What Is Evergreen Content?

If you are in the beginning stages of building a website, you have probably heard the term ‘evergreen content’ tossed around by marketing gurus. But what is it exactly? Evergreen content refers to content that does not go stale or out-of-date. The word ‘evergreen’ comes from the plant which retains its green leaves year-round.

While any piece of online content can remain for all eyes to see for as long as the webmaster sees fit, true evergreen content will continue to remain relevant long after it has been published. This means that traffic will likely remain steady and the content will maintain its value for the long-haul.

Topics Of Universality

Evergreen content is written about topics that always remain relevant and do not lose much search volume over time. For example, content written about “how to lose weight” would be considered evergreen. There will always be people who are trying to lose weight and therefore this topic will always be relevant. The same applies to basic cooking content.

For example, an article about “how to poach an egg will remain relevant as eggs will likely always be a staple of English breakfasts. Other topics that could be considered evergreen include pieces about love, romance, finance, careers, pet care and parenting. When creating content for your website, it is important to find a balance of what is evergreen and what is relevant to your own business.

Find Evergreen Content Online

Perform a basic search on a wide variety of topics and you are likely to come across some excellent evergreen content. There are many well-known websites across the internet that regularly produce evergreen content. Some of the most popular include about.com, answers.com, Wikipedia.com, ehow.com and imbd.com. While some of these websites produce content on a variety of subject matter to reach a broader audience, others focus on just one topic.

For example, on ehow.com you can gain expert advice on how to do just about anything, from riding a bike to performing car maintenance. On the other hand, imbd.com focuses primarily on media like movies, TV shows, video games and online streaming.

What Will Not Stay Relevant

Distinguishing content that is evergreen from content that is not is never easy. What makes evergreen content truly evergreen is that it has no expiration date. That means it will still be relevant one, two and even 10 years from now. This makes content like news articles and articles about current trends non-evergreen. Some examples of content that is not considered evergreen include pieces about U.S. presidential elections as these occur every four years.

Another example includes one-time events, such as the UFC fight between Kelvin Gastelum and Israel Adesanya which occurred in April 2019. While holidays like Easter occur year after year, topics such as “where to buy Easter eggs” are not considered evergreen as this holiday occurs only once per year.

Tips For Strong Content Creation

When writing content, it is important to do your research and consider what type of information will remain relevant but still coincide with your business. You can often stretch the lifespan of an article by publishing how-to articles, tips or advice-type pieces about your industry. In addition, you want to write to a general audience and avoid language that could be considered overly-technical.

Also keep your content focused and not overly broad as readers will quickly lose interest in what you have to say. In addition, make it common practice to link to other posts within your evergreen content. This will provide readers with more relevant information and can encourage visitors to your site to stick around to learn more.

Consult With Content Marketing Professionals

While news articles and the like can result in a surge of traffic to your website soon after posting, this traffic is often short-lived. Once the newness of the topic has expired, your content will likely get buried never to be seen again. What makes evergreen content so valuable is that visitors will continue using it month after month, year after year. This means less work for you as you will not have to update or replace the content.