What is evergreen content and how do you maintain it?
No time right now?
Once work, always traffic: evergreen content can really pay off. You can read here what that is and how your evergreen content is properly maintained. We’ll also tell you how we work with evergreen content at t3n.
Evergreens aren’t just hits from The Beatles and Abba. The content of your site can also become an evergreen. Anyone who deals with SEO or content marketing will certainly have stumbled across the term “evergreen content”. You can find out what exactly is behind this, why such content is important, how to create and maintain it, here.
Contents
What is evergreen content anyway?
Evergreen content is the term used to describe content that is search engine-optimized on the one hand and timelessly relevant on the other because it revolves around long-lasting topics. They don’t cover seasonal trends or short-lived news. Like evergreen plants, they are always “fresh”. In addition, they offer the respective target group added value or the solution to a problem, which is why they are often read and shared. Evergreen content can therefore ensure constant website traffic. Evergreen formats are for example:
- Listicles
- counselor
- Instructions
- Lexicon entries
But not every text that deals with timeless topics is also suitable for becoming evergreen content. It is important to focus on one topic. Otherwise the text remains superficial and cannot deliver the depth and quality that are necessary to be of permanent interest to users. In addition, not every timeless topic is timeless. The guide “How to plant tomatoes” is timeless and the content will still be correct in a few years. Other topics, for example “Free Google tools for your online marketing” are also relevant over a long period of time, but have to be updated regularly because some tools are discontinued, new ones are added or the functions of existing ones are expanded. You can find out more about maintaining evergreen content below.
Why is evergreen content important?
If articles generate regular traffic, that’s a good signal for Google. Such content is then perceived as particularly relevant for certain search queries and interests. With evergreen content, good rankings can be built up in the long term. Thanks to its high quality and depth of content, evergreen content also helps you to build up an expert status within your industry. This content can also help you to build backlinks organically. And last but not least, with evergreen content you always have content in reserve, which you can share on your channels in social networks without having to re-produce content.
3 tips for creating evergreen content
1. Choose the right keywords
At the beginning of every content creation there is the choice of a topic and thus the appropriate keywords. A comprehensive keyword research not only helps you to find the right search terms for your evergreen content. Many tools also provide you with an overview of related search queries, which gives you an overview of which different aspects of the chosen topic you should cover.
Read about it: The best keyword tools for researching search terms
2. Think about SEO
Aside from choosing the right keywords, there are a number of other aspects that you should consider from an SEO perspective, so that your content can be well positioned in the search engines. These include:
3. Think about the target group
The way in which you prepare a topic should be based on your target group. Which topics are of interest to you? What problems do they get to your site with that you can solve? If you want to convert site visitors into customers, you should keep in mind that each user’s prior knowledge is different. In the best case scenario, you can manage the balancing act of picking up both beginners and experts.
How do you maintain evergreen content?
Maintain evergreen content? If it’s evergreen, why does it need care at all? No matter how timeless a topic is: nothing is set in stone. Over time, new knowledge emerges in almost every area. Also a contribution “How do you plant tomatoes?” may need to be updated if, for example, recent studies show that a certain fertilizer is not safe after all, or new irrigation systems are developed that are not yet featured in the article. Every piece of evergreen content should therefore be checked from time to time and updated if necessary. The following questions will help with the check:
- Has the topic really been dealt with from all important points of view?
- Have there been any new findings since the creation or the last update?
- From an SEO perspective, have there been any new developments that make further optimization of the content necessary?
- Has other topic-relevant content been published that can be linked?
This is how we manage evergreen content at t3n
For us at t3n, evergreen content is of course a big topic. In addition to the daily news from the digital world, we also regularly publish guides (like this one here), tool tips and instruction articles. To turn these texts into evergreens, we have developed a fixed workflow. In addition, Evergreens are a cross-team project in which the editorial team and audience development work closely together. We use Asana for project management. For each department there is a board that is divided into the following areas:
- Ideas: Newly published articles are recorded here that deal with timeless, general topics and thus have evergreen potential. After three to four months, the traffic of the articles is checked in order to place them in one of the following categories.
- Little traffic: These articles can be tracked, but have the lowest priority when republishing. If necessary, we will look again with an SEO eye to see how these articles can be optimized so that they generate more traffic.
- Average traffic: These articles can mainly be selected if they have become thematically relevant again or if there are currently not enough top evergreens available. Here it is decided on a case-by-case basis whether a republish is worthwhile.
- Lots of traffic: Articles that end up here should be republished regularly and are the absolute top evergreens.
- In progress: The person responsible for the department draws at least two evergreens into this column every month, which are revised and republished.
- Done: Then the evergreens end up in this column according to their republish. The date of the last update is also adjusted here. Based on this, the traffic development is checked again some time later and the article is sorted into one of the columns at the front of the board.
What exactly counts as little, average and a lot of traffic varies from department to department, because not every department addresses an equally large target group. The editorial effort for the evergreen maintenance is not the same for every article. Some contributions have to be completely or at least largely rewritten; for example tool overviews where the offer has changed significantly over time. Other texts, such as guides, require less maintenance. It is often enough to optimize subheadings from an SEO perspective or to link more recent studies on a topic.
It’s all in the mix
Evergreen content continuously provides you with traffic over a long period of time. Once created, it only needs a little maintenance to ensure a constant “background noise”. In order for content to become evergreen content, you should plan enough capacity for the creation. At the same time, you shouldn’t rely on evergreen content alone. With a successful mix of long-term relevant content and news or seasonal trending topics, you show that you are up-to-date and can cater to the different needs of your target group.
