Content marketing is an essential piece of the digital
marketing puzzle.
Without it, search engines like Google have a harder time
deciphering what your business does and how it should be ranked or displayed.
Additionally, your customers may leave feeling unfulfilled in their quest for
information about you or your products / services.
Not all content is equal, however.
Evergreen content provides your website with long-lasting
results (traffic, leads, social shares) that don’t depend on the timeliness of
the topic. This type of content is relevant for weeks, month, and potentially
years.
It often takes more time and effort, but if done well, can
really pay off.
Evergreen Article
Ingredients
There are many ways that you can ensure your articles or
pages have a longer shelf life. Here are a few:
- Quality – It
should be interesting and useful.
- Solves a problem /
Answers a question – If you can help your audience in some way, your
article has a better chance of being successful.
- Strong headline –
Not clickbait – but compelling enough to sell the content within.
- Readable – Avoid
walls of text. Integrate bullet points, images, headings, etc. to make your
article more digestible.
- “Sticky” – What
this means is essentially people stay on the article for a while. The more time
spent on a page, a more positive signal gets sent to Google that lets them know
that page is useful or entertaining – which improves search ranking.
- SEO focused –
Your evergreen content should be written with your keywords and topic goals in
mind. It should also be supported through interlinking by other pages on your
site.
- Longevity – Try
to discover topics that don’t change as often as Google’s algorithm.
Planning Your Evergreen
Content
As shown above, your
evergreen content needs to have a bit of planning in order to make the
execution successful.
One of the first things to determine is what subject your
article will be on that has longevity and provides enough value to be “sticky”.
You don’t want to use news releases for this type of content. How-to guides and
beginner’s guides are great for evergreen content. They are valuable resources that increase
your authority while helping the reader.
Certain how-to or beginner’s pieces will have more evergreen
potential than others as the need for people to have different types of skills
come and go.
However, just because of piece of content discusses news,
doesn’t mean it isn’t evergreen. Some articles can be added onto to tell a full
story if things progress.
If you’re still wondering if your article has evergreen
potential, ask yourself these questions:
- Does the subject have evergreen
potential?
- Does it seek to answer a question
and establish authority?
- If it relates to news or trends,
can it be written in a more evergreen way?
- Is the title descriptive and intriguing?
- Is your piece broken up with white space, sub-headings, bullets and pictures?
- Are keywords reflected in title tags,
URLs, alt. text, etc.?
- Are there internal links to and from other
articles on your website?
- Should the piece explore a niche or
does it need alternative wording in the title to stand out?
If you’re looking to expand the evergreen content on your
website, call 407-682-2222 for a
strategy session with one of our expert content marketers today.