When you hear the term ‘evergreen’, my bet is that the first thing that comes to your mind is an image of a pine tree or a eucalyptus tree withstanding the wintery weather. But, in this instance when I mention evergreen, I’m talking about content. If content is an important aspect of SEO, then evergreen content is vital.

If you’re involved with SEO and content marketing, you might have heard the phrase ‘evergreen content’ thrown around every now and then, without a clue as to what it actually means. So, what is it and why do you need it?

A simple, yet flowery, definition: much like a tree that withstands the autumn urge to shed its leaves, evergreen content stays relevant to its audience for many years, regardless of shifting trends.

But, how can this be?

Evergreen content is part of any intelligent long-form content strategy. You might have your blogs mapped out for the rest of the year, but how many of them will feel dated in a year or two? Content is consumed and produced at a rate like never before. Digital technology and the platforms on which people consume content become stale at a rate of weeks, rather than the decades we’ve come to associate with fashion trends. Surely your blog about wedding trends in 2018 will stay relevant for a while? While informative and sure to attract traffic in the short term, it’s unlikely your content will nourish the traffic you’re after over a sustained period of time.

You want your evergreen content to be relevant long after its published. That way, traffic to your website or blog grows steadily over time. Writing evergreen content gives you content to re-purpose and recycle in the future.

Crawlers and Spiders and SEO, oh my!

Feeling like you’re lost in the woods? Let me break it down so it’s a little easier to understand. The reason why evergreen content works so well for search engine optimisation is because of a little thing called crawlers.

So, SEO works in three stages:

• Crawling – the discovery of content
• Indexing – the analysis of keywords in your content and the storage of the data
• Retrieval – your search query fetches a list of relevant pages that match the indexed keywords and content

Search engines, such as Google, are constantly using software robots that are fondly referred to as spiders to crawl an infinite number of webpages for the relevant keywords that match a search query. Algorithms are used to index content regarding dated content – so, if views or traffic history for a blog post has recently died down then it can be indexed as dated or expired.

If your content stays relevant, or evergreen, then spiders are more likely to pull keywords from your content over and over again, slowly giving it more authority and helping it move up in rankings.

What isn’t evergreen?

Before I start explaining in greater detail what makes for evergreen content, it’s probably easier to explain what it is not. Evergreen content is not:

• Statistics that will most likely change or go out of date
• News articles
• Seasonal pieces
• Pieces focusing on current trends
• Pop culture fads and fashion trends

When mapping out your evergreen content, you’ll want to stay away from writing anything that readers will see in the 24-hour news cycle.

How to start writing evergreen content

Just like writing standard content, starting the process and finding topics can be the hardest part. Maybe you feel as though readers won’t find any of the topics you come up with interesting, or you’re still not feeling sure you’ve completely understood the concept of evergreen content.

If you’re finding yourself feeling stuck or at a loss for ideas, I’ve put together a short list that gives you a place to start.

Top Tips

For example: Our Top 5 Tips to Help Prevent Tooth Decay

‘How To’ Tutorials

For example: How to Incorporate Native Australian Plants in Your Backyard

Lists

For example: 35 Ways You Can Save Money Before Your Big Holiday

Informative Blog Posts

For example: What is Evergreen Content?

Some subjects never get old, but that also means there may be countless blogs or articles about the very same topic you’ve chosen. The key is injecting a little bit of personality and flair into what you’ve written to help it really stand out and endure the test of time. Have some fun with it!

Incorporating both topical pieces and evergreen content is a great way to help give your website more authority. Creating evergreen content for your SEO strategy is ensuring you’re driving traffic to your website for months, and even years to come.