Creating evergreen content 

Especially for brands, staying relevant is one of the goals to ensure you will stay top of mind for the public regardless of the time of the year. But in a digital age where we are constantly being bombarded with new information, it seems that trends come and go even quicker than before. 

How do you make sure your brand stays relevant even through the changing seasons? It is what we call evergreen content!

What is evergreen content?

As the name suggests, evergreen content stays relevant and ‘fresh’, regardless of when it is first published. 

In essence, it is content revolving around a topic that has virtually no expiration date — people will still be interested in that topic and search for it for years to come.

“Different from timely content that goes with the trend of a specific time, evergreen content stays useful and answers questions people have on a topic at any given time. Examples may include tips on how to write a good blog or how to lose weight. These questions will never fade away even as the world modernises,” says Michelle Cheong, our Content Director.

Why is it important?

Drives organic traffic

First and foremost, the topics for evergreen content have a constant level of sustained interest, and they always resonate with readers — which means that people will always be searching for it. And that’s good, because even on days when you’re unable to publish anything new (for whatever reason), you can count on evergreen content to continuously bring in an audience to your site.

One of our best-performing blogs this past year is a guide on the best video conferencing platforms for video recordings that include common options such as Streamyard, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams, to Descript — a platform more known for assisting users in creating AI-based transcripts. The article has been viewed more than 1,400 times. 

While it is true that the article was first published to follow the rising trend of virtual recordings in mid-2020, it has slowly transitioned itself to an evergreen piece since virtual recordings will not be fading anytime soon as we embrace a return to normalcy that still includes hybrid events. 

This proves that a well-written evergreen blog will continue to be beneficial, especially when generating traffic. “Creating evergreen content gets people coming to your site whenever they’re looking for relevant information. Whether it is one or ten years down the road, it will drive traffic to your site,” says Michelle.

Good for SEO

Evergreen content is prime content for link building. By providing valuable content that’s useful and stands the test of time, it’s natural that others would want to link it on their own sites.

An evergreen article can get backlinks years after it first goes live, and it’s also precisely because they’re link magnets that they tend to rank well in search engines. That’s because search engines tend to see backlinks as a vote of confidence — the more backlinks your content gets, the more likely they’ll be ranked for the relevant search queries.

Good for repurposing

Since you’re taking existing content assets and repurposing them for a different target audience, it’s natural that you’ll want to maximise their longevity.

As discussed in one of our other articles, evergreen content is great for repurposing into different formats. Turn articles into carousels, webinars into podcasts, reports into infographics… The list goes on.

“Remember that evergreen content can come in many forms, including blogs, infographics, videos, or any other type of content. At the end of the day, you want your content to be seen by as many people as possible. That is why repurposing content is necessary,” says Michelle.

Types of evergreen content

1. How-to guides

This evergreen content serves as educational content that breaks down a process and provides instructions on how to do them right. As mentioned by Michelle above, our article on how to write a good blog is the right example. According to a survey by HubSpot, how-to guide articles drive 38% traffic, more than any other type of article. 

While it is true that blogs are less flashy than short-form videos or podcasts, the new kids on the block, a well-written one can go a long way, given that it will be indexed by Google searches, the go-to search engine for today. Writing a how-to guide is one way to stand the test of time, so it is in your best interest to write one that relates to your business. 

Remember that how-to guides can then be repurposed into videos or infographics.

2. Tips and best practices

Another evergreen content that you should consider is creating a piece of tips and best practices that relates to your business. It establishes your knowledge and authority in your field. This particular article contains tips and best practices on how to create evergreen content. We have made other content in this category, including 5 Tips on Reaching Out to Millenials and Gen Z or LinkedIn: Best Practices. 

These articles tend to be listicles, which are more organised and easier to navigate, especially useful in today’s decreasing attention spans. You can also target specific keywords to be included on the list, practising good SEO and making it easier for Google to index and recognise them. As a result, it will be relevant on the search engine for years ahead. 

3. Glossary or dictionary

Work in an industry with much technical jargon that most people don’t understand? Create a glossary that explains the terms using plain language that a school-grade reader will understand. Sometimes readers don’t want a detailed explanation, just a quick reference to understand something foreign. 

We have done it with the content marketing buzzwords.

Tips for creating evergreen content

Avoid specific events and dates

Without a doubt, one of the fastest ways to shorten the lifespan of your content is by using language that is time-sensitive. 

Phrases such as “last week”, “this year”, “recently” should be avoided as they indicate a time period that might seem strange to readers years down the line. 

This means, you need to make a clear distinction between content that is time sensitive – like news – and that which is timeless, or evergreen.

Update regularly

While there isn’t much to be done to update evergreen content, there will be new findings to which you can reference and hyperlink. And of course, if you’re creating content with a title that’s dated with the year, you might want to refresh it on a yearly basis.

The world is not a constant thing: it continues to evolve. Therefore, updating your content with the latest statistics and happenings within your industry is crucial. This allows your content to stay relevant and keep up with the times. Updating your content means it saves you time and energy while still maintaining a consistent result.

“For instance, if you wrote about “Types of Content Mediums to Use”, you may want to include short-form videos like TikTok, Instagram Reels, and YouTube Shorts, on top of the usual content mediums like blogs, whitepapers, and infographics,” Michelle said.

Do keyword research

The best way to find evergreen topics is to conduct keyword research. After you’ve figured out the topics that are broadly related to your brand that you want to touch on, tools like Google Keyword Planner or SEMrush can help you determine the search volume of related keywords that are consistently popular around the subject.

Once you’ve narrowed down the keywords that you want to use, you can target them to continually optimise your content.

As Michelle said, “Focus on what your audience is needing and searching for. Using these tools, you can incorporate the phrases your audience is typing in on the search engine. Doing so will allow you to be recognised and indexed effectively, resulting in the relevancy of your content.” 

Create 10X content

In the marketing world, content that is the same as others is called a 1X. If it is a little bit better, it is called a 2X. So, a 10X is the best content regarding a particular topic. How can you produce 10x content? Take note of these three characteristics: 

1. quality,
2. uniqueness, and 
3. authority.

Yes, these characteristics are similar to that of thought leadership. After all, thought leadership is a piece of content that sparks new ways of thinking and conversations created by an expert in a particular field. So, it can be said that thought leadership is evergreen content as well.

Making evergreen content takes a lot of time and effort; you need to figure out a timeless topic related to your business. Once it is done, you still need to adhere to SEO practices. But, if appropriately created, evergreen content can earn good results on its own without needing you to do anything else.

Read more from Click2View:

1. Is Augmented Reality a Winner?
2. Make sure you aim for a content bullseye with Millennials and Gen-Zs
3. Four Phases of a Content Marketing Funnel You Should Know
4. Level Up Your Video Conferences — Create a Home Studio

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Click2View is Southeast Asia’s premiere full-service independent B2B content marketing agency servicing clients like Microsoft, Google, Visa, Prudential, and the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy.