Online sites providing content for informational purposes love evergreen content because it continuously brings readers into their site. Writer's love it too for the same reason. Evergreen content provides a continuous source of income for writers and content providers alike.
What Exactly Is Evergreen Content?
Evergreen content consists of articles that remains relevant for a long time, sometimes forever. The topics could be anything but tends to cover topics that don't change. Scientific information that has already been proven, history, and recipes are a few examples. The topics must be enduring (meaning it never goes out of date), frequently include video, tables, images or other information to help illustrate the text, and may include documentation to back up the research done by the author. The research references provide by the author can be used by readers to do further research on their own. Good evergreen content must contain clear instructions, examples, and explanations and must be engaging enough to bring readers back or to have readers recommend it to others, and will live on for the lifetime of the website (while requiring little or infrequent updating).
Writing and Publishing Evergreen Content Online
Always write your evergreen content with the objective of driving traffic to your website and to all of your online content for a long time. The topics may sell your product and must sell your "brand" with topics that are always fresh (a.k.a. forever green). The topics will always be of interest to readers. Websites and print publications geared around specific topics (e.g. women's health, fitness, green living, winter sports, sports, pets, etc.) suggest all sorts of evergreen content geared toward those specific genres. Evergreen content could be written as encyclopedia style informational stories, reviews of products and services, tutorials or how-tos, list articles, and advice. The main point to be taken here is to make the stories readable by the general public (not for technical, scientific, or academic audiences) and written in a conversational style that invites readers to read the article all the way through. It must also be engaging enough to invite those readers to share it with their friends, coworkers and family.
Not all evergreen content is old but can be new or recent, such as newly created recipes or new techniques for home improvement and hobby projects. Sometimes, current events can become evergreen content. An example would be, the 2011 drought in Texas. Recording the events of the drought and the effects may be interesting to many readers while it is happening. Then, 5, 10, 15 years down the road or so, when there's another drought with similar effects, readers like to find that content and compare what happened then to what's happening now, and see if the solutions for that drought may still be relevant. On the other hand, there was a drought in 2012 in other parts of the United States. It offers the same evergreen benefits, allowing readers to compare the two droughts, their effects, and their possible solutions. When writing about current events, try to write it as if you are recording history (which you are), and write it in such a way that it may become evergreen content for readers and even other writers. You could always make it evergreen content for yourself as related events crop up in current events. If so, always link that content back to your other related stories, thereby ensuring its durability as evergreen content.
Writing that Keeps on Earning
The very nature of evergreen content, is that it is always relevant, always applicable to peoples' lives. It will continue to drive readers to look up the information being provided - hopefully for generations. Because it continues to draw in audiences, advertisers for the websites providing the evergreen content love it because evergreen content provides them with a readymade audience who may be looking for their related products and services. That's because people who are looking for the information in your evergreen content may also be looking for the related products and services offered by the advertisers and will be more likely to click on their ads. It helps the writers and the online sites hosting the evergreen content as well. The advertisers pay the sites (who pay the writers) based on the number of hits to that evergreen content. The more hits that the evergreen content gets each month, the more the site and the writers earn. If the evergreen content is on your business site, used as a way to keep their customers informed and "in the know," it keeps the customers happy, which invites them to purchase more from your site (or your brick and mortar store), and may well invite your loyal customers to share the site and the articles with their friends, family, and coworkers. Evergreen content can truly become the writing that keeps on giving - and earning.
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