What is evergreen content?

Content has an essential role in online success. But due to rapid developments, it soon happens that your content needs to be updated. How can you solve this? Well, with evergreen content. In this article, you will read what evergreen content is, what types exist and how to create evergreen content yourself in 6 steps.

Evergreen content meaning

Evergreen content refers to articles, videos, infographics and more that are relevant, valuable and timeless. This form of content aims to inform people about a particular topic. The topics stay relevant no matter how much time has passed

An example

You can compare evergreen content to clothes that never go out of fashion. Suppose you buy a white T-shirt of good quality. After five years, you can still wear this white T-shirt because it looks nice and has not gone out of fashion.

Why is evergreen content important?

Evergreen content is important because it contributes to an effective marketing strategy. Evergreen content delivers good SEO, relevance and quality to your business. This ultimately ensures more visitors, engagement and conversion.

The benefits of evergreen content

Evergreen content has several benefits. Below are some of them. Evergreen content:

1. Ensures a sustained traffic flow as people continuously read and share the content;
2. It offers you a better SEO position because the content is valuable and people share it;
3. It saves you time because no trends are involved;
4. Remains valuable to your target audience even after a few years;
5. Is reusable for different content forms such as text, video and infographic;
6. Ensures authority and credibility in your field.

The disadvantages of evergreen content

Evergreen content offers you fantastic benefits. Unfortunately, some drawbacks exist. Evergreen content:

1. Is quickly out of date when something changes, for example, products;
2. It is not trendy, which means you are not reaching a specific target group;
3. Does not go viral, which means you cannot cause a large number of shares in a short time;
4. Requires maintenance to keep the content as relevant as possible;
5. It has a lot of competition, likely making you stand out less.

What is the opposite of evergreen content?

The opposite of evergreen content is trend-related content. This is content that focuses on topics that change quickly. Examples are trends, news and seasons. Over time, trend-related content loses its value.

An example of trend-related content

An example of trend-related content is winter coats. Suppose you make a video about the best winter coats for the upcoming winter season. This content is no longer relevant in summer because no one is looking for a winter coat in summer. The winter coats won’t be trendy the following snow season either because new coats are on the market.

Should I create only evergreen content?

No, you don’t have to create only evergreen content. Creating a combination of evergreen and trending content gives you access to the best of both worlds.

What types of evergreen content exist?

Different types of evergreen content exist. Below are 6 examples of evergreen content.

1. Manuals

Manuals or ‘how to explain how a specific topic works, often in the form of a step-by-step plan. An example is ‘How to make a website‘.

2. Information

Informative content remains relevant, too. This includes content about ‘what is?’. ‘What is WordPress?’ is an excellent example of informative evergreen content; the article contains all the (background) information and tips.

3. Lists

Lists are lovely to read away; they offer your target audience much value. Moreover, many people are looking for lists like ‘the best x’, ‘X ways to’ or ‘X tips’. Check out, for example, the article ‘The most popular domain extensions‘.

4. History

What has happened in history cannot be changed. That is why this is excellent evergreen content. Some people are curious about the history of a particular topic. You can help them by creating content about the history of the market you operate in or about your company.

5. Frequently asked questions

Frequently asked questions (FAQs) help your visitors quickly find an answer to their questions without contacting your customer service. This makes FAQs suitable as evergreen content, as they are highly valuable, relevant and often timeless.

6. Glossary

Some jargon is complex for outsiders or newcomers to understand within every market. Consider the word ‘hosting‘, a tricky concept if you do not know the hosting world (yet). You can help people by creating a page containing all the terms. For example, take the One Glossary, where we explain all the essential terms.

7. Recommendations

Finally, you can use customer recommendations as evergreen content—for example, a customer case, a testimonial or a collection of reviews.

Creating evergreen content in 6 steps

Creating evergreen content is easy. However, it requires a strategy to get the most out of this content. You’ll find a helpful step-by-step plan below to get you started.

1. Choose timeless

Choose topics that suit your business and are timeless. You can find the topic through keyword research. Use a tool like Google’s Keyword Planner to find keywords on a relevant topic. Make a list of these keywords and create content for each word.

An example

Suppose you have a plant shop and want to use content to promote your shop. Through keyword research, you find out many people search on ‘watering plants’. In this case, you can create evergreen content as an article containing tips on how to water plants. You can link to the watering cans you sell in your shop.

Tip: Does your product offer change? Remember to change your content as well.

2. Do research

Before you start creating evergreen content, it is wise to research the topic, especially if you do not know about it (yet).

Look for content about the topic and collect the essential information you can use as inspiration for your content. In addition, you can refer to current and reliable sources in your content to reinforce your information.

Tip: Only write content that suits your business. A blog article about cars when you sell clothes is irrelevant to your target audience.

3. Create the content

You have gathered keywords and information; it is time to create evergreen content. You can do this in various ways, such as through:

• Blog;
• Page;
• Video;
• Audio;
• Infographic;
• Podcast;
• Whitepaper;
• Case.

Are you going to create a blog or page? Keep in mind your text should be easy to read. Make use of headings, paragraphs, blank lines and bullet points. Also, use keywords in the text to rank high on Google. You can find more valuable tips in our article on good content writing.

4. Add visuals

People are visually oriented. Therefore, it makes sense to reinforce your text through visual elements. For example, create graphs, screenshots or infographics. Or change the text into a video or podcast to reach a different target audience.

5. Share the content

Is the content ready? Great job; you can hit the publish button. To make sure your target audience knows about your content, publishing alone is not enough. Therefore, share your content in different ways. Here are some options:

• Your social media accounts
• Relevant forums
• Online communities
• Relevant websites
• Sources you used in the content
• Online ads via SEA

6. Keep content up-to-date

Finally, it is essential to keep evergreen content up-to-date. This can take a little work, but it is essential to stay relevant. Check from time to time whether the information is still correct. For instance, check the steps in a manual or the sources you have used.

Evergreen content ideas

Could you use some inspiration? Here are 10 evergreen content ideas you can use right away.

1. ‘The ultimate guide on [topic].’
2. ‘Avoid the most common mistakes with [subject].’
3. ‘An in-depth analysis on [topic].’
4. ‘The x best [subject].’
5. ‘The history of [subject].’
6. ‘The x most frequently asked questions on [topic].’
7. ‘X strategies to address [topic].’
8. ‘These x tools are indispensable with [topic].’
9. ‘These are the x most beautiful [subject].’
10. ‘What does [subject] mean?’

A retrospective

Evergreen content is an essential part of a good marketing strategy. It provides a good SEO ranking, relevance and quality to your business to generate customers and conversion. In this article, you have gained knowledge about evergreen content. You know what types exist and how to create evergreen content step by step. You also got 10 ideas to get started with evergreen content right away. Good luck!