Evergreen Content Strategy For Blogs, YouTube & Social Media
Why have an evergreen content strategy for blogs,YouTube, and social media? Well quite simply stated it’s because the return on investment(ROI), evergreen content attracts. Evergreen content fetches maximum long term organic traffic, and great ranking on search engines compared to other content.
It gets you backlinks over a long period. That too with decreasing effort, as time passes.
What’s more, it gets you lead generation over a long period.
In this post we’ll examine evergreen content strategies for blogs, YouTube and social media, each separately.
So what do you need to do?
Stay with me.
What Is Evergreen Content ?
A lot of content on the internet has a short shelf life.
But evergreen content doesn’t expire quickly.
It is relevant content that doesn’t sink under the deluge of newer data.
Evergreen content attracts immense search volume, and consistent (if not increasing) reader interest over time.
In the realm of online content the longer your content offers you benefits, the better it is. No wonder Brian Dean believes that “evergreen content is content designed to be relevant and beneficial over the long-term”.
The definition is fine but let’s look under the hood at a few examples.
Examples Of Evergreen Content
To begin with there are some very definitive categories of evergreen content.
Invariably, any content put under these heads has a clear advantage over others.This type of content doesn’t get dated soon enough.
What are the examples then?
Well here goes ..
Glossary. Glossaries and industry definitions stay relevant over very long durations. In fact, most of them never change, and hence contain excellent evergreen attributes. Even if it is long form content, it tends to stay relevant over protracted durations.
Ultimate guides. Detailed guides for beginners on high value topics are always invaluable. Especially for readers who are desperate to resolve critical problems urgently. These guides make a common and excellent evergreen content strategy blogs, YouTube, social media
List Of Most Common Mistakes. Most people want to avoid pitfalls. And a list of mistakes is a god send.It stays evergreen for all readers who want to steer clear of costly mistakes.
Detailed Checklists. Checklists differ from lists because lists are only randomly aggregated ideas or points. Checklists, however, are action sequences for a solution, and also unchanging gems for evergreen content.
Case Studies. Case studies of success and failures offer enormous insight, and possibly encouragement. So use them frequently for evergreen content.
History. Lets face it. History of anything is unchanging and a great source of timeless content. So there’s tremendous scope for delivering evergreen content here.
How To Guides. For the low skill levels of the beginner, how to guides on any topic will always be in demand .Many times not only for novices, but also for veterans these guides are great resources.
Reference Of Resources And Tools . Every one who’s starting off on a new journey is invariably searching for resources and tools. This is exactly where a ready reference ** is sought after. And your evergreen post on resources is a silver lining for these seekers.
How To Select The Right Product/ Service. Wherever crucialmoney and life (YMYL) expertise issues are concerned, people are diligent about making the right choice. This is where targeted evergreen content is invaluable.
FAQs – These are exactly that.. frequently asked and hence frequently viewed, over a prolonged period. Because they’re evergreen.
Product Reviews – Product and service reviews invariable benefit the eagerly searching reader. That includes even old reviews, hence their evergreen value.
Strategy To Create Evergreen Content
We’ve just gone over some examples, but what are the action steps, what’s the strategy to create evergreen content?
Well here are a couple of time tested ways. This is a targeted content strategy for blogs ,YouTube, social media.
Content Selection. Firstly, you need to ensure that content that you’re putting out is actually evergreen. For instant seasonal content like news, passing trends, fashion,passing statistics is not evergreen. This first step of right selection is crucial for an evergreen content strategy for blogs, YouTube & social media
No Dates. Avoid inserting dates in your content, because timelines tend to expire content. We don’t want dates that expire,because importance of evergreen content is in longevity .
Update Content. Make sure to set up a schedule to update your older content. According to research only 38% bloggers ever update** their old content. So by updating content, you automatically gain advantage over competitors who don’t update their content.
Rewrite Headlines. A title or headline is your first connect with the reader. So update that headline and make sure it helps your reader to comprehend your intended long term benefit.
Refurbish Sections. You just need to exert a bit here to add extra value to your sections that are getting dated. Add fresh ideas and information where it’s needed.
Write For Beginners. Experts in a topic may not be searching for ways to do things, but novices will need your ‘how to checklists and guides’. So write for beginners, who will then continue as loyal customers of your evergreen content.
Focus On Reader Intent .It is important to focus on the keyword intent of the reader.And because that gives you a clue about his needs, you can structure content accordingly. This is an excellent start point for creating evergreen content.
SEO Optimization.
SEO optimization can never be overemphasized because it gives immense long term profits. Here are a few pro tips
Keyword Research.
Get in high value long tail keywords , that are searched by audiences.
Format.
Have a clear structure with H1,H2 H3 tags. This not only helps your SEO,but also offers great UX(user experience).Be assured, thankful readers are likely to revert to you, and share your content too.
Image alt Text.
Adding image alt texts enables Google crawlers and bots to decipher your content better, leading to indexing and ranking benefits.
Internal And External Links.
The best service you can do for your reader is to help him access valuable pages on your site. This you should do by adding internal links. Additionally, make your content credible by adding relevant external links that point readers to high value information outside your site.
Audience Preference.
Audiences have a way of changing preferences, and so it’s advisable to track them. Remember it’s likely that you offered them a tiny bit of content when you first created it.Because that’s what they wanted then. But now needs could have shifted,meriting a change in content.
Repost Content.
Share your content repeatedly, and re post it. By doing this you can simultaneously target different time zones, and also reach new audiences. An added benefit also is increased traffic. This a common tactic in the evergreen content strategy for blogs, YouTube & social media.
Evergreen Content Strategy For Blogs
How to Guides
The aim of publish how to guides is to create content that is unquestionably more authoritative and detailed than any other. The best way to do that is to study other blogs well, says Neil Patel on creating ultimate guides .
There’s another angle- the ultimate guide.
So ultimate guides are those which essentially break down complex topics into easy step by step processes. They show readers how to do things they are obviously unfamiliar with.
The best way to go about doing this is, to target a guide towards a novice or beginner in a domain. But focus on narrowing down the topic and writing for the person who’s hungry for solutions to pressing problems. Not experts.
Remember, beginners guides and ultimate guides will unquestionably stay evergreen over a long period of time.
History Of A Subject
History topics in your blog posts can be extremely engaging because they evoke a timeless sense of “roots” and origins.
History imparts a context.
It is something that the mind is intrigued by naturally. But such a post needs to be made engaging in way that triggers interest.
And how do you do that?
By adding a lot of visual content and graphics. Weave the data with storytelling. Images and videos add immense power that help you leverage visual content for your blog.
Now what’s truly unique about historical topics is that they remain unchanging and hence, timeless and evergreen.
Product Reviews
Consumers online are always willing to spend extra attention on learning about products and services before purchasing. This is where you come in.
You only write review posts about products that solve long standing pain points. Readers will chew and swallow your content quickly, provided you give them truthful and useful information.
Its best to write reviews about products that you’ve personally used, or that you closely know about.
Don’t waffle.
In writing the review, be objective, be unbiased, and include the pros and cons. Give your recommendations clearly.
Readers want to know your opinion. Give it to them clearly.
Finally stay updated with your product, and remember to update that review in case of changes.
Lists And Checklists
Lists and checklists have always attracted loads of reader attention.
Its common to see most blogs putting out extremely long lists of things within the niche. Well, to say the least it’s a remarkable thing to do.
Because lists highlight a range of possibilities for the reader.Lists of things are always welcome, because they offer to readers everything in one place.
What’s more, readers are likely to keep coming back!
Checklists like lists also elaborate a host of things on one page. However, the only difference is that they are ordered and sequential.
Checklists suggest a process that will solve problems and are an evergreen resource of illumination for your readers.
In case you’re interested,searchenginejournal.com recommends a checklist for writing checklists . It’s an excellent strategy for creating evergreen content in blog posts.
Tips And Best Practices
Best practices are also tips that reduce a long learning curve.
They enable people working in the same industry to eliminate expensive mistakes. According to Inc.Com it’s advisable to identify best practices and learn from award winners in that field.
So what do you need to do?
Just cull out the best practices within your own domain and also identify the award winners. If possible, interview these experts and create a best practices article around it.
Or else, study the best practices in your domain and extract the core message from each and craft a post around them.
“Best practices and tips” is an evergreen content that has always been in demand for a long time.
Do you know it as an added advantage?
The advantage is, this kind of a post also raises your own credibility and pushes demand for your content.
Books In Niche
Books in your niche are an excellent topic to blog about. And especially about those books that offer detailed information that’s otherwise rare.
Yes.
Books offer great information that’s sometimes unavailable elsewhere. Even online.
Here’s what Ryan Robinson of Ryrob.com says about bloggers and books “Believe it or not, books are still very much in use—and they often explore topics in greater depth than a single article ever can. Blogging books in particular, can cover a single topic at length, or serve as a more approachable, general introduction to a broader umbrella of subjects. The right blogging books can offer a great deal of value to readers, especially for their extremely low cost (and the fact that many of them are often even free).
In case you have actually grown through book reading in your niche, make sure to share the reference with your readers.
And if you’ve read a ton books of books in your domain, man you’re in luck!
Just punch out an informative post around those pile of books. Chunk down bite size information, and add your own assessment on the main benefits. Those will be the take-aways for your readers.
There you go. Your post is sizzling. And evergreen too !
Evergreen Content Strategy for YouTube
Do You know?..
Approx. 2 billion users follow YouTube,and it’s coverage spans 100 countries and 80 languages .
Also Consider this…..
About 78.8% marketers consider youtube as the most effective video marketing platform.
So what’s the message?
That you cannot ignore ignore the criticality of YouTube for your marketing and growth.
According to Rob Wilson of Vidiq “the right evergreen video content can earn your YouTube channel an incredible amount of views per month”.
Just to remind you- we’re examining evergreen content strategies for all 3 – Blogs, You Tube And Social Media.
But what’s noticeable is that the evergreen content strategy for a blog would invariably share some overlap with YouTube also.
Yet, because of the nature of the platforms, there are tangible differences between the two.
So what’s the best evergreen content strategy for YouTube ?
Now in case of YouTube, there is a two-pronged approach for creating evergreen content.
1. Keyword research and SEO for YouTube
2. Specific evergreen content for YouTube
And you’ve got to hack both the above to achieve that sweet spot.
So we’ll look into both strategies one by one.
Here goes…
Keyword Research And SEO Strategy For YouTube
Keyword Research .
Most YouTubers kind of overlook this part. But..
Do You know this?
That keyword research is as essential for youTube as for a blog.
Just like a blog, you’ve got to search for powerful keywords.
Search for a keyword and rank for it in Google search or YouTube search. This will set the stage for your videos to attract lots of views every month.
This is simply because audiences are eagerly looking up things through specific keywords, even for YouTube.
Keyword research tools like Ubersuggest, Ahrefs and keywordtool.io are a remarkable help for this job.
Though Ubersuggest has a free version, it may not offer ‘YouTube specific’ assistance. But Ahrefs does have a YouTube-specific tab.
SEO Strategy For YouTube
After creating your video, make sure you add the keyword in all these crucial places:-
1 . Video title
2.Description
3.Tags
4.Thumbnail
Of all these above, title and description are extremely important.
Some good SEO Tools for YouTube are:-
Vidiq
TubeBuddy
Morning Fame.
Ahrefs Keywords Explorer
KeywordTool.io. …
Ahrefs Content Explorer.
Specific Evergreen Content For YouTube
1. How To And Educational Content
Educate your audience about a specific product. Teach them how to do things. People want this kind of content.
Dumb it down for them. Give them short tips on lesser known details. These may be your own experience, or something you have gathered from elsewhere.
2.FAQs.
Like on blogs, FAQs on YouTube also invite a lot of user attention. Especially if you deal with subjects where people need to spend money.
What do you have to do?
Just create a informative video on FAQs on your channel. Because FAQs offer solutions to recurring user-questions, it quickly becomes evergreen content. What’s more they also remove confusion among readers.
Interestingly Google itself has an FAQ page for YouTube users .
3.Explain Best Practices.
According to Wikipedia a “A best practice is a method or technique that has been generally accepted as superior to any alternatives because it produces results that are superior to those achieved by other means,….”
So people are keen to know the best practices in their area of interest, and in their industry.
Action by you?
You only have to study the best practices in your niche/ industry for your audience. Cull out the best,and create a video with audio and images.
Chunk down and explain in bite sizes.
Is there an easier way?
Yes
You can interview experts describing best practices. And then you can even create a series of videos.
Be sure to tell your readers what they stand to gain from those videos.
4.Testimonials .
Testimonials are an unfailing method of raising your credibility, making an emotional connect, and enhancing brand exposure.
Creating testimonials means interviewing people in real life. And during the interview, obtaining their personalised testimony about a product or service.
What’s the peculiar advantage in a testimonial?
Audiences are assured fastest with a human face verifying a claim.
And this kind of content has a long shelf life. Undoubtedly, the best strategy for evergreen content on YouTube.
You can use tailormade tools like Vidoask, Respondent,or UserTesting to create these testimonial videos.
5.List Of Resources And Tools.
People always want to update themselves about resources and tools that have solved problems for others.
So what do you have to do?
Just create a list of tools and resources which you have successfully employed to solve problems. Or bundle together a list of tools that others have used to succeed in a particular area.
Make a video with graphics and voiceover. In many cases you don’t have to face the camera yourself either.
There is enough thirst for such evergreen information out there. And a list of tools is invariably an oasis in the desert for your needy audience.
Evergreen Content Strategy For Social Media
Social media marketing (SMM) is critical to achieve your marketing and branding goals. This is where you share content on different media, including text and visual content, to enhance brand identity. It also increases conversions through steady traffic.
In recent times there’s been an exponential boom in social media engagement. For instance, according to Statista, Pinterest alone accounts for 47% respondents searching for shopping or products.
By any standards, that’s an incredibly large chunk of social media marketing (SMM) for business purposes.
So you want a piece of that pie. But how do you raise your SMM potential?
You guessed it.
By increased sharing of evergreen content.
Today the platter is lavish for increasing your social media footprint. These are only a few popular social media channels which are commonly used:
Instagram
Twitter
LinkdIn
Pinterest
Snapchat
Tik Tok
Facebook
But what’re we interested in?
Well we want to exploit social media for propagating our evergreen content. And for that, some lesser known stratagems are worth examining:-
1.Share Useful Tips. Sharing valuable tips and tricks on social media is a great way to stay in the game. Especially where there is expertise to be shared in aspects related to health, money,taxes etc social media sharing is invaluable.
2.Apply The 5-3-2 Rule. According to a HeinzMarketing article theres an easy 5-3-2 rule to use.
Well, this is a insightful principle that imparts the content a human face a, which immediately makes it evergreen.
What does the 5-3-2 rule say?
It says that for every 10 Tweets or LinkedIn updates or similar content:-
5 of these should be relevant content from others.
3 should be relevant content pieces from you without directly selling your products.
2 should be personal, which are non-work related, in order to humanize yourself.
3.Knowhow Of Social Media Tools. Another very effective way is to share your knowledge about tools with your eager social media audience.
Update them with a specific link(URL) telling them, which social media management tools you consistently employ.
4.Repurpose Blogposts. Your evergreen blog posts are a treasure trove for social media exploitation also.
So how do you use them?
Guest Post Blogs.It’s likely that you’ve guest posted on someone else’s blog. In this case, you can share excerpts from that blog (along with link) on social media. These are particularly helpful where you’ve published high value, long lasting articles as a guest blogger. Evidently, there is a commonality in evergreen content strategy for blogs, YouTube, social media
Tweetable Quotes. Make tweetable quotes from your own evergreen blogposts and share them on social media. These are short catchy quotes that allow multiple shares and thus increase longevity of content.
Quotes With Images. Convert catchy messages from your own blog posts, or even famous quotes by experts in your posts into images.
You can easily craft images with tools like Canva,PicMonkey,or Crello. I recommend Canva because it’s super user friendly, and even the free version offers tons of features.
Share Older Posts. There are several posts on our blogs that appear dated. But it is worth re-examining their relevance for today.
In case they are relevant then use them as evergreen content to be shared on social media. Sometimes you can even recycle and update older titles for new content on social media.
5.Books /e Books. You can create e books based on the premium content in your best posts. Such content inevitably attracts high traffic, which shows promise of long term appeal for readers.
6. Visual content. Remember,visual content has massive promise over others. According to Hubspot, 80% marketers use visual content for SMM.
Infographics, SlideShare presentations are great ways of growing your evergreen content base. Don’t hesitate to share them frequently on social media.
Infographics. You can utilize infographics from your own high traffic blog posts for sharing on social media. Also, for the sake of inspiration, you can closely observe Pinterst, Cool Infographics and Buzzsumo.
SlideShare. Wherever possible, share your evergreen SlideShare presentations on social media. For this, just use the relevant link for sharing the updates.
By now you know this right? That evergreen content strategy for blogs, YouTube, social media is similar but not identical.
Conclusion
When you want to increase your blog’s ROI through increased traffic and backlinks there’s a time tested option- evergreen content.
But you need to have a clear strategy on evergreen content for blogs, you tube and social media.
Essentially evergreen content is long lasting and not seasonal, or trend based, neither does it expire fast. To understand that, a few examples have been covered in this post.
Also, a number of common strategies have been elaborated, including aspects like content selection, SEO and audience preference.
Besides that, detailed strategies for evergreen content in blogs, YouTube and social media have been explained separately.
Eventually, evergreen content strategies whether for blogs, YouTube or social media, must offer significant value to your audience. Then only is it evergreen content in the real sense.
So what’s your strategy for creating evergreen content in your niche? I would be glad to see your comments.