Creating Evergreen Content: A Guide to Long-lasting SEO Success

The Power of Evergreen Content
Producing Evergreen Content
Choosing the Right Format
The Importance of Regular Updates
The Benefits of Updating and Repromoting
The Power of Repurposing
Conclusion

In the world of digital marketing, the term “evergreen content” may sound like just another buzzword. However, for seasoned content marketers, it represents a powerful strategy for driving long-term traffic and maintaining relevance in an ever-changing landscape. In simple terms, evergreen content refers to information that remains valuable and relevant over an extended period, unlike news articles or blog posts that have an expiration date.

The Power of Evergreen Content

Imagine a well-crafted list of SEO copywriting guidelines. Upon its initial release, the content experiences a surge in traffic. However, its true value lies in its long-term relevancy, continuing to attract substantial traffic even three years after publication. In contrast, content types with an expiration date, such as news articles, seasonal content, trending topics, and product reviews, typically witness a significant decline in traffic after a few days or weeks.

The potency of evergreen content can be attributed to three key factors: long-term value, backlinks, and SEO friendliness. When a piece of evergreen content is successful, it continually attracts traffic for years, eliminating the constant pressure to churn out fresh content constantly. Furthermore, evergreen articles act as link bait, attracting backlinks even years after publication and consequently ranking well in search engines. Lastly, if updated regularly, evergreen content proves to be highly SEO friendly.

Producing Evergreen Content

So how does one go about producing evergreen content? The key lies in targeting stable or trending keywords that are likely to drive traffic for years to come. For example, consider the keyword “SEO Audit.” A steady search volume over the past year indicates it as an evergreen topic. While focusing on trending keywords can be risky if interest plummets suddenly, the potential traffic is significantly higher if the topic continues to trend.

Choosing the Right Format

Next comes the selection of an evergreen content format. While any piece of content can be evergreen, certain formats excel in longevity. Ultimate guides, list posts, case studies, videos, checklists, and how-to guides are all formats that have proven to be highly effective. Ultimate guides and how-to guides rarely become outdated, providing ongoing value to readers. List posts can continue to provide value without needing significant edits or updates. Case studies remain relevant as long as the topic holds interest. Videos continue to accumulate views even several years after publication. Checklists are perhaps the ultimate evergreen content format, offering practical and timeless value.

The Importance of Regular Updates

However, there is one paramount practice that cannot be overlooked - regular updates. Regardless of how evergreen your content was upon initial publication, certain elements will become outdated over time. Therefore, it is vital to review and update your content regularly. This approach has helped my posts maintain high rankings (top 5 in Google for target keywords) for more than eight years.

The Benefits of Updating and Repromoting

There is an added advantage to updating evergreen content: you get to repromote it on social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter, giving your older posts a chance to reach newer audiences. You can also promote it among your email subscribers. By relaunching an old evergreen post as new after updating it - a method known as “the content relaunch” - you can experience a massive surge in targeted traffic without the effort of writing a new post from scratch.

The Power of Repurposing

Lastly, consider the strategy of repurposing your content into new formats such as video, reports, ebooks, podcasts, or infographics. Repurposing gives you more value from your hard work on creating evergreen content. However, ensure that you adapt your repurposed content to match the new format instead of simply converting it word-for-word.

Conclusion

In conclusion, investing in evergreen content is not just about creating top-notch material; it’s about proactively updating and repurposing it, ensuring it holds value for your audience and continues driving organic traffic for years to come. While evergreen content may require a significant investment of time and effort, the long-term returns make it more than worthwhile. By following these strategies and focusing on creating evergreen content, you can establish a strong foundation for long-lasting SEO success.

If you’re looking for a tool to help you create evergreen content more efficiently, check out Content Cannon. It offers features that can streamline your content creation process and help you produce high-quality evergreen content.

Interested in pricing? Visit Content Cannon Pricing to learn more about our affordable plans.