Bloggers who wish to keep their blog relevant for long periods of time must get familiar with evergreen content. The concept is simple – create content that can be useful for readers months or even years later. There are 2 types of evergreen content – content that is universally relevant and content that can be updated once or twice a year to keep it relevant.
A good mix of current and evergreen content can help bloggers maintain consistency with their blogs. Some topics like How To guides, tools lists and basic tips are perfect for evergreen content. However, depending on each topic, they might have to be updated from time to time. This kind of content is referred to as sustainable content.
The difference between timeless and sustainable content depends on the topic. For example, “How to Choose Colors Based on your Skin Tone” can be evergreen content for a fashion blog, For the same blog, a topic like “How To Pick the Perfect Shoes for your Outfit” will also be evergreen but only if it is constantly updated to keep up with fashion trends. Similarly, other fast moving industries like technology, sports etc require bloggers to be quick thinking in order to provide valuable information to readers.
Different Types of Evergreen Content
Most blogs already have evergreen content but they don’t realize it. You can turn a ton of existing articles into evergreen content by making a few simple changes. Some common types of evergreen content are:
- How To blogs – These are simple step-by-step for accomplishing a task. The simplicity of the guide depends on the simplicity of the task at hand.
- Checklists – Similar to How Tos, checklists are blogs that simply have an outline instead of a detailed guide. These lists are great for staying productive as you can cross things off the list once you’re done with them.
- Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) – Building blogs around your audience’s questions can be rewarding. They will remain evergreen if they can solve your audience’s problems effectively.
- History Articles – Blogs/ articles that talk about the history of a person, product, trend etc are evergreen as the content will remain up to date forever.
- Tutorials and Glossaries: Both of these are similar to How To but have their own characteristics. A tutorial is a detailed step by step guide whereas a glossary is a list of terms that are used commonly in your industry/niche.
Evergreen content can be long lasting and deliver the right kind of traffic to your site. You can also experiment with different kinds of content including infographics, videos and images.
Re-Purposing Old Content
Re-posting and re-using content makes sense when they’re updated. Old content can still bring in traffic as Google allows users to search by date. You can take advantage of this by creating a separate tab with some of your most well received posts, a lot of prominent blogs do this and it works well.
While updating old content, you can consider adding more info to an existing piece. For example, if it’s a tools post, considering adding 2 more tools and re-arranging the order so it looks fresh. This goes for most types of list posts like tips, tools and How To articles.
Time sensitive content can also be re-purposed into different formats like case studies, eBooks and whitepapers. For example, if the blog is about a major breakthrough for your company, you can turn it into an eBook by simply expanding on the process of how the breakthrough happened. This will make it evergreen as it could help and apply to numerous other businesses.
Getting It Right
The first step to having a successful blog is good content. For content to be timeless, it has to be well written. Here are a few tips to create good content:
- Think about your brand’s image and how you can align with it through your content. Use the content to showcase your company’s knowledge and expertise.
- Keep the content fresh and avoid using old phrases, jargon etc. Your content should look new even after a year so constantly update it.
- Make your audience feel something through your words. It can be any from enlightened to entertainment.
- Avoid dates and timelines as they can give away the age of your article. This will make readers look for more recent information, meaning your content will not be evergreen.
- Do not blatantly push your products or services onto your readers. Successful blogs are successful because they give valuable, pertinent information.
One thing to remember while re-purposing content is that you have to add more value. Re-writing the same thing in different words won’t help and will annoy readers. Evergreen content is meant to stay relevant and for that to happen, you have to provide good value for your readers.