Con­tent mar­ket­ing is a vital part of any dig­i­tal mar­ket­ing strat­e­gy and it requires a seri­ous approach to get vis­i­ble results.

Since the lev­el of com­pe­ti­tion among online busi­ness­es is get­ting high­er each day, post­ing news about your com­pa­ny once in a while won’t help you in rank­ing well and won’t attract valu­able organ­ic traffic.

Your key to suc­cess lies in cre­at­ing “ever­green” con­tent. It’s a great way to save time in the future and bring long-last­ing results.

What is evergreen content?

Ever­green con­tent refers to con­tent that has no expiry date. It stays fresh and ben­e­fi­cial over the long-term. The main advan­tage of it is that it con­tin­ues to be rel­e­vant long past being pub­lished, with search traf­fic grow­ing over time.

Which content formats are considered evergreen?

Below are the most com­mon for­mats you may take into account for cre­at­ing con­tent that will last:

• Guides & “How To” instructions
• Tips & lists
• Prod­uct reviews
• Case stud­ies
• Info­graph­ics
• Video con­tent

Writ­ing in these for­mats does­n’t nec­es­sar­i­ly make your arti­cle ever­green. But these for­mats tend to lend them­selves to ever­green writ­ing more than others.

Now that you have an idea of the most com­mon for­mats for cre­at­ing ever­green con­tent, let’s see how to put them into practice.

How to make your article evergreen

• Give a broad and full answer to fre­quent­ly asked ques­tions from your tar­get audience
• Pro­vide indus­try tips, expla­na­tions, or advice
• Explain the dif­fer­ence between two sim­i­lar con­cepts in your indus­try that may be confusing

Any arti­cle should bring val­ue and solve a par­tic­u­lar prob­lem. By giv­ing step-by-step instruc­tions on how to solve an exist­ing or com­mon issue, you edu­cate your vis­i­tors and pro­vide a solu­tion to treat their “pain”.

Examples of evergreen content

Ever­green con­tent ideas may be divid­ed into sev­er­al categories:

Questions & Answers

• What is the best tool to analyse your web­site data?
• What is the best plat­form for an eCom­merce website?
• What is the dif­fer­ence between a devel­op­er and a sys­tem administrator?

All the above are nice exam­ples of ever­green con­tent, and you may use these for­mu­las to cre­ate sim­i­lar con­tent pieces rel­e­vant to your business:

• What is the best (top­ic)?
• When should I use (top­ic)?
• What is the dif­fer­ence between (top­ic) and (top­ic)?

Step-by-step Process

For­mu­las for cre­at­ing ever­green guideposts:

• How to build a (top­ic) in (#) sim­ple steps
• The Com­plete Guide to make a suc­cess­ful (top­ic)
• (#) easy steps to make a great (top­ic)

Exam­ples of ever­green con­tent ideas based on the for­mu­las above:

• How to build a web­site in 10 sim­ple steps
• The com­plete guide on fight­ing hack­er attacks
• 5 easy steps to build a great con­tent strategy

Case studies

For­mu­las to use for cre­at­ing suc­cess case studies:

• How (method A) helped us to achieve (desired result)
• Test­ing bet­ter options to get (desired results)

Exam­ples of turn­ing for­mu­las into con­tent ideas:

• How set­ting the right KPIs helps in exceed­ing your mar­ket­ing goals
• 5 best plu­g­ins to opti­mise your web­site performance

What SEO content is not evergreen?

• News arti­cles
• Arti­cles focused on trends and cur­rent pop culture
• Sta­tis­tics and reports that quick­ly go out of date
• Sea­son­al content

Even though these types of con­tent aren’t ever­green, used well they can sup­port and diver­si­fy your con­tent strategy.

Evergreen content ideas for your social media

The main advan­tage of ever­green con­tent is that it may be applied to your social media strat­e­gy. It is a great time­saver! Ever­green posts don’t have an expiry date, and can be reused mul­ti­ple times.

Here are some ideas to cre­ate ever­green con­tent for your social media campaign:

Use your blog evergreen content

Extract the most impor­tant pieces of advice, tips, or FAQs from the ever­green arti­cles in your blog. Use one tip per post, com­pli­ment each of them with a strong image, and add a link to the rel­e­vant arti­cle on your website.

Use positive reviews from your clients

A pos­i­tive expe­ri­ence of work­ing with you can help build trust among your tar­get audi­ence. If you have a selec­tion of pos­i­tive reviews and case stud­ies of projects you were work­ing on in the past, use it as a part of your reg­u­lar rotation.

Use evergreen content from other reliable sources

Just like you are using ever­green con­tent in your blog to increase the lifes­pan of the arti­cles, oth­er web­sites also do that.

• Explore web­sites that share rel­e­vant and up-to-date infor­ma­tion in your industry
• Make a list of these sources and sub­scribe for updates
• Use con­tent cura­tion plat­forms like Feed­ly or Flipboard
• Curate, refine and repost this content

The best way to do this prop­er­ly is by shar­ing your opin­ion or giv­ing an addi­tion­al piece of advice to the con­tent you repost.

Tips to create great evergreen content

• Choose the right keywords

Before writ­ing an arti­cle, use the line of relat­ed search­es, Google trends, or Uber­sug­gest to pick up the key­word that is either trend­ing or not too com­pet­i­tive to appear high­er in search results.

• Opti­mise your con­tent for SEO and voice search

Use your blog arti­cles as an oppor­tu­ni­ty to link your arti­cles togeth­er. It’s great for SEO and, more impor­tant­ly, it pro­vides your users with use­ful con­tent close­ly relat­ed to the item they are show­ing inter­est in.

• Don’t use over­ly-tech­ni­cal language

Since your broad arti­cles are tar­get­ed at your poten­tial cus­tomers, they are almost 100% begin­ners in your indus­try. Terms that are too com­pli­cat­ed may scare them off, or bore them.

• Refresh and repur­pose your content

Ever­green con­tent is a great time-saver. Once in a while, refresh your ever­green items and reuse them.