WHAT IS IT?
You may not have heard of the actual term ‘evergreen content’ but you’ll definitely be familiar with what it is. Evergreen content is content that remains relevant for a prolonged period of time. It doesn’t necessarily have to be relevant forever – after all, most subject matters advance over time – rather that readers would still derive value from it in say one, two or even five years’ time. For example:
- How to tie a tie
- The top five tourist attractions in Paris
- How to set up your Google+ profile
WHY SHOULD YOU PUBLISH IT?
Traffic Generation
Unlike news content which is ‘here today, gone tomorrow’, evergreen content will continue to drive traffic to your website over a long period of time. A good idea is to revisit your content every few months just to ensure that it is still fully relevant as this means that people will continually be inspired to share it, which in turn leads to even more traffic.
Search Engine Optimisation
By making sure that your evergreen content is properly optimised with your keywords and that you are continually acquiring links to it from other good quality and relevant pages, its search rankings will continue to increase over time. If your article becomes a genuine reference document, that can open the doors to a never-ending link building opportunity. The more people that visit and share a piece of content, the more credibility that particular page earns with the search engines and the higher it ranks.
Social Media
Evergreen content is perfect for connecting with your customers and prospects at a deeper level on social media. Yes it’s great to ping vouchers and discounts about the place but once you have their attention, it’s time to prove that you’re about much more than that and to start demonstrating the knowledge you possess within your field. Also, if you’re struggling for something to say on social media, you can always dig out some old evergreen pieces that new followers won’t have seen as they will still be relevant.
Industry Authority
Your prospects want to work with market leaders so the more educational content you put out there, the more you will be perceived as the people in the know. Once people have derived value from your content, they will start to trust it. That trust will then naturally start to extend to your brand which can prove to be a very influential factor in the buying cycle.
Lead Generation
All content should be written with a view to moving prospects along the buying cycle in order to generate leads, otherwise your investment of time and money will be wasted. Evergreen content is highly effective at moving people through the ‘research’ stage of the buying cycle. They’ve seen your industry news and infographics in the ‘brand awareness’ phase but now they’re looking for solutions to particular problems such as ‘how-to guides’ or check-lists. If you can really connect with people at this stage, they are much more likely to progress to the evaluation stage where they will be seeking out suppliers.
So there you go, five awesome reasons to start publishing evergreen content today! If you’ve not got resources in-house to create it, don’t forget we’ve got a whole team of journalists here who can write it for you. Get in touch.