By Daniel Duke - Evergreen content, much like the branches of an evergreen tree, never loses its color or "goes out of season." But a pine needs water, sunlight, and carbon dioxide to stay verdant. Similarly, your evergreen content needs revision, cultivation, and updating to stay informative and relevant.

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Outdated information is like the Christmas tree in your living room in mid-February (if this is you, we're not here to judge, but we stand by our comparison). Don't settle for that. In this article, we'll review:

• What evergreen content is (and what makes it work)
• How to create it
• How to update it and keep it relevant
• Examples of evergreen content
• The value of evergreen content

What is evergreen content and what makes it work?

Evergreen content is material you post on your website that is designed to offer value and rank high in search engine results for a long period of time. It offers in-depth information that’s relevant to a user’s search on core topics. Because that content can stay meaningful and useful for years, it gives consistent content marketing results.

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It can be used as part of a strategic approach in marketing that focuses on delivering timeless, relevant information instead of directly promoting a brand or business. It seeks to build brand awareness by stimulating readers’ interest in an organization's products and/or services. This approach involves the use of both evergreen topics and evergreen content. What's the difference between these two?

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Evergreen topics are subjects people have always talked and thought about:

• What to eat and what not to eat
• How to start a new business
• How to get a good night's sleep

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Evergreen content is an article, blog post, white paper or other piece that explores specific aspects of an evergreen topic

• Ten foods to maximize fat burning
• The best way to use credit cards to start a new business
• Five relaxation techniques to help you get back to sleep

Articles tend to be long-form because of the depth of coverage, and writers use SEO formatting to make the copy easy to scan and comprehend. This content also tends to be:

• More general and not aimed at top experts.
• Informational rather than transactional.
• Focused on the long view rather than trends, the latest developments or the season.
• Fact-based, not opinion-heavy.

It's true that content based on trends, the day’s news, and emotion can bring a quick spike in search results, but it soon falls into the infamous Google graveyard, rarely to be seen again.

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Satisfied readers share evergreen content and link to it, making the SERP results improve even more. You might say it puts down roots. Evergreen content as an SEO tactic develops slowly, but gives a clear path to high organic traffic over the long haul.

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How do you make evergreen content?

To write evergreen content, decide on a topic that fits your marketing strategy. Think about what your customers want or need to know.

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You might not realize it, but you have plenty of sources at hand for evergreen content ideas. Look at the questions you get from customers, whether in person or through email, customer service centers, and your website’s help desk. Ask your salespeople and customer service representatives what questions they get.

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A best practices guide to creating evergreen content:

1. Do your keyword research. Look for keywords and search terms that support your topic. Consider long-tail keywords and use keyword keyword tools to choose the terms that will offer you the best return. Rellify includes AI-driven keyword research as part of our expert service offerings.
2. Make your keywords count.  Optimize your post by selecting keywords that show good search volume and a positive trend. A tool like Google Trends can help.
3. Consider search intent, the reason that readers are searching. What information do they need to make decisions about your organization? You’ll want to check the search engine results pages (SERPs) for a variety of searches to see how to position your content. One helpful technique: check each word’s ranking in the Keywords Explorer.
4. Consider the impact of the meta description, the short piece of information that appears below the blue link in a search result. It should briefly describe the content that readers can find if they click that link. Don't forget other on-page SEO like keyword placement, tags and links. Even the most well-written blog post can’t give long-lasting results if it’s not optimized for Google bots.
5. Write a headline that works. Some words that search engines like include “Best,” “Data,” and “Reasons.”
6. Create high-quality content that offers specific information, not fluff and generalities. If you are part of a company that creates its own content, make sure your in-house experts lend their knowledge to each article. If you are writing for a client, interview one of its subject matter experts to give your article the voice of authority. Aim for content that’s timeless, informative, and better than anything else on the topic. It helps to stay away from overly technical language and jargon, even though you want in-depth, authoritative content. Here's a guide to creating long-form content if you need help getting started.
7. Be sure to keep your topic fresh. Avoid dating it in any way.  Phrases like “Last month,” “Yesterday,” or “In April” will shorten its lifespan.
8. Work from a marketing strategy. Create a schedule to share your content across a variety of platforms, so that you can reach different audiences and spark engagement. Make the content shareable with the click of a button.
9. Link your posts together. For example, in an article on “How to Choose a Tire” include links to other pieces you’ve written on “Tire Treads” and “Seasonal Tire Usage.”

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If the process of evergreen content creation is stressing you out, Rellify has a solution. We can create a custom Relliverse™ that uses AI to help you find topics and keywords that are uniquely relevant to your prospective customers. And if you don't want to make the content yourself, Rellify's content experts can handle it for you.

Update evergreen content regularly

The value of evergreen content is its potential to drive traffic to your site for years because of its continued relevance. To maximize that value, however, it is necessary to check it on a consistent schedule – say, every two months or so – and update it as needed. You also should check after any search engine algorithm updates. This simple SEO strategy requires diligence more than technical abilities. Many companies offer this kind of service if you don’t want to take it on.When you update, follow these easy steps:

• Check for outdated information and correct it.
• Add new content.
• Check links to be sure that they’re still hot.
• Create and a new form of media, maybe an audio clip or a video or a slideshow.
• Add some interactivity; readers love to engage with polls and quizzes.
• Consider this as another opportunity to repurpose your content. Use it in emails, on social media sites, in print and in ebooks.
• Always, always check your grammar and spelling before re-posting. Little mistakes chip away at the trust and authority that you're trying to build.

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Rellify can help you make sure your content remains relevant over a long period. Our clients have access to expert services that monitor and revise content over time to make sure anything that's published has the highest possible ROI value.

What are some examples of evergreen content?

Because certain formats help readers grasp information quickly and provide answers in ways that clearly match their searches, writers use them often to gain evergreen status.

• How-to guides, checklists, whitepapers, webinars, case studies, and tutorials.  Evergreen formats like these are built to reach someone who needs trustworthy information.
• Glossaries. A glossary of important-to-understand terms is a natural setup for quickly satisfying reader queries.
• Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs). This also provides a simple way to offer a series of keyword-rich answers to search queries.
• Listicles. This is another format for providing quick, easy-to-find answers. It's often used for trendy and newsy topics, but is useful for evergreen topics as well.
• Top tips about a specific subject. Answers “What’s the best way to …” questions.
• Product reviews. Answers another kind of “What’s the best …” question.

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Good content marketing strategy involves forming your topics around the questions asked at different levels of the customer journey.

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If you are selling elegant bed sheets, you might want to post an FAQ about thread-count and what it means for the softness of the sheet. Another blog post could cover how sheets affect the quality of a person’s sleep.

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For potential customers who are closer to making a decision, you could create a "How-to guide" on measuring beds for the standard sizes for twin, full, queen, and king sets of sheets.

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If you are marketing scarves, a tutorial video on the many ways to tie one of your scarves would provide valuable, timeless information. A listicle describing the fabrics used in scarves – cotton, rayon, silk – would be of general interest.

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A garden center could help establish its authority and expertise by posting a list of, or “the ultimate guide” to, the plants that work in your climate across the seasons.

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Evergreen content can come in many shapes and forms. Of course, you are reading evergreen content right now — part of Rellify's marketing strategy to provide user-friendly, SEO-optimized content that informs and engages.

Why is evergreen content important?

Evergreen pieces save you time and energy. You write it once and update it occasionally, and it gives you a strong, lasting return on your investment (ROI). Usefulness and timelessness are the keys.

‍Evergreen marketing can:

• Show potential customers, competitors and others in your network that you’re a thought leader as you share your knowledge.
• Generate higher search engine ratings. It boosts traffic to your site in general, not only to the one article.
• Consistently generate leads.
• Help with building backlinks.
• Serve as a source for other content as you repurpose it in email marketing, social media and other platforms.

Is it time to go green?

Are you ready to start producing valuable content that changes the way you approach marketing? Maybe you have plenty of material, but you're ready for a content upgrade.

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‍Rellify specializes in helping businesses create and overhaul evergreen content that naturally ranks high in search engine rankings with expert content services. Book your personal demo and see for yourself how easy it is to develop and implement your own customized content strategy.