What is Evergreen Content? How to Use It + Proven Examples

Evergreen content is SEO website content that stays relevant over a long period of time and appeals to a broad audience. It can drive steady traffic to your site while improving your rankings and brand authority. Here’s how to create your own.

Here, you’ll find:

• What is evergreen content?
• Why is it so important?
• How to create an evergreen content strategy
• How to measure performance
• When to update evergreen content
• 3 mistakes to avoid
• Real examples that work

Evergreen content is a key term that pops up in most content marketing and search engine optimization (SEO) strategies.

Because it maintains its relevance over time, it continues to attract impressions and clicks long after it first goes live.

In this article, we’ll cover everything you need to know about evergreen content, including how it impacts your SEO, how to create it, and how often it should be updated.

What is evergreen content?

Evergreen content is SEO content that stays relevant and valuable, attracting consistent search traffic over time.

It remains fresh to readers, providing long-term benefits to a website or blog. Examples include how-to articles, guides, tutorials, and resource lists.

Named after evergreen trees that weather the seasons without changing appearance, this type of content is also considered long-lasting.

Types of evergreen content

To be evergreen, content typically needs to answer persistent questions (think FAQs) or respond to timeless queries.

Some formats that tend to work well for evergreen topics include:

• How-to content and tutorials that walk readers through completing a common task
• Listicles that share top choices or highlights for frequently searched topics
• Tips to help readers make choices or navigate issues that remain popular over time
• Product reviews for items that rarely have new versions or updates
• Templates or checklists that readers can use to guide a project or task
• Ultimate guides that offer in-depth overviews of timeless topics

What evergreen content is not

As a general rule, any seasonal or trending topics aren’t evergreen. These include:

• News reports
• Blog posts about trends
• Statistics-based reports, which require regular updates to reflect new data
• Content about holidays, seasons, pop culture, and time-sensitive events

As you can see in the Google Trends graph below, interest in the keyphrase “Thanksgiving dinner” briefly spiked every November over the past five years.

Examples of evergreen content topics

Racking your brain for evergreen content ideas? Here are some examples:

• How to write a thank you note: This is a timeless how-to topic that responds to a query with year-round search volume. While new approaches or methods for writing thank you notes may emerge over time, an article on this topic won’t require frequent updates.
• 10 high-protein foods to eat every day: This is a listicle that helps readers plan their daily diets and provides actionable advice. Similar to the topic above, this one will remain relevant over time without requiring frequent additions.
• Essential guide to kitchen renovation: This ultimate guide provides readers with clear steps to follow. While more technical topics or fast-moving industries may need updates to reflect new developments, a topic like this one will remain relevant.

Above, the Google Trends graph for “kitchen renovation” shows continued interest over time. While the topic has experienced some dips and spikes, it doesn’t have any seasonal patterns.

Why is evergreen content so important?

Here are just a few benefits evergreen content can provide.

• Consistent organic search traffic: Evergreen content offers a steady stream of traffic as the topic remains relevant over time and offers continued value to website visitors.
• Improved visibility and brand recognition: As you produce more high-quality evergreen content that ranks for popular searches, the more visible your brand will become.
• A better backlink portfolio: Because it answers common search queries, evergreen content often attracts backlinks naturally.
• An optimized sales funnel: Evergreen topics can address every part of the sales funnel, which increases your SEO ROI.

How to create an evergreen content strategy

A successful evergreen content SEO strategy uses a combination of keyword research, trend analysis, and strategic updates.

Follow the steps below to create high-performing evergreen pieces.

1. Perform keyword research
2. Analyze search trends
3. Review the competition
4. Write for a beginner-level audience
5. Pick your format
6. Optimize using SEO best practices
7. Use content clusters

1. Perform keyword research

To find evergreen topics that are relevant to your business, start by making a list of potential keywords or search queries. For each one, make sure it passes the “evergreen” test:

• Is it likely to generate consistent (rather than seasonally spiky) search traffic?
• Will it matter to readers in six months or a year?
• Will it remain relevant without frequent updates?

As you build this list, plug each keyword into a keyword research tool. You can use an all-in-one SEO platform (e.g., Semrush or Ahrefs) or a dedicated tool.

2. Analyze search trends

Enter your keyword idea into Google Trends and extend the timeframe to either 12 months or 5 years.

Confirm that the topic has relatively consistent search volume over a year or more, like in the example above.

If the trend graph shows seasonal spikes at the same time every year or a complete dropoff after a certain date, it’s too trendy and should be removed from your list.

3. Review the competition

Next, take a look at your competition by reviewing the top-ranking articles for your target keyword.

Your keyword research tool can give you a quick glance at the search engine results page (SERP) and the domain authority for each top-ranking result.

Click to read each top-ranking piece of content to learn:

• How does the article or video cover the topic?
• Is it missing important steps or contextual information?
• How could your business or brand add a unique point of view?

Compile your notes as you go. When you’re finished reviewing the competition, you should have a good starting point to frame your new content.

4. Write for a beginner-level audience

People who are new to a topic typically search for evergreen content.

Because of that, it’s important to use simple terms that anyone can understand and avoid complex language and jargon.

5. Pick your format

Finally, choose the best evergreen content format by referring to the SERP. For example, if most top-ranking results are YouTube videos, you’ll want to prioritize video content. The same goes for how-to guides, listicles, and other formats.

Why should you use SERP results as guides? The top-ranking results reflect the content that drives the most organic search traffic, which indicates that they align with search intent.

But that doesn’t mean there isn’t room to experiment with different formats or add your own spin on a topic. Make your company’s content stand out by including:

• Visuals like step-by-step images and YouTube videos
• Infographics that summarize complex information
• Case studies that highlight the results you’ve achieved
• Podcasts that share a conversation on the topic
• Quotes from your own in-house subject matter experts

Repurposing content makes it easier to share across social media platforms and email lists for added reach.

6. Optimize using SEO best practices

Once your content is created, use SEO best practices to help it rank higher on the SERP. This includes:

• Optimizing title tags and meta descriptions
• Adding alt text to images
• Proper keyword distribution

Further reading: 15 SEO Best Practices to Boost Rankings and ROI (+ Checklist)

7. Use content clusters

Evergreen articles often make for excellent pillar pieces, also known as content hubs for “hub and spoke” content.

Pillar pages cover broad topics that link out to supplemental content for additional information and context.

Further reading: Create Pillar Pages That Skyrocket SEO Rankings (+ Examples)

How to measure evergreen content performance

Using Google Analytics, measure the results of your evergreen content over time to track outcomes and make improvements as necessary.

Most SEO professionals consider metrics like:

• Impressions
• Clicks
• Keyword rankings

In addition to search traffic, it’s also important to track SEO conversions. These are actions visitors take, such as:

• Free trial signups
• Consult requests
• Booked demos
• Contact form submissions
• Lead magnet downloads
• Email signups
• Multiple page visits
• Promo codes used

At HawkSEM, we use ConversionIQ to track each step of an SEO campaign.

We developed this tool to better understand our target audience’s customer journey and the channels and content that drive results.

Further reading: How to Track SEO Conversions (+ Tools and Expert Tips)

When to update evergreen content

The appeal of evergreen content is that it remains relevant over a long period of time. But to keep evergreen content fresh, make a plan to review and update it periodically.

How often should you update evergreen articles? Help Desk Migration conducts a checkup every three months to assess industry-related updates and relevant research.

“If we uncover any useful or relevant information, we add another text block to ensure comprehensive coverage of the main topic in our evergreen articles,” says Natalia Tomchyshyn, Marketing Manager at Help Desk Migration..

For RecurPost, “I revise statistics, refresh examples, and include fresh thoughts so as to keep my content up to date and relevant,” says Debbie Moran, Marketing Manager at RecurPost.

Evergreen updates don’t always have to focus on written content. Another way to refresh is by adding more images, videos, and podcasts, as creative workflow software company Foreplay does:

“When it comes to refreshing evergreen content, we have recently been adding our own in-house videos for each topic and using a specialized embed feature, which is a free tool,” Zachary Murray, Founder at Foreplay.

3 mistakes to avoid when creating evergreen content

With the wrong approach, evergreen content can result in low ROI. Beware of some common mistakes and use these content marketing tips:

1. Focusing on topics that don’t relate to your business

Rather than searching for general high-volume topics, make sure any topics you choose relate to your niche.

2. Sticking to the most basic short-tail keywords

Search volume alone shouldn’t be a deciding factor for evergreen topics. Instead:

• Write for long-tail keywords that have less competition. Many long-tail keywords have decent search volume, so they can still drive traffic.
• Add your company’s unique point of view to a tired topic. Make your content stand out on the SERP by taking a different approach or an unusual POV.
• Focus on a niche you can own rather than a more general topic. Niches may have lower search volume, but they’re much easier to own, which can build brand recognition.

3. Not making evergreen content part of your strategy

Content marketing best practices suggest a balance between evergreen content versus timely topics, as they appeal to readers with different types of intent.

While it can be tempting to cover all the latest industry trends through your content (we encourage this if you have bandwidth!), it’s also important to publish content that covers more broad, general topics that are relevant to your audience.

Real evergreen content examples that work

Curious to see real-life examples of evergreen content? Take a look at these articles:

Foreplay

“Evergreen content is immensely powerful for driving growth for us,” says Murray.

“For example, two of our blog posts — Saving Ads From Facebook Ad Library and How to Use the Facebook Ad Library — generated over 100,000 visits per month and hundreds of leads for us. This is successful for us because of how high-intent the topic is in relation to our product.”

Help Desk Migration

Comparing evergreen to seasonal content can be helpful for gauging its success.

For example, “when comparing the evergreen article Service Gap Analysis 101 to a seasonal topic over the last three months, it received 43% more clicks despite having only 11% more impressions,” says Tomchyshyn.

RecurPost

“One of the evergreen posts that has driven the most traffic to RecurPost is How To Use Social Media Automation To Grow Your Business,” says Moran.

“The guide highlights the basic ideas of the advantages of social media automation and how it works using RecurPost. This guide continues to retain readers since it offers up-to-date info that is unaffected by the constant shifts that keep on happening in the world of social media.”

The takeaway

Evergreen content is a critical part of many successful SEO campaigns. With it, you can attract organic clicks and scale organic traffic over time.

Curious how evergreen articles could fit into your content marketing strategy? We’re here to walk you through it. Contact our SEO experts for a free consultation today.

This article has been updated and was originally published in January 2024.