Marketers love their jargon. Whether they are talking about authenticity, KPIs or pain points, marketers have a language of their own. The term “evergreen content” is just another example. Sometimes it can be difficult to decipher passing buzzwords from vital marketing initiatives. However, evergreen content is an important concept for marketers to understand and utilize.
What is Evergreen Content?
Evergreen content is marketing content that remains relevant, useful and search-optimized for a long span of time. Different from news content, which focuses on trends, announcements and time sensitive material, B2B evergreen content focuses on valuable expertise that’s built to last. Examples include how-to articles, product reviews, list-based blogs, essential guides, FAQs, instructional e-books and white papers. While these formats don’t automatically make a piece evergreen, they lend themselves to it and can help identify topics that resonate with your audiences.
Why is Evergreen Important?
Evergreen content is designed to be searchable and relevant over the long term. The material is laden with keywords related to general and ongoing queries. As long as the topic doesn’t become outdated, search traffic continues to compound, which is a powerful boon for discovering new prospects.
In addition to its SEO benefits, evergreen content showcases your company’s knowledge, answers user questions and provides vital information. As a result, your organization enjoys enhanced credibility in the marketplace.
51% of online traffic arrives at websites via organic search. That means more than half of the people visiting your website weren’t actually looking for you to begin with. SEO is still a vital part of marketing. Search engines use a crawler to imitate the way audiences may consume content. They consider the amount of time spent on a page, user engagement, and inbound and outbound links. The content is indexed and then processed through the search engine’s algorithm. Any content than can boost SEO at a consistently increasing rate becomes a vital tool for marketers.
How Do You Use Evergreen Content Effectively?
It is difficult to pre-determine what content will become evergreen. Ultimately, readers will make that call. That said, there are a few best practices to observe when generating potentially evergreen content.
- Research topics that address your prospects’ pain points and aim to solve their problems. Evergreen content should be thorough and in-depth but also consumable for the broad spectrum of readers. Write with beginners in mind, and ensure the content you produce correlates to your expertise and the products and services you provide.
- Use link-building to create a network of pages that is easily “crawlable” by readers and search engines alike. Use outbound links to cite sources, but don’t ignore inbound links that encourage readers to continue browsing your website. One practice of link building is to create “pillar pages” that serve as a centerpiece for a series of related “cluster content.”
- Refresh and revise evergreen content as necessary. Just because an article or blog has remained relevant and searchable for a long time doesn’t mean that it shouldn’t be updated. The business world and the internet are fast changing, so make sure good content doesn’t go stale.
- Reuse and repurpose your evergreen content. This doesn’t mean reposting the same article on your social media again and again. Think of your evergreen piece as the starting point. Delve deeper and identify correlating topics or alternate approaches. You can assume that if readers are still finding your evergreen piece, they’re also looking for more.
- Make your evergreen content easy to find. An old blog post that’s still compounding views isn’t enough. If a topic has truly taken off, redefine it as an e-book or white paper that can be found on your homepage or through call-to-action buttons throughout your website.
Improve Marketing Outreach
The ability to produce evergreen content can boost your marketing outreach. To accomplish the goal, tap into known themes and methods, but put your own spin on the topics. Focus on usefulness, clarity and share-ability. At the same time, aim to inform and delight your target audiences. When done well, you’ll make a lasting impact on your brand’s presence.
