When it comes to improving your company’s digital SEO, content is king. Don’t take it from us – 72% of marketers say that relevant content creation is the most effective SEO tool.
Ideally, your marketing campaign will balance different types of content, including current news, trending statistics, and seasonal pieces. Content like this will present your company as current and knowledgeable about what’s happening in your field.
But what happens in six months when that statistic turns out to be disproven by a newer data set, or that breaking story becomes old news?
This is when evergreen content becomes necessary for your marketing efforts. So, what is evergreen content? Keep reading to find out.
What Is Evergreen Content?
An evergreen marketing campaign is a strategy that provides timeless content to readers. In other words, ideas stay “fresh” – hence the name.
Evergreen content typically includes tutorials, guides, or even product reviews. Basically, any information that has long-term use could classify as evergreen content. Content could be about “soft skills,” like how to be a better team player, or “hard skills,” as a demonstration of new software.
And it is this timeless content that gives your company a whole host of benefits, even contributing to your SEO efforts. Keep reading to see why incorporating evergreen content into your marketing campaign is the right move.
Internal Links
When you’re reading an online article or blog post, have you ever noticed that some of the links take you to outside sources, but some guide you back to another page in the website?
The links that keep you within the bounds of the current website are known as internal links. Internal links are great for raising your SEO rankings because they help Google understand what the important pages of your website are.
Websites with more internal links will rank higher on Google since these links are essentially providing more information on how your site functions. And by using evergreen content, you can ensure you have multiple internal links on every page of your website that will take readers information that they actually want to read.
Authority
Quality evergreen blog content isn’t just a benefit to your website – it helps other websites too.
Think about it: if your evergreen content is high quality and unique, it will start to attract more organic users from their Google searches. And once these new users share your content with their friends, their friends will share it.
This will lead to people using your content as a reference point in their content. They will start to use your blog posts as a source for their own pieces (revisiting what we discussed above, this would be an example of an external link). People will end up clicking that link and seeing your website without you ever having to show up in their search results in the first place.
Once your content begins to appear on other websites, Google will take note and view your website as a more credible one. External links show Google that other people trust your content enough to publish it themselves.
SEO-Friendly Timeline
When you’re producing topical content, like a reaction to a new policy or an announcement of a new product, you’ll find yourself on multiple timelines.
The first is the timeline to gather information. You will need to find what you need for the content as quickly as possible so that you can be one of the first to market with the information. The same goes with publishing the content. As soon as it’s ready, the post will be out there.
The final timeline for a piece of content is relevancy. A post about a recent event or seasonal trend will not stay relevant for very long. It may even lose relevance hours after you post it.
An evergreen post, on the other hand, will stay helpful to readers for months and even years after its publication. This means that your research and publication do not have to follow a certain timeline and can be completed at your leisure.
Smart will take advantage of this by creating evergreen content months in advance and scheduling them onto your website. Not only does this save you time and effort in the future, but it also is great for your SEO – websites that consistently post content rank better.
Free Advertising
Search engines like Google offer great ad services, but the benefits of an ad will likely go away after it stops appearing to viewers. The increase in views and potential leads is probably only a short-term gain, while the ad is in people’s minds.
Meanwhile, evergreen content acts as its own sort of free advertising for your business. It can continue to rank high on search engines indefinitely, appear in other websites’ content, and even be mentioned in your social media as a reference point.
This free advertising will help your company to develop an online brand based on what consumers want. Let’s say you’re a financial services company. If consumers are sharing your budgeting advice blog posts like crazy, but ignoring your other content, maybe it’s time to consider where you should focus on your talents.
Strike the Right Balance
Even with all of this being said about what evergreen content is, don’t forget to include more time-sensitive content on your website too. Create pieces that draw high amounts of attention for a few months, in conjunction with the longer-lasting pieces.
This way, people who view your site will get the topical information that they are looking for but will stick around for the timeless information that they can’t get anywhere else.
Now that you have the answer to your question, “What is evergreen content?”, do you need help creating the perfect content strategy?
If so, you’ve come to the right place.
Contact our team and we’d love to help you begin the process of turning your website into an SEO hero.
