Creating blog posts to market your company or brand aids you in a few different ways:
- Establishes your company as a thought-leader and expert
- Lets you create keyword rich content to help with SEO
- Creates brand awareness
A key part of marketing articles for a blog is “evergreen content.” It’s a phrase that is thrown around a lot, but why is it so important? Let’s take a look..
What is Evergreen Content
Evergreen content is content that, no matter how long after it is created, is relevant and fresh for readers. This means that no matter when they stumble across your article, it will be relevant to your audience and the information itself can live on, without becoming outdated. Evergreen content has (almost) no expiration date and usually doesn’t include stats stating “last year” or timely phrases. It should be as relevant so many months down the line as it is the day it is published.
These kinds of articles may not see an immediate spike in traffic the way covering breaking news does, but they will give you consistent traffic over time and often can outperform content that is based around fleeting moments or trends.
What is NOT Evergreen Content
A good way to understand evergreen content is to think about what it is not. Evergreen content does not include news articles; those are timely and informative and are a definite benefit in showing your ability to be on top of a certain vertical or industry, but after even a few days they just aren’t as relevant anymore.
Statistics-based articles are also not evergreen, as in just a few months those numbers can be outdated. This also goes for best practices for a certain tool or platform; while inherently most of it won’t change, with new algorithm changes, updates, and features being added all the time, it won’t be the most up to date resource and your audience will go somewhere else to look for the most timely information.
This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be creating time-sensitive content, but that you need to make sure you have a strong flow of evergreen content to keep bringing in new readers over time. That evergreen content works harder, longer than time-sensitive content.
How to Brainstorm Evergreen Content
You may now understand the value of evergreen content, but how do you brainstorm the right content? Consider the buckets these can fall into. No matter what you do, or offer, you can create content in any of these buckets:
How-to Tutorials
Tutorials are a perfect step into evergreen content. Whatever you are an expert in, whether a specific tool, a process, a project that people are trying to learn how to take on, how-to tutorials don’t typically change. Consider what you know and what services you offer and tie your tutorials into this.
If you’re a construction company, create a how-to on picking out new windows for a home. If you’re a life or career coach, a tutorial on how to organize your workday might be beneficial. People will always be looking for these kinds of tutorials at various stages in their life and you want to be the one they come across for this information.
Lists
There is a reason why we see so many list articles on the internet; they are easy to digest, they get to the point, and they are often easy to create. Lists can be everything, from your top video editing software if you are a professional videographer, to your top tips for business branding if you are a business consultant. Lists create an easy template for you to follow and are often very shareable content.
Start small, with top 5 lists, and build from there. Often it’s better to have a list that stays short and interesting, rather than a top 20 that might create reader drop off about halfway through. Make sure to put a personal spin or brand voice so that your content doesn’t come off like every other list out there on a subject.
Reviews
Product reviews stand to be evergreen, so long as they don’t get discontinued. And even then, with resale markets like eBay and Facebook Marketplace, a lot of items live on and you’ll have people looking for reviews before they buy. Reviews don’t have to be consumer goods based, either; you can review online tools and services that have paid subscriptions, letting others know if they are worth it.
With strong keywords and SEO, a review can bring in traffic for months, even years, after it has been published. Of course, timely reviews do best if a product is new, but it also helps to review older products if there aren’t a lot of others covering it.
Informational Articles and Topic Overviews
Another great strategy is to think high level. While specific content is great and definitely brings in the right audience, don’t forget that many people out there are just beginners in whatever specialty you have. This is why you are the expert they want to learn from! So think high level; if you are an accountant, create blog posts around common business accounting terms. Create a series where you cover multiple terms and explain them as simply as possible for those who never really thought about accounting in their lives.
There’s likely plenty of basic terms and definitions in whatever it is you specialize in, so break them down into multiple blog posts and you’ve got plenty of content for the future. If you are creating a series, make sure you link to related posts so that your content then becomes bingeable; these links show the reader there is more to be said on a topic and guides them to stick around and read more.
Thinking about Cyclical Evergreen Content
Evergreen content can actually be cyclical. What this means is that your article may be relevant at a certain time of year or for a certain event, but if the content itself applies year after year, it’s traffic will increase again during that time period.
For example, if you create a Christmas focused post that talks about how to best light your Christmas tree, while it may only be applicable for a couple of months out of the year, it can pick up on traffic again 365 days later. So while it may not be constantly visited throughout the year, that content can create spikes as the relevant season comes around again. However, if your post is the top Christmas gifts for 2018, then your content is only relevant for that specific year, and wouldn’t be considered evergreen. Think high level and of topics that come around time and time again instead.
Remember, evergreen content should not be relied on exclusively but should be part of your overall plan of attack when it comes to your articles on your blog.
It’s the best way to market yourself, your company, as a thought-leader in a particular subject and even can create some client leads for the future.
