The Beginner’s Guide to Evergreen Content

If you’re involved in creating content or SEO optimization, you’ll have heard of evergreen content. 

For many marketers, creating evergreen content is crucial as it’s not time sensitive and remains relevant forever (when done right). This means it can help build SEO juice to get higher rankings on search engines, attract high-quality backlinks, and drive traffic.  

It’s worth knowing that artificial intelligence (AI) is changing how content is found on Google. AI Overviews (which some describe as featured snippets on steroids) uses AI to generate detailed search results so users get the exact information they’re looking for – and this means prioritizing in-depth and authoritative content.

So what is evergreen content and how can you leverage it as part of your content marketing plan? 

In this article, we list the formats that complement this approach to content generation and how you can make it work for your business.

• What is evergreen content?
• Common evergreen formats
• What are examples of evergreen content?
• Tips for writing evergreen content
• How can you promote evergreen content?
• Update evergreen content regularly
• More evergreen content ideas

Evergreen content is search-optimized content that is continually relevant and stays ‘fresh’ for readers over a long period of time – just like the evergreen pines and firs in nature that stay green all year round.  

You may think that all online content is sustainable; after all, a blog post doesn’t just disappear after you publish it. But evergreen content is different. It continues to be relevant long past its publication date, with search traffic growing over time.

By creating evergreen content, marketers can build a consistent traffic stream and provide ongoing value to their audience.

To better clarify what kind of writing is considered ‘evergreen’, we can examine what types of pieces are specifically not evergreen.

• News articles
• Statistics or reports that will quickly go out of date
• Articles focused on pop culture or a current or passing trend
• Current clothing and fashion trends

Think about content that has no expiration date and retains its value long-term. For example, an article about a presidential election or this year’s marketing trends may be popular content for now, but it won't make the cut as evergreen content.

If you’re trying to create evergreen content, it’s important to know the common formats:

• Listicles
• Tips
• How-to content
• Product reviews
• Videos (when used appropriately)

While creating these formats does not automatically make your piece evergreen, some content types do lend themselves to evergreen writing more than others. 

For example, instructional videos providing useful information, such as how to change a tire, have more longevity than a less practical or time-sensitive video on new tire brands. Also, a video testimonial or case study can showcase your company and provide advice on how others can face challenges or overcome any obstacles. 

Ways to make an article or blog evergreen

There are a number of ways to create an evergreen blog or article or turn a top-performing blog into evergreen content:

• Use evergreen keywords
• Choose timeless topics (e.g. blogs that answer frequently asked questions) 
• Avoid dates or time sensitive topics (i.e. an election period)
• Keep language simple and avoid jargon (especially time-bound jargon or slang) to cater to a wide audience
• Create high-quality and in-depth content to become an authority
• Provide industry tips, ‘how to’ explanations, or advice
• Explain common industry concepts that may be confusing for readers (e.g. ‘What is SEO and How Does it Work?’)

Here are some examples of what would be considered evergreen articles for a variety of industries:

• How to Choose the Best Social Media Channels for Your Business: This can be extremely valuable for someone who is new to developing and implementing social media campaigns.
• How to Care for a New Puppy: Animals and the internet are a pretty strong combination but pieces like this are fun and instructional for new pet owners. And who doesn’t love puppies? 
• 10 Ways to Enjoy Hot Chocolate: Coming into the colder months, a blog like this can provide a lift in traffic. Twists on old classics and those that tap into seasonal topics can be a great starting point for an evergreen article.

Of course, these topics may not be relevant to your business so it’s up to you to create content that provides value to your target audience and promotes your products or services. 

The difficult part of creating evergreen content is that often the most popular industry topics have already been covered, maybe hundreds of times. 

So it’s up to you to find a new angle or put your own spin on the topic. You can also get inspiration by searching for keywords that have a decent amount of volume but not as much competition using platforms like Google Keyword Planner, Ahrefs, or Semrush. 

This will make your content more valuable and likely to move up in the search engine results.

Top tip: Sites like Wikipedia, IMDB, and ehow are great examples of evergreen content so have a look to get inspiration.

Now that you know what evergreen content definitely is and is not, along with the types of formats that work best, here are some specific tips for writing evergreen content:

• Choose the right keywords: When researching keywords, don’t ignore longtail keywords as they can tap into phrases that people are typing in. You can always use AI tools for keyword research such as Gemini and ChatGPT. 
• Optimize for SEO: Once you have your keywords (one per piece), don’t forget to use SEO best practices for on-page optimization. Add alt text to images, and put the keyword in the title, URL, and throughout the body copy – but don’t stuff your keywords!
• Use a content pillar approach: Choose a theme and then create a hub piece of content that feeds into spokes or cluster topics. You should also hyperlink these related evergreen articles together to improve SEO rankings.
• Be an authority: The majority of companies will have competitors and so it’s important to show your authority by sharing your expertise through evergreen content. Make it interesting, informative, and comprehensive to get the best chance of standing out.
• Write for beginners: You may feel the need to share your expertise, but use plain and simple language that can be understood by people new to your niche, product, or service. Experts aren’t likely to be searching on broad topics, and you want to generate evergreen content for a large and recurring audience.
• Avoid overly technical language: Again, avoid overly-technical language as it can be alienating for a non-expert audience.
• Include visual elements: Use charts, diagrams, infographics, and videos to illustrate concepts that can be updated when needed.
• Repurpose content: When you create a great piece of content, there are many ways you can spin it and re-use your great ideas in various formats such as an infographic or how-to video.

Evergreen content is great, but don’t think that everything you create needs to be (or should be) evergreen. Timely and topical pieces are also important. These pieces are perfect for short-term marketing campaigns when you want to drive a lot of traffic and leads in a small amount of time. The best content marketing strategy includes a mix of long-lasting evergreen posts and more topical articles.

Once you’ve created evergreen content, don’t bury it on your blog. Instead, make an effort to highlight your valuable evergreen content so that it can be found by site visitors. 

Here are a few ways you can do this:

• Update and repost evergreen posts on your blog periodically (with updates, as applicable) to showcase your work to the largest audience.
• Build a social media campaign around your content, across all of your networks.
• Create training guide pages that are targeted to beginners in the industry and help your audience quickly and easily point to your how-tos and terminology content.
• Highlight your evergreen blog posts in the sidebar of your blog or in a banner on your homepage.
• Link to evergreen posts internally on top-performing blogs or relevant articles to drive traffic.
• Regularly check on and update keywords relevant to your evergreen content.
• Add expert quotes or new content like videos that can build authority and tap into Google’s E-E-A-T for content.  
• Include and link to evergreen content across the site where relevant – for example, a page that targets beginners, FAQs or covers a specific topic.  
• Create a ‘start here’ page on your website that helps people with the basics and features tutorial content.

The call-out method(s) you choose doesn’t matter as much as the fact that you highlight the content and give it the best chance to succeed.

Along with highlighting your content, you must also ensure that it stays up to date. 

While there shouldn’t be much you have to do to update evergreen content, there will be new industry developments, new findings, new articles, or original research that you can link to. 

In addition, updating content and its published date can help with SEO rankings. It's an established standard that updating evergreen content can hugely benefit SEO rankings, as reported by Neil Patel. 

Once you’ve updated your content, change the date and promote it as if it’s a new piece.

To see if your content has dropped in the search rankings over time and should definitely be updated, use the Ahrefs positions tracker. Using this tool, you can check your weekly digest email to see which of your pages need more effort if you want your pieces to be found. Remember, there’s new content being created all the time, and some of it is going to be competing for the same keywords you’re targeting. You need to keep your content fresh and comprehensive to stay on top.

When you’re updating content, keep the following elements in mind:

• Usefulness: Can users take action immediately?
• Clarity: Is there any confusing terminology? Does the piece flow logically?
• Tone: Is your writing friendly, approachable, and full of expert advice?
• Shareability: Can readers easily share the content on social media via sharing apps or otherwise?

If you’re still racking your brain for some evergreen formats that will work, here’s a list that may help. 

• Original research
• Successful case studies
• ‘What went wrong?’ case studies
• How-to for beginners
• How-to for advanced users
• How-to checklist
• How to choose the best product
• How to do something over time
• Resources list
• Best free and paid tools list
• Best books for a specific goal
• Common mistakes in a specific niche or industry
• History of a topic or product
• ‘Greatest of’ round-up
• Best or worst practice to meet a specific goal
• Complete glossary of a topic or specific niche
• Everything you need to know about ____

Refer back to this list when you get stuck. Creating evergreen content should be an ongoing goal for your business, so it’s likely you’ll use most of the formats at some time.

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