearly out of date or trying to click on a link that is broken.
    Sometimes with data and links, you will be able to find more up to date resources, so even though the existing data and links are still okay, you want to ensure they are updated so the user has the most relevant and recent information.
  1. Research if you aren’t ranking well – Sometimes if a piece of evergreen content isn’t ranking well then people tend to just give up on the piece. But, a lot of the time there are some quick wins to get your evergreen content into shape and ranking again.
    So, instead of giving up, ask yourself why you aren’t ranking and think about what those who are occupying the top spots in the search engine are doing. It is a good idea to research and make a list or spreadsheet with all the good (and not so good) things those on the first page of search engines are doing, and see how they could work on your own website in your evergreen content.

Proper Keyword Research

One of the most important things you need to do to ensure you create awesome evergreen content. Without keyword research, your content is essentially lost and doesn’t really have a proper direction. So, before you start typing away on what you think will be your next great piece of evergreen content, make sure you have some keyword research data to back it up.

If you don’t really know where to start when it comes to keyword research then the good news is that there are a lot of different tools out there that can help you on your way. Some tools do cost money, but if you aren’t willing to splash the cash, there are still a number of free tools that are awesome.

When it comes to the free keyword research tools you just have to be aware that the data is probably not going to be as accurate or in depth as data you would find using a paid tool. But a popular free keyword research tool is Answer The Public. This tool offers a truly wide range of keywords and topics, you are sure to find something relevant.

Try to Avoid Trending Topics and News Related Articles

If you are looking to create evergreen content, you need to avoid these types of topics; they are the complete opposite of what evergreen content is. This doesn’t mean you should avoid trending and news related articles all together, but they just shouldn’t form part of your evergreen content strategy.

You should also be careful when you refer to dates in your article. If you are looking for the content to remain evergreen then writing something like “last year…” will not make sense if someone is reading the article in 2020 and it was written in 2015.

There are a lot of topics out there that have a lot of hype around them. But the hype on these topics dies down almost as quickly as it starts, so try to avoid them in your evergreen content strategy. You can still try and use the hype to bolster your content though.

For example, if there has been a new re-boot of an older TV show, instead of talking about the re-boot, you could focus on a more evergreen topic like “[TV Show’s] Seasons Ranked from Worst to Best”. See how you can get creative and still try to capitalise on the hype while you can and create content that is still going to be relevant in a few years.

reading interesting evergreen content

Unique Content That Users Need

It is certainly a challenge to find unique evergreen content that no one else has written about before, but it isn’t impossible. You need to think about your target audience and the type of content they care about the most.

Then you need to think outside the box to provide that content to them in a way that only you can provide it to them. Content that is so good they don’t want to look at what your competitors are writing about. Content that they wait on your website for you to publish.

You’ve probably read that type of content before, it stands out and it is easily remembered. This is something you need to strive for with your own content. Do research, find examples and see if you can apply them to your own website.

It is a good idea to look at your Google Analytics data on different pieces of content to get an idea of which content is performing well and which ones aren’t. This will help guide and shape your evergreen content digital marketing strategy moving forward.

Final Thoughts

Creating evergreen content can seem a little bit daunting at the start, but there are certainly a heap of benefits that come with it, so it is worth giving it a red hot crack. A proper piece of evergreen content will be able to stand the test of time and, if ranking well in search engines, will provide you with a steady stream of traffic.

Trending and news related articles are also important to include in your overall content strategy. You should be looking to include a healthy mix, because in the long run having a significant number of evergreen content pieces will save you time.

Don’t forget, that your evergreen content will need a little bit of tweaking and a refresher over time. This is because the world itself is changing constantly and therefore nothing is truly evergreen. But don’t worry; it’s only a little refresher to make sure that the content is still relevant and up to date!

Keyword research is also an important aspect that you need to look at when creating evergreen content. Without doing proper keyword research you don’t really know the data behind the keywords and if the keywords you are targeting are actually evergreen.

Creating unique pieces of content is important as well. Look for ways you can stand out from your competitors. Think about what you are going to offer users that they can’t get anywhere else. This will ensure they keep coming back and you have a steady flow of traffic to your content.