One fundamental part of blogging is writing content that is high in value and beneficial to the reader. A key way of doing this is writing content that is evergreen. What that means is you write content that if read five years from now would be just as valuable as if you wrote it today. While content that is time based (such as breaking news and big events in popular culture) can bring in readers it is the evergreen content that is going to keep them there as well as provide you with consistent readership.
For example say you wrote and article about the current presidential election, talking about the two candidates, and why you should support one over the other. Though right now that article may have some value especially as the election date nears a few years from now that article is going to have little to no value. Now compare that with an article on key aspects of masculinity. These things are timeless and always relevant. It doesn’t matter if you read it now, ten years from now, or your great grandchildren read it one hundred years from now. It is still going to provide value and help them in life. It is evergreen.
Always Relevant
You should strive to have the majority of your writing be writing that is always relevant. Writing that is going to provide value to people ten years from now. Writing that is going to bring readers in down the line. I would break it down as writing at least eighty percent evergreen content with twenty timely, if not even more evergreen content. Again you want to think as you write ‘ten years from now will this still provide value to those reading it?’ if the answer to that question is yes then you are writing evergreen content, if the answer to that is no then you are writing timely content. If you find yourself answering no too many times to that question you should probably restructure how you write (obviously this goes out the window if you are a news source, but this holds true for the majority of information marketing, such as blogs).
While timely content can bring people in, it doesn’t do a great job of keeping people. For example say you read a great article on the nature of women and then say below in the related article section you see posts about a Feminist legislative issue from three years ago, a prominent case in the news from a year ago, and then another article further elaborating on the nature of women. Only that one article is going to pique the interest of the reader and provide value to them.
One thing you could do is take timely content but then analyze it in an evergreen way. For example take the biggest news story of the week and write up timeless insights you can take from it. Though I personally prefer to keep my timely and evergreen content separate as I think combining them is distracting more than anything. However it is an option and whenever you write timely pieces it’s a good idea to include as much evergreen analysis in there as you can.
Hard Work, But Better Reward
Writing evergreen content is hard work. It takes a lot longer than writing timely pieces or random thoughts. To write evergreen content you have to make sure that what you are writing is timeless and high in value. It takes time and effort to write evergreen content. It takes research and work. However it is better in the long run. Writing evergreen content allows those who find it through search engines days, weeks, months, or years from now to find value in it (as that is the purpose of writing) and therefore more likely to read your other articles and purchase your products. Because of the value that you provided them.
Evergreen content will constantly and consistently bring traffic to your blog. Once it is done and posted, it will bring you value in the form of new readers for as long as the site is up. Again takes longer but it is worth it in the long run. Like planting seeds to grow your own crops over getting a quick meal from a fast food joint. Put another way you reap what you sow. So plant good things, plant evergreen things.
Summary
Though harder to produce, evergreen content is worth it. It will bring in the readers for years to come. It’s like writing a good book. Though it takes a long time and much effort once the book is up (if it is quality) it will continue to make money for you for years to come as well as bring in more readers. It works the same way with evergreen content. So put in the work and put up as much evergreen content as you can.
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-Charles Sledge
