Evergreen Content - Make Content that Lasts
84Definition of Evergreen Content
- Evergreen: Perenially fresh and enduring.
- Content: The materials, including text, video, and images, that forms a document or article.
- Evergreen Content: Perenially fresh and enduring articles.
Examples of Evergreen Content
There are several types of evergreen content. Examples include encyclopedic entries, product reviews, how to tutorials, and other informational resources. What makes content evergreen is an enduring quality that is unlikely to change.
Examples of Evergreen Hubs
- While Robin will tell you English is a living language, but the grammar rules for who vs whom are pretty constant. This article will be a valuable resource for years to come.
- Some types of product reviews lend themselves nicely to evergreen content. James's series on Rolex watches is encyclopedic in nature, so the value of the content will endure.
- Some questions never get old like "How to say I love you". Millions of people a day ask this question and many people are interested in different opinions on how to do it.
Which Topic for Evergreen Content is More Popular
Why is Evergreen Content Valuable?
Evergreen Content can be extremely valuable. A well written piece of content that does an excellent job at answering a question, explaining how to do something, or reviewing a product or place in detail can satisfy people over a long period of time. Hence the name "evergreen content". Since evergreen content is enduring and capable of receiving traffic for many years from search engines, directories and other collections of useful links it can be extremely valuable.
Imagine you have a sports website or a blog that publishes scores for the games that were played the day before. Your site has 1000 readers. You publish an article that is read 1000 times that day. However, after that day is passed, the article is no-longer current because it's old news, there are new games now, and that's what readers care about today. Today, you decide to take a day off to play in the sun. You come home and check your traffic. Since you didn't publish a new article almost all your traffic is gone.
Now imagine that you have a site that covers proper manners and answer questions like "How to set a table", "How to hold a folk", "Proper way to write a thank you note" and "Is it rude to talk with your mouth full". You will write one article per day. At the end of the year, you have over 300 pieces of evergreen content. The site has people that come to it to see what's new, which are your loyal users, but the majority of your traffic comes from Yahoo, Google and MSN. Today, you decide to go for a walk and rest your hands from all the typing you have been doing. At the end of the day you sit down at your computer and check your site's stats. You see a slight increase from the same day last week, because you published four great evergreen articles the previous week. Evergreen content is kind of like owning a bond that pays a dividend. You write the article, then it pays a dividend over a long period of time with traffic to your site.
The Idea Bank is full of examples of evergreen content suggestions. Feel free to rob it:)
What site is the best example of evergreen content?
See results without votingPrintShare it! — Rate it: up down [flag this hub]
Thanks for the comment.
Responding to an email...Yes, there can be a seasonality affect to evergreen content. Such that Halloween articles are popular at Halloween time etc. From the chart above, it's interesting that who vs whom is constant, how to say I love you peaks around Valentines Day and Rolex Watches peaks around Christmas which is the biggest shopping time of the year. The trends make it easy to see the seasonlity in the topics.
Great HubPage and well stated argument for evergreen content. What do you call short lived content - Internet candy? The nightly news? Regards, Jack
Paul very interesting article, it makes one look at material with a different perspective and there's even an oxymoron in there for good measure. :-)
Here's something else to think about. Write about stuff that is new today, but will be evergreen for the future. If you are first to write about something, the search engines usually will give you the top spot. If that topic has longevity, then you you'll get traffic for a long time. So I think the sweet spot is brand new today, but will have life. Like new product reviews, new hotels. Be first and you'll reap rewards.
Thanks for writing this useful article. It open eyes of hubbers
Thank you. May be very intersting!
Thanks Paul,
Evergreen content is also good when preparing autoresponder courses as people can sign up at anytime and you want to make sure the content is relevant to them.
Great examples - the sports results site vs the manners site. Lots to think about.
I learned something new today. I have been building lens for a long time and just started on Hubpages and this is the 1st time that I have ever heard the term "Evergreen content". I typically hear the term "Unique Content".
This is good information Paul. It's especially important since, in the last 18 months or so, several firms such as Demand Media and others, have raised millions in VC money to acquire domain names. They plan to use many of these names as conduits to distribute "evergreen content".
Thanks to your article, I have some content tips for my own site(s).
@Blake Yes, keyword domains mixed with evergreen content has proven to be a good model for consistently attacting visitors. It should be noted that some domains monetize better with content while others do better when items are offered for sale. Just depends on the domain and topic.
I try to only make hubs that I think are evergreen. I may be wrong, but at least the intention's there.
I never thought of this concept, now I know what to follow with my hubs!
Super nice article about what Evergreen content means. Very well written! Best of luck to you!
That's a great hub and very interesting and food for thought for all hubbers and website owners everywhere. Thanks for sharing this information.
Thanks Paul, this is a great article. I'm starting to realize that evergreen articles are the only ones worth writing.
Thanks, I am now shifting to evergreen topics.
But the Question is How to write everGreen Content for a Sport site??
@Internet marketr - that's funny, but actually very possible. Evergreen topics for sports are things like How to throw a curve ball or How to shoot a jump shot. For newsy sites, they are usually very good at gaining links since it's a bit easier to get links into your site for very current topics.
So if your site is timely and you get lots of relevant links to your content, then, mixing in evergreen content on news sites is a good strategy to get more traffic.
Thanks Paul. I am very new to writing hubs, etc. and found your evergreen topic interesting and useful. Since our product/service IS new........perhaps I should use the name of the service in my title?
@Peggy W - If you are launchign a new service and want people to find it by searching, then, yes, it's a good idea to use the name of your service in the title of the page or if you are making it on another page, put it in an H1 html tag and the title meta tag. Hope this is helpful and good luck with your new service.
Great article, I was wondering what you ment by evergreen, in another one of your articles.
Thanks Paul. I am really starting to understand enduring and "evergreen" content. It's fun to write about current "hot" topics but the ones that endure are the ones that people will always search for, like you said.
I VOTE FOR wikipedia.com
The recent comments show you've created evergreen content yourself!
Very Informative. I will read more. Your ever green is good!
Hi Paul,
Great information! Can this be the answer to this question: What is better, a blog or a website?
Wow, you answered questions I didn't even know I had. Thanks!
'J
Great suggestions. I'll use these principles when I write hubs.
A great article as always Paul, some things to think about for the future!
Andre
good advice, Thanks
that's a great hub...I've came to this conclusion so late, unfortunately.
search engine traffic is the best
Very efficient & to the point advice!I agree about the how to articles Paul, among all my hubs, the how to bake a cheese cake attracts the biggest chunk of traffic than the rest.
Good hub. This is useful information and your hub is defenitely an "evergreen" hub :)
Am headed over to the idea bank now. Did not know it existed.
sapheyerblu says:
3 years ago
This is a great article, very informative. Thanks.