What is Evergreen Content?
No matter what kind of writing you do, you’ll probably come across a client or publication that needs “evergreen” articles or blog posts. This is an important term to know since it is a very specific type of content. It’s easy to screw up if you’re not 100% sure what evergreen means. No worries, I’m here to help.
What is evergreen content?
An evergreen is a tree that stays green all year round. There isn't a specific season where it has leaves. Evergreen content is the same way. These articles and blog posts are intended to be useful all year, not just during a certain time. Usually, these articles are SEO optimized.
Evergreen content vs. non-evergreen
The opposite of evergreen articles are “timely” articles or articles focused on a certain time, holiday, news item, or event. Let’s compare the two.
Examples of timely article titles:
This Holiday Trick will Save Your Turkey
The FDA Just Approved the XYZ Drug for Aneurisms
This New Alexa Feature Lets You Sing with Lady Gaga
10 Tips to Make Your Summer Better
Tax Season is Coming: Use These 5 Tips to Avoid Audits
Examples of evergreen article titles:
How to Fix a Leaky Bathtub Faucet
10 Relationship Tips to Keep the Home Fires Burning
5 Reasons Why You Need a Bidet
Never Mention These 5 Things to Your Boss
Examples of evergreen articles that I have written that you can study:
Why publications want evergreen content
Evergreen articles and blog posts are a common ask because they are the foundation of the traffic scheme of a publication. Timely articles typically bring in a lot of traffic, but only for a limited time. Evergreen content may not have an explosion of traffic, but it brings in a steady flow over time, if done well.
These articles also tend to help a site with search ranking because they are still relevant year after year, giving the site authority points with search engines like Google. Older articles are often given seniority over newer articles, as long as they are still relevant.
Elements of evergreen content
Evergreen content should include information that is useful whenever the article is accessed by your reader and should never feel dated. Generally, you want to avoid anything that will make the article become outdated or specific to a certain time frame. There are several things you need to exclude from an evergreen piece to achieve this. Here are some things to avoid:
Commenting on how something is coming in the future. Eventually, the future will be the past, making the article outdated. For example, don’t say something like, “Spring is coming soon.”
Saying “this year.” Instead, say something like, “In (the year), xyz happened.”
Including statistics from more than a year ago. Use statistic from as recently as possible so the information stays fresher, longer.
Talking about a sale. Sales expire, so they aren’t evergreen.
Common types of evergreen articles
Generally, there are certain types of articles that are more likely to be evergreen. These include:
How-to
Tips
Listicles
Reviews
Reference
Guides
Case studies
Round-up
Generally, news articles, articles about new features of a product or service, time-based round-ups or listicles (like The Best SEO Tips of 2001), and announcements are not evergreen.
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