For entrepreneurs, creating valuable content is an important part of a strong marketing strategy. It’s also time-consuming. So, when you spend hours working on a blog post, article or video, and it doesn’t get the traffic you hoped for, it’s super disappointing. One way to avoid this problem is to focus on creating high-value evergreen content for your audience.

What’s Evergreen Content?

Evergreen content is content that remains popular and continues to bring traffic to your website over a long period of time.

It’s content that stands the test of time. Its popularity isn’t dependent on proximity to recent news or pop culture. It continues to receive traffic over time, because people are always searching the topic. This content doesn’t necessarily have the initial traction that “trending” topics will have, but it will garner steady traffic over time.

It really isn’t more difficult to create evergreen content than other types of content. It just requires that you approach your content with the intention of creating something that will remain popular and useful to your audience over the long haul.

What Kind of Content Isn’t Evergreen?

Before I get into the details about writing evergreen content, I want to point out that, most likely, this won’t apply to every piece of content you create. Sometimes content is only relevant during specific time frames. For instance, if you’re writing about breaking news, that article will probably spike in popularity when it’s published, and then lose appeal as the event gets further away. Or if you’re promoting a limited offer on your services, that promotional content won’t be evergreen. 

Give Your Content a Long Lifespan With These 5 Tips

1. Be very intentional about your topic.
   
   It probably goes without saying that in order to have a great piece of evergreen content, you’ll need to start by choosing a topic that will stand the test of time. Avoid subjects or angles that have a short lifespan—topics like the World Cup, or the “This Is Us” season finale. These topics will be surrounded by some hype for a short period of time, and capitalizing on them may give you a brief spike in traffic.
   
   But once the excitement has died down, so will your content’s popularity. Choose topics that are relevant to your audience—and that will remain relevant over time.
   
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2. Answer a question or solve a problem.
   
   What’s the first thing you do when you have a question you need answered, or a problem that needs solved?
   
   Back before the Internet, maybe your answer would have been “go to the library,” or “call my smart uncle.” But these days, we all know the answer: we Google.
   
   Content that provides clear, accurate answers to commonly asked questions can do extremely well as evergreen content. The key is to make sure you are providing relevant, well-sourced information in an engaging, easy-to-consume format.
   
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3. Create content that others can easily reference.
   
   You probably know that backlinks to your content can really help boost your SEO. Naturally, this also means they can help give your content a longer shelf life. One of the best ways to get those backlinks is to create content that others can easily reference.
   
   How do you do that? Focus on creating high quality, well-researched content that presents the information in a compelling way. And if you can provide a unique idea or tool for your audience to put into action, that’s even better.
   
   Let’s take a photography blog as an example. Instead of just writing a blog post with tips on how to dress for your photoshoot, you could create a checklist of pieces that make up a great photoshoot outfit. So you haven’t just written a blog post—you’ve created a free tool. Producing this type of unique content can help you get more backlinks, increasing the lifespan of your content.
   
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4. Write headlines that clearly communicate your evergreen topic.
   
   Writing a strong headline is crucial to creating evergreen content. Your headline is your content’s first impression on your audience. If it doesn’t plainly describe the information they’re going to be getting, you’ll lose people at the door.
   
   You also need to make sure your headline is specific enough that your content doesn’t get lost in the crowd. For instance, you don’t want to write an article on planting flowers and call it “How to Plant Flowers.” That’s way too generic, and it doesn’t give the audience a clear understanding of what they’ll be reading about. A better headline would be something like “5 Tips for Planting Flowers in Humid Climates.” That headline describes exactly what the audience will be getting, and indicates that the content will be relevant regardless of when it is accessed, as it is not tied to a specific season or year.
   
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5. Optimize your content for search engines.
   
   As with all types of content, you want to optimize your evergreen content for search. Be sure to do your keyword research, and choose keywords that audiences are actually searching for. Then be sure to optimize your content for SEO so that it has a better chance of being found by your intended audience. 

Your evergreen content is the backbone of your content marketing strategy. It’s the content that you can continue to promote, time and again, because it remains relevant long after you first publish it. And if it’s well thought-out and optimized, it’s also content that will continue to go to work for you by bringing new visitors to your website.

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