Top tips for creating timeless content: Everything’s Gone Evergreen

Creating consistently good content on a regular basis and over a decent length of time is a massive challenge.

When it comes to blogging, a content schedule anything more prolific than weekly is probably too ambitious for most small businesses. Few will have either the time or the budget to allow for more.

And, to be fair, a publishing schedule of 50+ blogs a year is pretty good going. That’s an impressive bank of content for your prospects to consume when all is said and done.

Another major plus point is that every single blog you publish to your website is a nice little chunk of shareable content that can be used and shared again and again.

Especially if the content is evergreen content.

Your content never needs to go out of season

Evergreen content is timeless. It always remains relevant to its audience and is as fresh as the day it was first published. It never goes out of date or appears to be out of season.

For any marketer or from the point of view of any small business, evergreen content is an absolute godsend. You want content that is effective, but you also want to make effective use of your time. Constantly reinventing the wheel is never an effective use of time.

Why not make good use the great content you already have instead?

If you have created a good ‘How to…’ blog or video, chances are that it will remain relevant, fresh and applicable for a long time to come. Therefore, there’s no shame in continuing to share the content long after it’s been published.

You might need to tweak and update it from time to time. However, the key message to take in is that you don’t need to start from scratch all the time.

Health warnings about evergreen content

Of course, not all your content can (or should) be evergreen. If your content is evergreen it might never go out of season, but actually there is something to be said for the differences in our four seasons.

Not only that, events that occur throughout the year can be of particular importance to businesses and offer excellent marketing opportunities; from Valentine’s Day to Easter to kids going back to school and through to Christmas – sales, special offers and campaigns lend themselves to these key dates in the calendar.

It’s perfectly acceptable to produce content that has a seasonal link – or that is influenced by current events. Indeed, content that doesn’t is likely to come across as somewhat dry or cold. At its worst, it’s cynical and calculating.

So, don’t stop making seasonal or topical references completely. Just be mindful that tweaks might need to be made further down the line in order to keep a piece of content relevant.

Creating evergreen content is not about cutting corners, it’s about making your workload manageable – and continuing to deliver useful content for your audience at the same time.

But keeping your content fresh and relevant is the easy part. Creating content that is engaging and that gets remembered is another matter entirely. The next Mark Richards Writes blog Dare to be different, I dare you will be dealing with just that.