Online marketing is unable to produce desired results without “evergreen content”. Every website must have it to be able to ensure ample productivity. This is the best way to attract quality traffic to a website.
Evergreen Content – What is It?
It is SEO content that’s relevant to a website’s goals. It also stays “fresh” and informative for readers always. The content is similar to ‘Evergreen Trees’, sustainable, and long-lasting. It has been successful in maintaining its relevance for a long time past its publication. Hence, traffic to such content grows over time.
The Following Online Content is NOT considered ‘Evergreen’:
– News articles
– Statistics reports (that may go out of date)
– Numerical reports that tend to get obsolete
– Information on a specific holiday or season
– Articles based on a specific culture/trend
– Latest fashion trends / clothing / jewellery
Things to Know About Evergreen Web Content
– The content has no expiration date.
– Content is successful in retaining value long term.
– Lists are evergreen
– Top Tips
– Instructional and informative “How To” tutorials.
– Entries similar to the encyclopedia (highly informative)
– Feedback and reviews on the product
– Images
– Videos
Although writing in the above-listed formats does not automatically make the article evergreen, these structures go well with the concept of evergreen writing. Clear, descriptive images and videos are very effective when describing ‘how to’ do a specific thing. For instance, a video depicting how to doing a specific exercise, make a cupcake, or do makeup is more effective than written instructions. A series of images are also very helpful.
Ideas for Evergreen Article
Some topics are forever. They just never get old! Listed below are some evergreen article ideas:
– Food
– Beauty / Health Tips
– Love and Romance
– Finance/Saving Money
– Weight Loss
– Parenting
– Jobs and Careers
– Home Decor
– Pet Care
So addressing evergreen topics relevant to your business will definitely work. For instance, if you sell beauty products, relevant evergreen topics may include “how to reduce fine lines” or “hair care tips.” In case, you are looking forward to generating leads for your gym, a post on the best type of exercises for women or those with back problems, etc. would work well as evergreen articles.
Best and Most Admired Evergreen Content Producers:
– about.com
– ehow.com
– wikipedia.com
– imdb.com
– answers.com
These sites publish evergreen articles in large quantities. The articles are available on a wide variety of topics. For instance, Wikipedia ranks on the Google search’s first page. And this accounts for almost half of all searches made on Google!
Evergreen Content – Some Important Tips:
Quality
The content needs to be interesting to read and capable of providing useful information for readers.
Don’t Write for Experts – Writing just to show off your experience and expertise on a specific subject can be dangerous. Experts do not search for help. Since your audience is mainly novices and those requiring help in a specific subject, produce content aimed at them.
No Technical Language – Audience do not understand huge technical terms. They are looking for help or a solution to their query. So make sure your content gives value for beginners. It should be devoid of any complicated, technical language. This will simply scare them off.
Narrow Down – Writing on broad topics will make it unnecessarily long only to make beginners lose interest. Most broad topics have shorter keywords which have a lot of competition. Stick to only simple topics such as “How to”, “Guide to”, “Top Tips” etc.
SEO
All posts need to be written with search in mind. These means SEO basics must be seriously considered while you produce and format content. Relevant keywords, tagging, phrases, and internal linking are important factors to be considered. These posts must be capable of attracting recurring traffic.
Link Posts
In case, you are planning to do a complete guide on a specific topic such as “Guide to Hair Care,” simply divide the broad topic into narrow pieces. For instance, you can write for “How to Oil Your Hair” and “How to Fight Dandruff,” etc. Thereafter, you may link those articles together. This is very important for SEO. This also guide visitors to other relevant articles.
Shareable
Evergreen posts are shareable. Good posts are always shared. So make sure you pay close attention to detail when adding headlines to articles and tweeting them. This increases the chance of posts being shared.
The headline is Important
The headline should persuade people to click on the article once they see it in search results. It should also entice them to share on social sites. Make your title descriptive, yet interesting to attract clicks.
Relevance
Articles must hold ample relevance to website audience. Here, you need to know who your audience is and the kind of content that appeals to them. Does your article help solve a query? Do your customers get valuable information from these articles? The content should be able to transform a visitor into a lead / customer.
Audience Data
Using audience data will prove to be very helpful while creating evergreen solution. The key to creating evergreen content is to use a combination of on-site analytics data, feedback / reviews from readers, and sharing activity of readers on social media.
‘How To’ Posts
These posts attract a lot of popularity among online visitors for the kind of information they provide. These are useful, informative and time saving.
An evergreen’s value is that it has the potential to continue to bring traffic to your site for many months, or even years into the future if it is true evergreen web content. The best content marketing strategy relies on a mix of both topical articles and long-lasting evergreen posts.
Evergreen content can drive traffic to your website and build awareness over a longer period of time. It’s the best way to gain the best return from an investment in content.
In a nutshell, evergreen content is that which does not date too quickly and retains relevance to an audience over time.
As a result, it will send traffic and leads to your site over a longer period.
Summary
Evergreen content is not something that’s produced just for the sake of it. Anything that’s created only with a sole aim to match content to goals etc. is not evergreen. The idea is to create articles that your audience finds useful. After all, all of the hard work you put in should pay off as well. Get the basics right and continue then good work.
One your videos, articles, infographic gathers a lot of traffic, social shares, and enjoys a long-term stay in the SERPs over time, then it is a strong signal that you’ve produced something valuable.
