How to Create Evergreen Content to Get Huge Links

A great website is based on a solid bedrock of great content and this is where evergreen content comes to play. 

Evergreen content is exactly that – it’s foundational content that provides a cornerstone take as an industry resource. Though there may be some small incremental changes to the content, it is on the whole good to go as a long term piece of content that answers fundamental industry questions, queries and provides deep, high quality information.

Creating this sort of  authority content for a site showcases the website in question as a quality resource and is not only exactly what Google wants you to do, but also what the world wants you to do and as such can be a great way to gain links from other relevant websites.

Why is it known as “Evergreen”?

This is a term that is even familiar to people who don’t work in marketing because evergreen trees (fir variety or pine) is commonly used in home Christmas decorations. The evergreen tree symbolizes perpetual life because they can retain the leaves through seasons, instead of shedding them. Just like the trees, evergreen content can last and it is also sustainable.

Maybe you have started thinking of how this is possible when all content online is sustainable because the blog posts and articles are not going to disappear. The term ‘evergreen’ is used to describe the type of content that will continue being relevant long after it was posted, and this results in traffic growth over time.

To have a better understanding of the content that is considered as being ‘evergreen’, we can have a look at types of pieces that are not evergreen.

Evergreen content isn’t:

• News articles
• Content on specific seasons or specific holidays
• Numerical or statistics that change with time
• Latest fashion and clothing trends
• Content on pop culture fad and current trends

Evergreen content doesn’t have an expiration and can retain its value over a long period. An article written about this year’s presidential candidate cannot be considered to be evergreen content because it becomes obsolete after a couple of months, and the keywords associated with the topic will die and no one will be searching for it. It will be forgotten, no matter how popular it was.

Evergreen Content and SEO

Evergreen content can have a lot of positive impact on your SEO campaign. Evergreen content needs less updating and can be great for ranking high-volume keywords. The longer your content can be relevant, the more the chance it has to climb to the top of the search engine results page. This means that the content has the potential of ranking high and this will lead to more traffic to your site.

For marketers interested in driving organic traffic to their sites, they should smartly use evergreen content strategy, with well-researched content with specific keyword targets. This is content that is going to be around for a long time, making it important to make it as strong as possible.

Types of Evergreen Content

You have several options when it comes to the presentation of evergreen content.

• How-to Guides: (example; The Best Guide to Help you Grow your Confidence). These posts are usually well-written and researched. Their main goal is providing readers with information in one place.
• List posts: (example; 10 Tips for Losing Weight and Keeping It Off) They tend to get higher traffic and audience retention rate because they are easier for the readers to read and digest.
• Case study: (How I was Able to Lose 20 Pounds in Two Months – a case study) Users tend to be more interested in reading personal experiences and happenings instead of the normal theoretical explanations.
• Personal stories: This works great because it is a humanistic approach to blogging.
• Glossary posts: Provides meaning and definitions of terms and acronyms used in that specific niche.
• Content curation: This is where you sum up the rocking content in the niche while adding some little flavor.
• Checklist: This is to-dos, a list of things that will help in completing/ achieving a given task effectively.
• Interviews: Interviewing famous influencer in your niche, and getting thousands of people to share will lead to a lot of traffic.

Evergreen Content Guidelines

Below are some guidelines if you are interested in getting started:

1. Choosing timeless topics
When choosing a topic for an evergreen post, follow the K.I.S.S rule (Keep It Simple and Sweet). You should avoid broad topics because they need to be explained thoroughly, and this can easily end up making the post too long. When an online reader visits your page, he/she is going to scan the website and look for the keywords they are interested in.

There was a Nielsen report in 2008 that showed 79 percent of people were scanning web pages and only reading 20 to 28 percent of the words. If the reader visits the page and in the first few seconds they aren’t able to find what it is they are looking for, they will most likely go for the back button and see other web pages.

2. Giving the content depth
You should invest a lot of time researching a given topic. You should start by reading more about a given subject on sites like Wikipedia then find more information on other sites. Researching about a given topic does not mean you can start confusing your readers with jargon. Keep your market in mind when writing. If you are creating content meant for beginners, then you need to avoid using technical terms that can confuse or scare them. The key to effective writing is simplicity.

3. Presenting your content with visuals
The world of online marketing is becoming more competitive every day, and marketers are realizing that interesting content is no longer about the things you say, but how you present them. Content that contains appealing visuals such as videos, photos, and graphs will better tell the story you are trying to relay to your readers.

There was a study done by the Poynter Institute in Florida in May 2004, which showed that people viewed images more than texts. People were attracted to images more than texts. If you are thinking about creating tutorials or articles on a given topic, then you should strongly consider using photos or videos to make it more attractive.

Promoting Evergreen Content

1. Evergreen content is more than just creating content. It will also involve promoting content. You want your readers to find and read your content, which is the goal of most content creation campaigns.
2. Highlighting it on your website. You should make it very easy for visitors to find the content. You can do this by creating custom promotional images to place on the sidebars or adding topics to the drop-downs (you should make sure it is relevant). Another option is adding a resource library or hub where you put all your cornerstone content.
3. Utilizing on-site linking. It is a good idea to link your evergreen content to other pages of your website. You should properly add internal links to your evergreen content throughout your pages and posts.
4. Promoting through off-site link building. If you create quality and relevant content that is evergreen, you will have an easier time getting other website and bloggers to link to it. Reach to a couple of sites and let them know about your post, and try to get them to allow you to use the posts as a resource in your guest post.
5. Use Alexa’s Audience Overlap Tool to find guest posting opportunities, backlinks, and sites that can link to your content. Enter your URL or the website of your competition, and you will be provided with a list of websites that are sharing the same audience.
6. When you have this report, you will know the website that your audience is spending their time on, and this is where you can begin to reach out to the sites so you can guest blog.
7. Boosting social media shares. A great way of boosting search engine traffic is by publishing evergreen content. This will also help to increase traffic from social media referrals. This is because your content will still be relevant months and years after publishing it. The content remains indefinitely. This is why social media should be part and parcel of your evergreen content strategy.
8. Setting up posting schedules that will share content in the coming future. Timely posts on social media lose their relevance, but evergreen contain will be able to hold on to its value. This is why it can be a good idea to schedule posts about cornerstone content in the coming future.
9. Promoting on social platforms favouring evergreen content. Some platforms feature posts that move quickly and are short-lived, e.g. Facebook and Twitter. There are other platforms like Pinterest that are very friendly to evergreen content. Using these platforms will help you reappear in front of your audience.
10. Try adding buttons that will make it easier for your readers to share the content on social media. You should try using the sharing icons for not only the blog posts but also the cornerstone content.
11. Engaging in search engine marketing. If you have quality and relevant that has keywords that your target audience is interested in, then you have a great chance for search engine marketing (SEM). Consider setting up paid search campaigns that will be targeting the terms and keywords that your audience uses in finding information that is related to what your business is offering.

Updating Evergreen Content

Evergreen content will need to be updated from time to time. You should not do a total overhaul or rewrite it, but you can make it better by doing a few touch-ups as time goes by. One of the best things about evergreen content is the fact that you can make little changes, post it again years or months after originally posting it, and getting renewed interactions and views. After some time, go back to the evergreen post and consider doing updates for the following;

Links. Go through all the links in the articles to make sure they pages connected to them are active. If there is an error message or the page is not found, then you should update it to something more current.

Keywords. Although the main keywords of the posts should be evergreen, you can add a couple of keywords to the post to improve ranking.

Product specs. If the product review pages or FAQ is referencing an item you no longer sell, then update it to what you currently have. Frequently changing your inventory will lead to the product-related posts not being evergreen.
Statistics. It is a good idea to refresh the statistic in your post by updating to the most recent data you can get. This will ensure your content is relevant and fresh, without having to write an entirely new article.