How To Create Evergreen Content For Your Blog

Blogging regularly is important. As is updating old articles that contain information that may have changed over time. However, what draws new readers in is great evergreen content that can be shared again and again, a blog article that provides great value for your readers, and that draws them in – either from web searches or from sharing the content on social media.

But how do you create such evergreen content? Not every one of your articles has to be an instant hit. Some topics you simply have to talk and write about. Some are interesting for a smaller amount of people only. But there are a few steps and tips you can follow to create content that will stick around and be relevant and interesting for years to come.

The Topic

Before starting to write your evergreen content, you have to find out what to write about. Such topics for evergreen content need some more time to investigate in than articles that may not attract as many readers. And yet, it’s still no guarantee for success. However, if you follow a few guidelines, you are one step closer to creating content that will last an impression.

Here are a few things you may want to keep in mind when choosing an intriguing topic:

What questions do you get asked constantly?
How can you demonstrate that you are an expert in your field?
What’s a major pain point for your target audience?
Can you provide a guide or how-to that contains all possible questions and problems of your target audience?

The Style

This is closely related to what we have looked at when discussing what a perfect headline should look like. There, we have stated that one of the most popular and attractive headlines is the How-To headline. Of course, such headlines only make sense when the content they are chosen for contains some kind of tutorial as well. Thus, it’s not surprising that how-to articles fair very well in the long run.

Once you chosen a topic for your supposed evergreen content, try o find out if you can transform it into a how-to for your audience, a tutorial they can follow step by step.

The Mistakes

Some mistakes you make while writing are like poison for your content. Avoiding them will give your content a better chance to prevail.

Don’t sell! Evergreen content is meant to show that you are an expert in your field, and to build credibility – not to sell your product.
Don’t step back! Some topics may require more profound and deeper research, which is of course rather time consuming. Don’t step back and water down your ideas! Those articles that require more effort are most likely those that bring your audience the most value.
Don’t think in short-term! Evergreen content goes hand in hand with long-term goals. Invest into ideas and articles that build up trust on the long run.

Quick Tips

Finding A Topic

Put yourself in the shoes of your ideal customer and find out which challenges he or she has to tackle. Produce a tutorial or how-to for the problems and questions you encountered.
Divide huge topics or points of your business into smaller articles that concentrate on one feature, problem, or benefit at the time. Also: create an overview over these topics (if they belong together).
Create articles based on user questions. The more frequent the question, the more people will come back to an article that answers the question and solves their problem for them.

Timely Content

Recognize timely content and set it apart from your evergreen content. Timely content draws a lot traffic in a short period of time, but tends to lose relevance after a short while as well. Timely content can be recognized easily since it addresses a current problem or event. E.g:

New Windows Update Causes Computers To Crash
Top Tips For Summer 2015
The Best Mobile Apps Of This Year

Evergreen Content

On the other hand, evergreen content draws traffic rather slowly, but over an extended period of time. There is no short-term success visible for such articles, however they can draw attraction and traffic to your blog or website weeks, months, and even years after being published. Such long-term content can be recognized by the fact that they address common problems or provide how-to guides for certain functions. E.g:

The Best Places To Find Cheap Antique Furniture
5 Things You Should Pay Attention To When Choosing Your Pediatrician
How To Recognize When Your Partner Is Lying To You