Maisie Lloyd
I'm passionate about recording the world, but most of all driven by creativity and collaborative environments. My experience revolves around the production of digital content, pertaining to graphic design, writing copy, and video and audio content.
What is evergreen content?
Evergreen content is a name given to content that isn’t confined to time-relevant news, entertainment or information. Evergreen content provides the reader value at any point of reading, rather than needing to be read in a timely fashion.
A great example of evergreen content would be something like an encyclopedia. An encyclopedia is a great resource – it contains information which will be applicable for an extended period of time.
What benefits does creating evergreen content have?
Evergreen content is essential for long-term success within your content strategy, especially if you’re not in the business of reporting news. Evergreen content provides the opportunity to boost engagement over a longer period, rather than a short burst of traffic, which is more consistent with time-sensitive content.
Evergreen content allows you to demonstrate your authority across a subject matter, which can help propel you to success in your field! When Google recognises that you’re educated in your area of expertise, it’s more likely to rank you higher when the relevant search queries come in.
This type of content requires less work to be done in future, you’re less likely to need to refresh the content as quickly, which can save time and budget later down the line too.
How to ideate for evergreen content
- Research
As with any content you create, you need to make sure your understanding is fully formed before trying to write content about it- after all, you need to be confident in the information you provide your audience with.
Research also creates the opportunity to find new sources of inspiration. That doesn’t mean just copy what the other content says; find your own unique spin on it to provide unique and valuable evergreen content.
- Create a tracking document for your content.
Ideating is an informed process, creating a content calendar and content audit document ensures you can track existing and potential content. This foresight is a practical method for monitoring and diversifying content accordingly. You’re able to forge a stronger network in your work by finding relevant ways to link to previous content.
- Start a conversation with your peers.
Sometimes the best ideation sessions come from the input of multiple voices. Think of it like the ‘six thinking hats’ approach, each person provides a unique perspective, allowing you to tap into new ideas which otherwise wouldn’t have been possible.
- Start with the obvious and work backwards.
Let’s say you’ve never created a piece of evergreen content before, you’ll need to pinpoint your industry-relevant topics and use them as the building blocks to your content plan.
Let’s say your subject matter is ‘TV Sales’, you can find topics that pertain to TVS – for instance, ‘What are the pixels on a TV?’. This type of question opens up the opportunity to create everlasting content that will always have relevance to your specific subject matter.
- Make sure to do keyword research.
Keyword research is a critical aspect of any content production- you need to make sure you’re incorporating them into your copy in order to rank for the relevant search terms.
Types of evergreen content
Comprehensive Guides are an extensive document on a specific topic, it covers all the important information and questions a person might have on a subject matter. Take our Beginners Guide to crawl depth as an example.
‘What is’ articles are as they sound; they cover the basic information about a subject, including what it is, why it is, and who might use it. It’s not as complex as a comprehensive guide, making it better suited to people doing a quick search on something.
Listicles are straightforward, easy-to-digest list list-formatted information. This is particularly useful for the audience type that wants to skim and get only the essential information.
A How-To article explains the process of something to the reader, it will contain information and facts relevant to teaching a process to the audience.
