You’ve probably, more than once, seen content written over ten years ago ranking high on Google and other search engines. Why would Google prioritize such content when there are tons of fresh content not hitting the first page?
Reason — Evergreen Content.
Evergreen content is content that does not lose relevance for a long period. It could be several months, years, or even decades and the content is still accurate. A person that reads such content today will find it useful as someone who read it five years ago.
Of course, the creator may need to update or change a few things with time.
Generating regular organic traffic all year round while doing less work is music to any content marketer’s ears.
What’s more, successful evergreen content tends to attract a high number of backlinks years after the publication date. That’s why such content maintains high rankings in search engines.
Read on to learn how you can create evergreen content and boost your SEO efforts.
Table of Contents
Examples of Evergreen Content
Before we share tips on writing content that will stand the test of time, let’s give a few examples and ideas of evergreen content.
· Foods you should never feed to your horse: You can publish content around this topic in 2021 and still retain relevancy over the next 20 years. New horse owners would be looking for such information any time of the year to keep their equine safe and healthy.
· How to study for exams: Students are constantly looking for ways to improve their grades. Such a topic can only be outdated when learning institutions stop administering examinations.
· Tips for a healthy pregnancy: The majority of expectant mothers use the internet to gather information about pregnancy care. A blog post providing practical suggestions will be shared widely and hold its value for years.
What about examples of time-sensitive content?
News-related content would be the first to pop into your head. While news articles can drive a massive amount of traffic, the benefits are usually for a limited period. Traffic will plummet because people will eventually lose interest in that topic.
For example, you could create content about the 2021 Israel-Palestine conflict and see a spike in traffic. However, once the states reach a peace agreement, people won’t care the same about your content.
Mention time-relevant references will make your content less evergreen. For example, if you mention the current president by name, mention the current year, or sentences that reveal when the content is written.
Besides news articles, here are other types of non-evergreen content:
- Seasonal content (Christmas gift guides, Easter holiday recipes, Black Friday deals, etc.)
- Articles on trending issues or pop culture fads
- Statistical reports
Common formats of winning evergreen content
The best performing timeless pieces of content tend to adopt the following formats:
- List posts
- Tips and tricks posts
- Ultimate guides
- How-to guides or instructional tutorials
- Checklists
- Case studies
- Videos
- Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
- Testimonials
- Glossaries of Terms and Phrases
That’s good enough for the basics. Let’s now shift our attention to how you can make things work.
How to Create Evergreen Content
Here are a few tips to steer you in the right direction.
1. Start with keyword research
The target is to identify keywords that have demonstrated a high search volume over an extended period. You will need to create perfect SEO headlines or topics with these keywords.
You have a variety of tools to help with this. For example, SEMrush, Ahrefs Keywords Explorer, and KWFinder are reliable keyword research tools.
2. Deliver high-quality content
There’s no shortcut to getting and maintaining high rankings.
First, you must convince Google that your content is useful to the readers, better than what’s already out there.
There’s a lot to discuss under this point. But we’ll give a few suggestions that can help you make a difference.
a) Don’t compromise on quality
- Make your content easy to read. Create short sentences and paragraphs and include bullets. Use pictures and videos where possible.
- Use keywords in the first paragraph or within the first 100 words.
- Improve your page speed.
- Keep your website simple.
- Capitalize your posts correctly and eliminate grammar/spelling errors.
- Add internal links and build high-quality external links.
b) Be unique in content creation
Make your content stand out as much as possible while providing value. Aim to give users a reason to choose use over your competitors.
c) Improve your E-A-T
E-A-T is an acronym for expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness. You can achieve this by providing accurate content. Authenticate all your claims using reliable sources. Also, provide contact details and include your credentials in the author bio.
3. Don’t forget to update your content
Some sections or points in your blog pages can get outdated at some point. Make the necessary changes. Otherwise, you may see a drop in your SEO rankings.
There you have it! As you can see, evergreen content is certainly worth the effort, especially for content marketers with limited budgets and time.
Sources
https://ahrefs.com/blog/evergreen-content/
https://backlinko.com/hub/content/evergreen
https://www.searchenginejournal.com/evergreen-content/362554/#close
