The Role of Evergreen Content in Digital Marketing

The concept of evergreen content has been around for decades, maybe centuries. The goal was to create marketing and public relations pieces that stood the test of time to maximize budgets. So how can such an archaic concept have relevance in this digital world? It is actually a critical component of inbound marketing strategy. Here's how and why it needs to be included in your strategy today.

What is Evergreen Content?

Evergreen content is content that is timeless and will seem relevant months and possibly years after it is written and published.

This content tactic has been around for ages. When creating a brochure that was to be printed and shared in person, it was crucial to only include evergreen aspects in that brochure so that you could reduce printing to just once a year. Higher print quantities always reduce the per-piece price as well. This was also a common practice in press kit creation when press kits were hard copies and mailed out to the media. It was critical to only include evergreen press releases in the kit. This ensured that when a timely and newsworthy press release was picked up at a media outlet, a reporter had access to timeless information to fill out the remainder of their article. Yes, times have changed. But reporters and prospects alike are looking at your website for information that is relevant now as well as aspects that will always be relevant

Why Do You Need Evergreen Content?

Evergreen Content for SEO

So you've heard over and over again that search engines like fresh content, and every good content plan includes regular blog posts and website page updates. But you also need content that is always relevant.

There are many reasons that you need a variety of content types: personas and buyer's journey stages, but my favorite is search engine optimization (SEO). If you haven't heard about topic clusters and how they better support SEO, then read our blog post about it. Pillar page content needs to be evergreen. These are pivotal pages on your website that have 2,000+ words that establish you as an expert on that topic for both prospects and search engines. Pillar pages always have supporting content that creates internal links to other places on your website that expand on this topic and allow visitors to read more on the topic while staying on your website. And the links -- yeah, those help your domain authority on that topic also (as long as you are utilizing a keyword focus in your topic clusters).

Here's an example of how this plays out in searches:

You may have created a guide called The Best of Digital Marketing 2020 as a way to be relevant and share a timely, high-value content piece. You used the 'digital marketing 2020' keyword. That keyword has a monthly search volume of 140 and also meets the low competition score threshold at 0.44 (we recommend focusing on keywords under 0.6). However, you could be missing out on being seen by more than 49,000 potential customers in search results! The search volume for digital marketing is 49,500/month and still falls in the low competition score range at 0.49. So you may be saying, I'll just use that keyword. But if people are looking for digital marketing, would they really click on a 2020 title? Some will, and some won't. You also have to keep intent and relevance in mind, as that also influences your SEO and quality score rankings. Google's job is to serve up relevant content for searchers and their customers. So if your content result sees a lot of high bounce rates because it is not relevant to the keyword and search criteria, then all of your hard work on the guide is irrelevant.

Evergreen Content for Social Media

Social media requires a never-ending stream of content, and 80% of your posts should be educational. Posting at least four times per week is a minimum requirement. If your prospects are on Instagram or Twitter, you should really be posting daily, if not multiple times per day. That takes a lot of content! If all of your website and blog post content is trendy and dated material, then your social media person could run out of things to post unless content is being created daily as well. Evergreen content can be shared every month or quarter and for years to come, which makes their lives a lot easier. It also boosts social referral traffic for your website and establishes you as an expert with your social followers.

Evergreen Content Saves You Time

Every piece of content on your site that says 2019 or earlier is no longer relevant in a visitor's mind. This content is critical for sharing your current expertise. But each year, you have to update that content, especially if it lives outside of your blog. Auditing your content is time-consuming. Rewriting or updating content is also time-consuming. The more evergreen content you have on your site, the less time you and your team have to spend updating this content. By keeping your web pages classic and evergreen, you'll have more bandwidth to simply update landing pages, refresh blog posts and update video for current trends.

How and Where Should I Use Evergreen Content?

The best part of evergreen content is that you can use it in every traditional and digital initiative in your marketing plan! You'll need a clear content strategy that builds upon buyer personas, prospect funnel stages, and keyword research. Some of the top digital places to use evergreen content includes:

Website pages
High-value content
Chatbot responses/answers
Knowledge bases

In order to ensure the content used is evergreen, just make sure there are:

NO dates
NO trendy topics that may lose steam quickly
NO connection to current headlines

When you stick to classic strategy tips and how to content or guides on timeless content aspects, you'll remain relevant time and time again.

There are times and places for dated, trendy, or current content. The key is to have a good amount of content that supports your overall goals and objectives long-term while sprinkling in some of those "now" topics.

If you need help determining if your inbound strategy is set up properly with a mix of current and timeless content, we will happily take a look and talk through it all with you. Click the button below to set up a call with one of our inbound marketing experts.