Evergreen content is blog posts that are so important that they are worth publishing again and again over a long period of time. For example, blogs about the latest fashion trends or retail announcements would not be considered evergreen content. Bloggers can create this type of content by having a recurring series, such as an advice column or round-up post for every month of the year. Another way to create evergreen content is by writing about topics that have some sort of theme in common or have been written about before. Guest bloggers can even be used to create evergreen content by bringing in new ideas each time they share their thoughts on the blog. Subscriberz also adds new steps to your evergreen content because it will increase your audience through social media.
You type cornerstone content til your fingers start aching.
You publish what seems to be the millionth blog post that again, gets no attention. You hear crickets at best and a dry stumbling weed crosses your site. Though, you do hope to one day make money from the grueling hours of effort. If this is you, then you might just be missing out on an important piece of your blogging puzzle.
When I first started blogging I had no idea what content I should publish and why. It was stabbing in the dark and coming up with topics that I thought people were going to read. It also didn’t help that I’ve been sporadic about blogging and haven’t been consistent about it since mid-May (that’s a story for another post). But after some trial and error, some mentorship, researching, and a lot of thinking, I finally figure out what has happening. For one, I was not writing content people wanted to read. For two, I was not writing in-depth content. For three, my content wasn’t evergreen. Like the tree? Exactly like the tree.
Evergreens get their name because they always stay green. They never lose their leaves. Evergreen content is content that doesn’t lose its value over time and stays relevant. It won’t go out of style anytime soon, and it won’t become stagnant content on your site that just sits there growing weeds. You might keep hearing the phrase, ‘content is king.’ Well, you hear it a lot because the higher quality your content is, the more timeless it is.
And the more helpful it is the more it’ll become a great resource to your blog AND to your audience.
Learning this was life changing
Well OK maybe not life changing.
But learning what evergreen content was and WHO it should be aimed for made a huge difference for my blog.
It was like an epiphany moment, especially when I read this post on Dustin’s blog.
via GIPHY
It’s one of those things I really wish I understood earlier in my blog journey (I’ve had the blog ‘published’ since December of last year and only worked on in sporadically until I got ultra-serious about it in mid-May).
So, after months of sporadically writing the wrong content here and there ( I know right, what a strategy) and much adoing for nothing, I decided to write a post on setting up your Pinterest as a complete beginner.
It’s a massive 7000+ word guide on how to set up your Pinterest Business profile to get traffic for complete beginners.
I even went ahead and added a Table of Contents to it to make it easier to navigate.
The post works because it checks off all the evergreen requirements:
Ultra-valuable guide filled with detailed steps
It’s aimed at beginners (more on that in a minute)
It’s NOT fluff and it’s NOT 500 words long
It’s got an eye-catching title and plenty of images
To date, it’s the biggest traffic earner to my site ( and it’s only the beginning, fingers crossed).
It goes without saying that I wish I would have created it earlier!
The cool thing about cornerstone content (evergreen content)
It sets you up so that, you don’t have to write more to get more traffic in the long run.
You can create a nice juicy piece of evergreen content that answers questions and solve burning problems and then promote the patootie out of it!
This saves you from the notion that you have to publish three posts a week (like, woah).
When you put your blogging energies into writing evergreen content that sticks around for a while, you’ll get more juice out of it than writing three fluffy posts a week and frantically trying to promote them like a fish out of water.
It all leads back to the quality over quantity thing.
And in case you needed another plus to convince you to write evergreen content, it can also help with rankings and SEO.
The higher quality the post is, the more people visit it, and the higher it can climb on the Google search results
What you need to understand about cornerstone content
With evergreen content, you need to understand one thing.
Look at it this way.
Let’s say you’ve learned most everything there is to learn about creating the best bricks (for lack of a better example).
Bricks are your jam. You live and breathe bricks (probably literally with all that dust).
Are you going to be spending your time looking up how to make a good brick mix?
NO!
You already know all that.
You already know how to mix your brick solution, how to set them, how long to let them dry.
So if I’m starting a website on bricks, should I write brick content aimed at people like you who are already knowledgeable in creating awesome brick?
NO!
Good luck getting traffic that way, brick man (or lady).
So WHO are the people in your brick niche that are going to be looking for your content on bricks?
BEGINNERS!
Yes! Beginners are who your evergreen content should be aimed at.
If you think about it, they’re the ones searching for ‘how to bake a pie’ or ‘how to make brick mix’ or ‘how to create your business page’ NOT how to make your first million dollars with a tri-level sales funnel (something a beginner wouldn’t be looking for).
Beginners in your niche are the biggest searchers on the internet.
Make content that they can find and use.
Now, with all the possible topics you could be blogging about in your niche, you won’t be able to write set-it-and-forget-it content all the time.
What do I mean?
The types of evergreen content out there
There is sustainable content and there is solid content.
Or at least that’s how I like to classify it.
Sustainable evergreen content is content that will stay useful over time but that you might have to go through and do minor modifications from time to time.
Solid evergreen content is content that stands alone as it is, and will need little to no modification (think guides).
What’s NOT Evergreen content:
News
Fad product reviews
Stats only relevant to a certain year
Holiday posts
You can still benefit from regular content but…
Don’t get me wrong.
Evergreen content is the shizzle, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be writing some of the other stuff to.
There will always be an audience for holiday posts or gift guides or stats.
Just keep in mind that writing evergreen content is a long term strategy for posts that will last you much longer.
How can you get started creating cornerstone content
So, now that you’ve hopefully had an evergreen content epiphany like I did, how exactly can you go about creating evergreen content?
Before you can start figuring out what evergreen content to write there are a few questions you should ask yourself about your audience.
Who is your audience?
Who are they and what are their interest?
What is their biggest struggle right now?
If your evergreen content isn’t answering a question…it’s not evergreen.
What’s the best way to give them an answer to that struggle?
Is that through an ultimate list post? An ultimate guide post? What is the easiest way that you can show them a solution?
Writing valuable evergreen content is simply writing content answering a question that will be asked over and over again by beginners with the answer always being the same…laid out by you in an awesome post.
Extra cornerstone content tips
Keep it simple.
Evergreen content is meant for beginners. That means you want to keep it simple and easy to understand and not like a scholar wrote it.
Remember to interlink it through your old posts
A great way to get more eyeballs on your content is putting aside a time (though it might seem painstaking to add it to your already long list of content but worth it) to add the links to old posts where it’s relevant.
What I also like to do is manually add an ‘aside’ of other content they should check out if they’re finding the post helpful. Like this:
Put it where people can see it
Since evergreen content is kickass, it’s kickass enough to add to your menu page as a standalone tab.
This is why, for example, many bloggers have a ‘how to start a blog’ tab.
It’s content that is helpful for beginners and isn’t going out of style anytime soon.
You can add it to your side bar as your most popular post, or even include it in your ‘About’ page to give people a better idea of what your blog offers.
Recreate it
Evergreen content doesn’t just have to be blog posts.
You can repurpose evergreen content!
Transform it into a checklist, make a video series, or make it into a cheat sheet (great for list posts) for your audience to opt-in to.
Cornerstone content is a must
Now that you know what evergreen content is and why it’s SO important to your blog business strategy it’s time to start cranking out some posts with real direction.
Get your evergreen on and start cranking out more valuable content that your readers will want to and need to read.
Evergreen content is a win-win asset in the long run.
It will increase your page views and truly help your target audience— which is ultimately what they’ll love you for.
P.S. Remember to drop me a comment if this post was helpful to you.
