Looking for new ways to use content to get results from your website? Do you have existing content that you want to get better results from? If you answered yes to either of these questions, then you are going to appreciate the information provided below.
In this article we are going to show you how using evergreen content is something that needs to be integrated into your content strategy.
Even with all of the different forms of content (articles, videos, images, infographics, etc) there are really only two types of content; content that loses relevancy or importance over time and content that remains relevant for long, sometimes indefinite, periods of time.
We’re talking about evergreen content in this article, which can be defined as…
A perfect example of evergreen content would be an article that talks about the history of a certain person, place or thing. Historical information does not change and therefore remains pertinent and relevant for long periods of time.
To expand a bit more, here are some examples of content that would NOT be considered “evergreen”:
These examples, although not evergreen, can and would make great article ideas for you to blog about.
As with any other form of content, evergreen content needs to be created with quality being the first and foremost priority. Since the purpose of this type of content is to deliver results over a long period of time the quality of the piece is paramount to its success.
So how does one go about creating quality, effective evergreen content?
The 5 steps below will answer that question and get you started…
Although there are always exceptions, it’s fairly safe to assume that the people searching for and consuming evergreen content are not experts on the subject. Instead these are beginners or novices looking to learn about a new subject. Knowing this, it will be important to think about how you will tailor your content to beginners.
If the focus of your content is too broad, then it runs the risk of being too lengthy and too general to ever gain online exposure. These two things will keep your audience from finding your content and from consuming it. To avoid these things, a little keyword research can go a long way.
Some content can be “evergreen”, but still have a limited lifespan (e.g. “How to Restore Your iPhone 3GS”). Knowing this ahead of time will help you properly plan out the most effective URL structure and allow for many additional content opportunities.
Once you have defined your primary key phrase to target and the lifespan of your content it is important to remember to keep your content keyword centric and narrowly focused. Doing so will make creating your page / post headline and URL very simple.
Since evergreen content is usually for novices there will always be opportunities to expand the content into more detailed pieces. As you create these more technical, advanced pieces you will want to remember to link to those pieces from your high level content and back to your high level content from those more specific ones.
Often times evergreen content gets left out of a marketing strategy for one of the following reasons:
Although these two things can be the case for most content topics they shouldn’t discourage you from working them into your strategy.
Some of the most common sources of evergreen content like eHow, Wikipedia, About and IMDB have all built their audiences off of content that someone else has done before. One of these examples, Wikipedia, provides a great reminder of squeezing as much value out of existing content as possible.
Although most Wikipedia topics are evergreen, they remain useful and relevant as editors can keep the information updated with edits. This same approach can and should be applied to your existing website content.
Unless you are working with a brand new website, then you should have some existing content to revisit and refresh. Perhaps those high level, informational service pages of yours haven’t been touched in awhile. Or, maybe you wrote some evergreen blog posts that garnered a lot of attention and could be refreshed for a second life.
Here are some ways to squeeze more out of a forgotten source of evergreen content – your existing information:
Doing these things will help to keep your content exposed on a consistent basis instead of letting it get buried as newer articles get indexed. Someone who has proven that these methods work is Jason Acidre who believes that….
Hopefully by now you’ve got some solid ideas to create your own evergreen content. If not, and you still need something to get those creative juices flowing, then here are some useful ideas for evergreen content to help:
We’ve decided to list some of our hand-picked examples of great evergreen content as these pieces have been extremely helpful to many people and the amount of work put into them deserves a even more exposure.
Evergreen content, like any other content you put time or money into, should produce some type of return for you. Although it’s typically used to create foundational, authoritative information for a website, evergreen content can and should be creating conversions (leads or sales) for your business as well. Great content, especially evergreen content, can bring you long-term traffic, website authority and brand awareness.
How do you get this content to create business though?
Some simple, but important, reminders to ensure that your evergreen content produces an ROI are to:
Don’t make the mistake of creating a great piece of content and then just letting it sit and “rot”. Continue to give it life with the tips above and also outlined throughout this post.
And if you’ve run out of ideas to squeeze more out of your existing content or need to get started on creating new, effective evergreen content then we would love to help.
Need to start or improve your evergreen content strategy?
4 Comments
TayshaMarie
January 29, 2013
Great article, under “using existing content” you mentioned if it’s a blog post to remove the published date and re-share on social channels”, would it be bad to revise the existing content and then republish on your blog so it appears towards the top of your feed? If you do not recommend this, can you explain why? Thank you
imFORZA
January 29, 2013
There is definitely nothing wrong with refreshing a post and re-publishing it.
The best way to do this is to add your new content to the post and then change the timestamp.
One thing to keep in mind is…
If your permalink has the date in it, then changing the timestamp will change the original URL. This will kill any accumulated SEO value as the post will be seen as a new post with a new URL. The best way to circumvent this is to implement a 301 redirect from the original URL to the new URL.
Some other recommended ways to give an old post new life are to:
(1) Create new posts that expand on the original post and link to the old post throughout the new ones
(2) Create a “Featured Posts” section on your homepage / website that includes the old post to keep it visible no matter how old it gets
TayshaMarie
January 29, 2013
Thank you for this reply, it was most helpful!
TayshaMarie
January 29, 2013
Great article, under “using existing content” you mentioned if it’s a blog post to remove the published date and re-share on social channels”, would it be bad to revise the existing content and then republish on your blog so it appears towards the top of your feed? If you do not recommend this, can you explain why? Thank you