How to create evergreen content that makes readers and Google happy

Some things have a limited shelf life. They're here today, gone tomorrow – whether we're talking pop tunes or web articles. Yet other things, like evergreen content (and Beatles songs), remains relevant, valuable and compelling long after their release.

What is evergreen content?

Unlike time-critical news stories, evergreen content does not lose its relevance for a long time. It's like comparing breaking news to a Dostoyevsky novel.

Since the relevance of evergreen content does not evaporate so quickly, it builds up organic traffic over a longer period of time.

The longer an evergreen piece of content is online, the more hits it generates and the higher your ROI will be as a result, if you rank highly in search results for it.

Convinced? Well, then we can start.

Writing evergreen content – this is how it works

Of course you can now sit down at your keyboard, write about a general topic and publish an article - voilà, evergreen content. However, it's not that simple, unfortunately. In order for a content piece to become evergreen content, it must meet a few characteristics.

The characteristics of evergreen content

A successful evergreen piece of content should provide your users with real added value. The most successful are often content pieces that impart knowledge, in a comprehensive way.

As a result, evergreen articles are often longer than the average news article. While they don't have to be excessively lengthy, they should provide comprehensive information on a topic. So-called 'pillar content' is often written as evergreen – and vice versa.

It's no coincidence that the first page of search results usually delivers extensive pieces of content, averaging a good 2,000 words long. Appealing evergreen content often generates noteworthy traffic long after publication.

Another important factor that makes your content piece evergreen is that the content stays current and relevant indefinitely. Of course, this might mean that you have to adjust it from time to time – for example if you quote statistics or a specific year, product and so on.

However, that doesn't matter. Because Google registers these adjustments and the more dynamic and active your website is, the more attractive it becomes for the Googlebot.

By the way: evergreen content does not have to be exclusively text content. Infographics, images, videos or podcast episodes can also be produced with long-term relevance.

Evergreen content as part of a content strategy

Evergreen content is a powerful – and important! – lever for your SEO strategy. Done right, evergreen content pieces are a continuous source of traffic and a natural backlink magnet. With high-quality articles that offer tangible added value, people will be more willing to share it on their pages or social media profiles. This pays off in the long term for your off-page SEO strategy.

But the power of evergreen content is particularly noticeable for on-page SEO:

• You can place your keywords much more naturally in long evergreen content pieces. In the post-Panda era, this is more important than ever to avoid sending spam signals to Googlebot.

• Synonyms and contextual keywords arise automatically when writing. For a long time now, search engines have not only tracked keywords used 1:1, but can scan the thematic environment in order to assign a piece of content to a search query.

• You can reduce your bounce rate with evergreen content. This also contributes to your SEO strategy. Google interprets users who stay longer on your site or interact with it as having found what they were looking for. The bot classifies your content as relevant for the user and this improves your ranking.

• Search engines don’t like sparsely-filled landing pages (“thin content”). More in-depth content is given preference in the search results. Longer content helps you to strengthen your thematic relevance – an essential aspect of successful SEO since the introduction of the Hummingbird algorithm.

So we agree that evergreen content is a must for a successful SEO strategy, right?

And while an evergreen piece of content differs only slightly from its more short-lived counterparts in terms of the basics such as keyword and topic research, as well as search engine-optimized structure, it requires a little more attention in two essential things.

Keep your evergreen content up to date!

A real evergreen piece of content is always up to date. Let's say you published an informative article five years ago. In 2022 it probably has outdated data, and is no longer evergreen.

You should regularly check and revise your older content to ensure that it's up to date. For example, set newer outgoing links as sources, delete and replace statements and information that are no longer correct, and so on.

You can mark changes made by adding a note at the beginning of the article, and thus make users and Google happy. For example, this can be a year of the last update in the H1.

Share your evergreen content pieces regularly

In addition to republishing, evergreen content is also good for routinely reposting it on your social media channels. You can use updates as an opportunity to share the article again.

Or you can post your most visited evergreen articles at the end of the year. No matter what occasion you choose – or none at all – each share will arouse new interest in your piece of content, and push the number of visitors up again.

Examples: Evergreen content topics and formats

So, now to get started and create your own evergreen content! Are you still missing ideas? No problem. The following evergreen content examples are guaranteed to work on your website.

Listicles

Articles in list form that summarize the most helpful and important information on a specific topic can be of great value to your target audience. Lists are quick and easy to consume and are a great content format for evergreen topics.

You can make lists of tips to increase productivity, or lists of common mistakes your readers should avoid, or lists of the advantages of your product/service offering over your competitors.

Listicles work well regardless of your industry or niche. Want an example? Here is our listicle of 12 common mistakes when using Google Analytics.

Fig. 1: Listicles are easy to digest, informative and (depending on the topic) make good evergreen content.

How-to guides

Instructions, guides or tutorials – there are many names for a concept that's ideal for evergreen content. The secret is to use how-to guides to address specific topics (preferably popular ones) and find solutions to your audience's problems.

Guides are often longer than average blog posts because you have to break down the information in them in very small chunks. At the same time, the reader should be able to easily follow the instructions and implement them. Our Ryte article not only shows you how to set up the Search Console correctly, but also explains how to write a successful how-to article.

Fig. 2:  Good how-to guides provide your target group with great added value and are usually great evergreen pieces

Glossary

A wiki-style glossary, dictionary, or encyclopedia may not be the most exciting type of evergreen content. But such formats are a great way to rank for short-tail keywords. Depending on the industry, you can offer technical terms and definitions that could be relevant for your users.

Unchangeable facts such as history or best practices for a term can enrich the entries with "nice-to-know" information. This has two advantages: you prove your expert status, and you can of course place your keywords in it. One example of such a glossary is of course our Ryte Wiki.

Fig. 3: Lexicon and glossary entries are timeless and therefore well suited for your evergreen content strategy

Case studies

This format for evergreen content is most common in the business-to-business (B2B) sector. However, case studies can also be deployed effectively in business-to-consumer operations. They are great for using a success story.

You can present real use cases and true stories and experiences of your customers with your product or service. This builds a relationship with leads and users who are not yet qualified, and creates trust.

As a little extra, you can use it to present your customers as a reference, put them in the spotlight (backlinks!) and create a form of user-generated content. You can see what such a case study can look like in our Ryte case studies.

Fig. 4: Case studies and customer success stories are great evergreen pieces and help you to create trust in your company

FAQs

To create evergreen content in the form of frequently-asked questions, SEO tools, forums and comment columns are your best friend.

Research what questions your users and leads are asking, and compile FAQs with detailed answers. These could be about your service or product. Or about your brand. Or they could be more generic FAQs.

FAQs are also great for linking to internal resources such as blog posts. We do just that in our own FAQs.

Fig. 5: FAQs on your website help your target group to find answers to their questions and your company to be found by your target group

Resources and tools

Offer your users free tools such as configurators or calculators, if this makes sense for your industry. Calculators, download areas and so on are usually very reliable traffic generators, because users are always looking for helpful tools that make their lives easier.

You can also use Ryte as a contact point for a successful example for this type of evergreen content: our collection of free SEO tools.

Fig. 6: Free tools are a great source of continuous website traffic and therefore well suited as evergreen content

Final thoughts

The fact that evergreen content works well for Google and your target group does not mean that you can or should never write about current topics in your blog or on your website. These are often perfectly valid content formats.

It' best to use a mix of evergreen and time-critical content to keep your readers engaged. However, content which shows your readers that you have recognized their needs, and want to help them with reliable information, is best kept in an evergreen content format. Good luck!