Part of a digital creator’s job is producing fresh content as often as possible. Frequency is critical, as the internet is ever-changing, and there is a constant stream of news and trends to keep up with in nearly every niche.
Furthermore, the internet’s attention span is short; what’s new today will be old tomorrow.
But there’s a flip side to this coin.
The truth is that creators who constantly churn out new videos, articles, and social media posts day after day could be missing out on an important type of content – one that would grant them consistently high amounts of engagement for the foreseeable future, long after it’s gone live.
We’re talking, of course, about evergreen content. If you’ve never heard of it, this article will explain what it means, as well as provide examples and tips for utilizing this strategy to your advantage.
What Is Evergreen Content?
Evergreen content is digital content (namely videos and articles) that is search engine-optimized and designed to be relevant to audiences for a long period of time – often for years, and sometimes even forever!
This term is named after the evergreen tree which, as its name suggests, bears green leaves all year round.
Regardless of how much time passes, evergreen content always feels useful and fresh, as if it were just published yesterday. As a result, it continuously generates high engagement numbers, even when it’s no longer strictly new.
Why does this work, you may be wondering. The secret behind evergreen content is that it’s relevant to popular search terms and topics that people are always looking up. Once it’s published (if you did your SEO correctly), you should see organic traffic start flowing in and never stop.
What Is an Evergreen Content Example?
Below are nine examples of evergreen content that you may have come across already while surfing the web, but you didn’t know what it was at the time.
- Tutorials. One of the top reasons that people use Google is to search for instructions on how to do something. For most things, the process to do it doesn’t change, which is why tutorials can be classified as “evergreen.”
- Lists. Lists in the form of an article (AKA a “listicle”) or a video are evergreen if they contain information that won’t soon become outdated. For example, a creator could upload a video to their YouTube channel about the top 10 moments in their favorite film. The film is already made and won’t be altered. But a listicle featuring the best beauty products of 2023 will quickly become irrelevant in the coming year as new beauty products are released.
- Case Studies. Case studies are research reports that follow the journey or development of a person, place, or thing. Businesses often publish them to highlight their client’s experience working with them, stage by stage. The information contained in a case study is not time sensitive or (in most cases) likely to be disproved or called out as false. Therefore, it’s evergreen.
- Interviews. Interviews – especially when the person being interviewed is important or knowledgeable in their field – can certainly be a type of evergreen content. The interviewee’s words, once recorded or written down, are fixed in the public consciousness, and become a source of information about that person forever.
- FAQs. Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) sections of websites or apps answer questions that a majority of internet users tend to ask when they visit those platforms. While some of the answers may need to be updated once in a while, in general, FAQs will always remain relevant.
- Glossaries. Glossaries define terms that are associated with a specific topic or subject, but also aren’t generally known.
- Guides. Guides, both in video and article format, provide knowledge and sometimes explicit instructions about a topic to educate their audience. This puts them in the same category as tutorials when we’re defining “evergreen content.”
- Reviews. Reviews are tricky to get evergreen. Depending on your niche, they may be relevant for a while, but eventually you may need to create a new one if the product or service you reviewed gets a refresh.
- Opinion Pieces. Opinion pieces are a type of content in which you express your (often controversial) opinion about a given topic. Like reviews, these can be tricky to keep evergreen, especially if your opinions about a topic change over time.
What Are Examples of Evergreen Topics?
There are certain topics that users are always interested in and searching for on the internet – and therefore are ripe for generating evergreen content ideas!
Let’s highlight 10 of those ideas right now.
- Beauty tutorials
- Recipes
- Craft how-tos
- Travel tips and advice
- Fitness instruction
- Digital marketing-related guides
- Interviews with celebrities and/or influencers
- Film reviews
- Product reviews
- Opinions
How Do You Make Evergreen Content?
Making evergreen content isn’t hard, but it can take time to find ideas that will hold your target audience’s interest in perpetuity.
Reminder: Content that will quickly go out of date and become irrelevant doesn’t count as “evergreen.”
Follow these steps to make great evergreen content for your digital channels.
Step #1: Research Consistently Popular Search Terms in Your Niche.
Every niche has its own set of popular terms that a majority of internet and social media users have looked up at some point in their search history. Find out what those are for your own niche by performing in-depth keyword research. For that, use a keyword research planner tool, like Google Ads or YouTube Studio.
Step #2: Choose a Topic for Your Evergreen Piece.
Once you’ve identified search terms in your niche that consistently generate high amounts of traffic, it’s time to choose an evergreen topic that will incorporate one or more of those terms.
Step #3: Decide on the Type of Evergreen Content You want to Make.
With a specific topic in hand, it’s time to choose the type of evergreen content you want to make.
This should be an easy decision guided by the channels where you’ve chosen to build your internet presence.
What if you’re using more than one online platform? If that’s the case, we suggest publishing evergreen content wherever you believe it will get the most traffic. The nature of the platform will necessarily dictate the type of content you should produce (i.e., YouTube requires video content, a blog requires an article, and so on).
Step #4: Craft Content that Provides Value on Your Chosen Evergreen Topic.
The last step is the most obvious one: create the evergreen content on your chosen topic, incorporating the keywords you selected in step 2.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the Opposite of Evergreen Content?
Non-evergreen content is digital content that quickly goes out of date or becomes irrelevant. The best examples of this are breaking news and current social media trends.
