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Real People, Real Results: Why authenticity trumps AI on TikTok, Instagram, and beyond
Many brands create content that’s trendy and useful today and valueless tomorrow. Such content can only attract traffic for a few days, and that’s not enough if you want a successful website. Fortunately, you can avoid such issues by switching to creating evergreen content.
What is evergreen content? You are about to find out. Even better, we will provide you with the best tips for creating quality evergreen content that can bring traffic to your website for years.
Content drives your brand’s online visibility, attractiveness, outreach, and engagement, but not all content is equal. Unlike most content that trend or remain relevant for days or weeks, evergreen content stays relevant for decades. Hence, the name evergreen, like the trees with green leaves throughout the year.
Besides remaining relevant decades after publishing, evergreen content is not time-sensitive. That means people don’t look for such content only during specific periods. For example, articles that provide voting tips may receive more traffic only during elections. However, evergreen content can receive consistent traffic all year round and for many years to come.
Also, the best evergreen content undergoes search engine optimization to ensure good performance in relevant search results. That way, the content’s organic traffic will not stagnate or drop as time passes.
Note that evergreen content and evergreen topics are different. Evergreen topics are subjects that forever spur conversations and draw attention. On the other hand, evergreen content are forever relevant articles, videos, and other forms of content that discuss evergreen topics.
Evergreen content varies between platforms. For instance, evergreen content may be a product review or interview video on YouTube. On Facebook or Instagram, evergreen content could be a tutorial, inspirational image, or written post.
Other variations of evergreen content that you may find on websites, social media, or other platforms include:
Such content provides readers with guidelines regarding how to complete tasks. For example, this article you are reading will teach you six ways to create evergreen content. However, how-to content is only evergreen if the topic will remain relevant for a very long time.
An example of how-to content that isn’t evergreen would be “How to Charge Your Beeper.” That’s because most people don’t even remember what a beeper is.
Tip articles provide hacks for solving problems. For example, “Five Tips for Cleaner Laundry” or “Three Tips for a Faster Internet Connection.” You may find tip articles written as how-to guides or listicles. Like how-to content, tip articles are only evergreen if the topic is evergreen.
Product reviews discuss the quality of products and compare them to similar products. Such content can help you find products that can fit your unique needs.
A product review will stay evergreen only if the reviewed product remains relevant. Washers, microwaves, and TVs are examples of evergreen products. However, a BlackBerry product review that seemed evergreen in the early 2000s won’t count as such today because BlackBerry devices are now obsolete.
Listicles can be videos, audio, images, or written content. Unlike other content, listicles are usually in list form with numbered items. If the listicle is educative, it may be a step-by-step guide or a list of tips. However, you can also find entertaining listicles, such as “Five TV Characters You Don’t Want as Neighbors.”
Compared to entertaining listicles, educative listicles are more likely to be evergreen. That’s because people are always looking for knowledge, which is something educative listicles provide in an easy to consume format.
Videos on YouTube, Facebook, or other social media can be evergreen content if they discuss an evergreen topic. Examples of forever relevant video content include videos about losing weight, home maintenance, or earning income.
Living or deceased notable personalities will remain relevant as long as people remember their names. That’s why interviews of such individuals will always draw attention, regardless of if you deliver the interview in written, audio, or video format. For example, even though John F. Kennedy died in 1963 and Michael Jackson died in 2009, their interview snippets on YouTube still attract traffic.
Frequently asked questions (FAQs) are a list of answers provided to questions commonly asked about a topic. A FAQ will remain evergreen if the topic spawning the FAQs stays relevant. Also, the FAQ must provide informative, comprehensive, and practical answers that provide value to the reader.
Testimonials are customer feedback regarding their experience using a product or service. Testimonials are evergreen content if people are still buying the discussed product. That’s because over 90% of consumers read testimonials before buying a product.
Articles about the history of a place, person, country, practice, or other things will always attract traffic. That’s why Wikipedia is such a successful website.
To help you better understand what evergreen content is, below are examples of content that are not evergreen:
The above types of content are not evergreen because people only care about them while they are happening. Once a new trend or story breaks, people will move on, and traffic to these types of articles will sharply drop.
Now that we’ve answered what is evergreen content, let’s delve into the six best tips for creating evergreen content that delivers desired results:
If you want evergreen content that will attract generation after generation of audiences, keep the language and message as simple as possible. Using slang, archaic language, or technical jargon could be detrimental because those terms may become obsolete or no longer have the same meaning in a few years.
If you use simple words that everyone understands, the message of your evergreen content will remain consistent and understandable to everyone for a long time. Also, keep your sentences short and avoid repetition and grammar or spelling errors. Otherwise, your audience may find your content tedious and unengaging.
Creating content for a single audience group will limit the reach of your publication. If that target audience ceases to exist, you will stop receiving traffic. Make your content relevant for generations to come by ensuring that it provides value and appeals to people from different walks of life.
Also, speak to everyone by not using gender-specific pronouns or other terms that exclude potential audiences. Lastly, the easier your evergreen content is to find, the more users it will attract. Make your content visible and keep your audience growing by promoting your evergreen content through social media platforms and search engine optimization.
You can’t write about everything. If you have a niche and consistently publish quality content, your visitors will begin seeing you as an authority within that niche and the go-to source for reliable content. However, note that not every niche is ideal for creating evergreen content. For example, if your niche is the latest music, you will have limited options of evergreen content because new songs come out daily.
The best niches for evergreen content are things that people will always find relevant, such as:
The primary feature of the best evergreen content is timelessness. If your content is timeless, it will have meaning and relevance regardless of when people see it. Make your content timeless by not attaching it to any time or date and ensure that the provided information stays usable far into the future.
However, predicting how long information will remain relevant isn’t easy. For instance, before 2017, the American Heart Association considered a blood pressure reading over 140/90 millimeters of mercury to mean hypertension. Now, the threshold for hypertension is 130/80 millimeters of mercury.
If you want your evergreen content to be timeless, you need to update it with the latest information as frequently as possible. That way, whenever people come to your evergreen content, they will always find accurate details. For example, if you publish a buying guide about the five best HVAC systems today, you may need to update it next year when better products are available.
Publishing your content on one platform will limit the number of people that might see it. If you want as many people as possible to see your evergreen content, publish it everywhere that you can – your website, social media, and other platforms.
Besides ensuring that your evergreen content reaches more people, sharing on social media will help search engines optimize the page. Search engine optimization will increase the chances of your evergreen content appearing on the first page of relevant Google searches.
Posting one evergreen content isn’t enough to put your website ahead of its top competitors. If you want to become an authority in your niche, you need to post high-quality, engaging, and informative content as often as possible.
Find ideas for new evergreen topics through keyword research. The research will reveal the search terms your target audience uses the most. You can build content around the high volume and low competition keywords that you find.
Using keywords as inspiration for topics will increase your chances of writing evergreen content that your audience wants to see. If people are actively looking for the topic you wrote, it should perform well in search results and attract organic traffic.
Evergreen content can contribute to the long-term success of your website. However, if regularly publishing content sounds like too much work, let others create content for you. At Cohley, we can help you generate content at scale by connecting you with top content creators. Check out our case studies, then get in touch with us to set up a free demo.