Content marketing helps brands position themselves as thought leaders and drive prospects and customers to their websites. Often, publishing timely content connected to a new product launch or industry trend can generate high engagement from your audience. However, these types of articles lose traction soon after the publish date. Evergreen content, on the other hand, stays fresh and has the power to continually drives leads to your website. Read on to learn why evergreen content should be an essential part of your marketing program.
Evergreen content is virtually time-proof: as relevant now as it will be a year from now. The practice is the opposite of newsjacking, when a blog or article integrates a current news story or topic into an area of the brand’s expertise. The content should have no expiration date and highlight your company’s unique knowledge and expertise.
Evergreen content is NOT: tied to a new product or company announcement, a report with a lot of statistical data that will become out-of-date quickly or filled with references to current events and trends.
This kind of content acts a resource for internet users researching a topic related to your brand’s expertise. Evergreen content is usually more in-depth than a typical blog or news story and will remain relevant for an extended period of time, only requiring infrequent updates. Since these articles focus on your brand’s knowledge area and provide useful information, they are especially useful for search engine optimization (SEO).
Certain types of content lend themselves to being evergreen. When developing your evergreen content plan, consider creating the following kinds of blogs and articles:
Guides and how-to articles on a topic are great examples of evergreen website content. These articles are full of valuable information that searchers can come back to time and time again. However, the topics must be evergreen, too. For example, a company that is an expert on social media marketing could draft a How-To article on crafting calls-to-action, a practice that is unlikely to change drastically over the next few years. However, if the same company wrote a blog entitled, “Our Guide to the Top Social Media Trends in 2021,” that content would be out of date in just a few months.
Customer testimonials and case studies can also provide value for a long time. Unless the case study is about a product or service that is no longer available, positive customer experiences are likely to stand the test of time and provide prospects with a notable example of your brand’s impact.
Listicles are articles that use lists to organise information. Writing a blog that ranks apps, other blogs, software or otherwise can be useful for searchers and rank highly on search engine results pages. Just make sure to update these regularly to check that any products or websites mentioned still exist.
Another fun and creative way to provide value for searchers is publishing checklists for an area of your brand’s expertise. For example, a customer experience software company could publish a downloadable checklist of essential elements for a customer experience program.
Evergreen content is important for achieving higher search engine rankings and driving website traffic. It can also act as a resource for creating more content down the line in less time. Brands that invest in evergreen content can see the following results:
If your website is one of the top results when people search relevant keywords to your industry on Google, it can help generate leads and enhance brand credibility. Google rewards recently updated articles, but it also prefers content with a track record of providing high value to searchers. Once a blog reaches a number-one page ranking, it can stubbornly hold on for many years as more and more people visit and remain on the page to find answers to their questions.
Webpages with consistent high-rankings on ever-relevant topics can drive masses of people to your website. Ninety-five percent of all traffic goes to the first search engine results page, so holding on to a top spot is crucial to driving website traffic. Unlike news articles that experience high traffic right away and plummet in popularity shortly after, evergreen blogs gain traffic as they grow older. As these articles are linked in more sites, shared more often and remembered by more people, they only attract more users.
Not every marketing team has the time to constantly write fresh content. Evergreen articles can be sliced and diced, repurposed and remade into several different resources such as shorter blogs on a subset of the topic, infographics, downloadable templates, social media posts, and more.
To make the most out of your evergreen content, follow these best practices for creating timeless and relevant pieces:
Don’t make an evergreen blog about a quickly expiring topic. For example, try as you might, it’s impossible to write an evergreen article on U.S. presidential elections. The blog will be out-of-date as soon as the next election rolls around. A guide to the latest Facebook update will also be irrelevant when the following update is released. Instead, select a topic that will always be relevant and will not need constant updating, such as customer service best practices, tips for website creation or a checklist for implementing a sustainable cleaning program.
To reap all the benefits of evergreen content, your content needs to be valuable to readers. Google will reward content that keeps users on the webpage longer and answers their questions. Your article may need to be more in-depth with extensive research to be as useful as possible. However, beware of using too much data from recent surveys or reports that will become obsolete quickly.
Topics related to your brand’s expertise will naturally contain lots of keywords but be sure to read up on SEO best practices and optimise your content for the greatest search ranking results. You can also include internal links in your content to encourage people to stay on your website longer.
Even the most timeless content will need to be updated slightly from time to time. For example, if you referenced the dollar value of the social media software industry, you would want to update the number once every year or two.
After producing your evergreen article, consider how it can be repurposed and remade into other formats. Maybe you could pull out key statistics and checklists into an infographic or write a follow-up blog that takes a closer look at one of the topics mentioned in your first piece of content. Returning to your evergreen content will ensure you get the highest ROI.
Informative and timeless content drives website traffic and search engine rankings that can establish your brand as an industry leader and a valuable resource for your audience. With a library of resources that people can bookmark and return to again and again, your company can build its reputation and develop strong customer relationships.
Interested in developing evergreen content for your brand? Contact us today to learn how Mulberry can help your B2B brand create content that stands the test of time.
Theresa Colston is an Account Coordinator at Mulberry Marketing Communications, an award-winning full-service B2B communications agency based in Chicago, London and Australia. She enjoys developing creative marketing ideas and building connections to drive results for clients.