Evergreen Content Explained – How to Get Consistent Traffic

Blog posts are the most popular way of content creation, being used by 86% of marketers (according to a survey conducted by SEMrush). Yet 90.63% of content sees no traffic from Google. So how do you make sure that your content creation efforts don’t go to waste? What can you do to prevent creating yet another page in the ocean of content that is on the internet? It’s simple – to get consistent traffic you need evergreen content.

Today, we’ll go through what evergreen content means, and how you can use it to create quality content that consistently gets ranks, gets traffic, and build backlinks.

What is evergreen content?

Evergreen content is content that stays relevant regardless of how much time passed since it was first published. Evergreen content doesn’t focus on trends, fads, or sensational news. It focuses on a topic that stays relevant over time.

For example, some trending topics at the time of writing this article are:

• The US presidential elections;
• Halloween;
• PayPal to accept cryptocurrencies.

These are all subjects that become massively popular for a short period of time and then fade away into nothingness. The US elections happen every 4 years, Halloween happens on a yearly basis, and PayPal made the news with their announcement on accepting cryptocurrencies back in October 2020.

On the other hand, some evergreen topics are:

• How to market a product;
• How to take great photos;
• Dinner ideas.

Now that we know which is which, let’s see why evergreen content is important.

Importance of evergreen content

Every year around Halloween, the traffic for articles on “Halloween decorations” spikes. That may be great if you’re running an eCommerce website, as it will most likely drive sales.

But if you’re writing a piece on DIY Halloween Decorations just to get traffic, you will only see results throughout October each year. And that is if you manage to rank for the keyword.

Evergreen content is kind of like the gift that keeps on giving. You need to put a lot of elbow grease in to write it, but once you’re done, the results will keep coming as long as your content is relevant.

Otherwise, your traffic will jump during the first days of publishing due to freshness and social media promotion, and then it will drop back close to 0.

How to create evergreen content

The first step towards creating evergreen content is finding an evergreen topic.

1. Finding your evergreen topic

This can be achieved through several processes, such as:

Keyword Research

Keyword research is crucial when it comes to content creation. Start off by writing down a list of topics that would be a great addition to your blog. Once you’re done, use a Keyword Research tool like the ones provided by Ahrefs, SEMrush, or Moz to get info on their search volume.

Alternatively, you can use free tools such as Wordtracker, Ahrefs’ Keyword Generator, or Google Keyword Planner to pull out data on your keywords.

You can also look at the top-ranking pages for those specific keywords to see if they’re getting any traffic. If they do, that keyword may have traffic potential.

Trends

Let’s take a look at the trends over time for “Halloween decorations”.

Each year, searches start picking up in September and drop dead in the first week of November. So creating content targeted for this specific topic may bring you a spike of traffic during September-October, but it will play dead for the rest of the year.

If we look at the trends for “dinner ideas” on the other hand, we can see that the keyword pulls consistent searches day by day, month by month, all year round.

Searcher intent

Last but not least, always account for searcher intent.

Let’s go back to that “Halloween decorations” keyword. Are the users looking for decoration ideas or for decorations to purchase?

If we take a look at the SERP position history, we can see that there are no major fluctuations in the last 24 months, so Google knows pretty well what users actually want to see when they search for that keyword.

And if we look at the top 5 results, we can see that all of the websites sell Halloween decorations.

The best way to determine searcher intent is by actually searching for your keyword and taking a look at the pages that rank for it.

Are they product pages or blog pages?

2. Content creation

Now that you have your topic, it’s time to actually create the actual content. But how do you do it?

First off, you need to make sure that you approach everything with an evergreen mindset. Will the information in your article still be relevant next week? What about 3 months from now? What about next year?

Additionally, you need to make your content better than everyone else’s. This means that you need to approach the subject from a unique perspective, that provides useful information to users in an easy to digest manner.

Moreso, avoid using words that have a short lifespan – last week, earlier this year, back in April, or 2020.

However, this rule can sometimes be bent. Sometimes it makes total sense to include a date in your article. Adding “2020” in the title makes total sense, as it shows that the content is fresh. But if we forget to update it in 2021, it will become obsolete.

3. Content maintenance

Ok. You did your research, your content is live, so what’s next?

If you did everything right, your content should be able to rank with no outside intervention for quite a long time. But if you’re ranking for a competitive keyword, you may have to do some more work.

First off, you need to keep an eye on your rankings. If you see your content is taking a dip, it means that someone is starting to outrank you and it needs your attention. Or your content may no longer be evergreen.

Maybe you used some screenshots or stats that are now outdated, maybe you explained a process that is no longer applicable, or maybe you’re just linking to some broken pages.

Tracking your rankings and monitoring your content’s performance will ensure you stay on top of your competition.

Finally, you can solidify your rankings by building links to your article. It is a known fact that backlinks are a crucial part of SEO, so getting even a few relevant backlinks may make the difference between you keeping that #1 spot or dropping below #5.

Final thoughts

Creating evergreen content can be labor-intensive.

But in the end, it will be worth it. In the long run, creating 10 evergreen articles that rank and consistently pull in traffic will play a much bigger role in your marketing strategy than creating 50 articles that bring in large traffic for a few days and then fade away forever.