“Timeless” might sound lofty, but it's actually quite attainable. Moreover, evergreen content is an excellent way to boost your SEO. Google ranks compelling and useful content highly in search results. And, according to BrightEdge, 53% of trackable web traffic comes from organic searches — so evergreen material supported by strategic SEO practices has great potential to boost your visibility. 

But how do you write evergreen posts, and what’s a strong evergreen topic? Creating lasting material for your website all comes down to a long-term, evergreen content strategy. Leverage creative ideas that will remain relevant and useful for years. Learn about what is or isn't a good candidate for evergreen content and how to create it.

Getting started with evergreen content

Evergreen content stays relevant and "fresh" for a long time. It avoids time-sensitive information and instead leans into anything likely to remain static. 

Producing evergreen content drives more traffic to your site than topical, short-lived information because it covers topics and keywords that stay relevant over time.

Here are typical evergreen content examples:

• How-tos — Instructional content like how to export a PDF or update Windows remains applicable as long as products or services don’t change drastically.
• Product reviews — Most products stay in the primary or secondary market years after launch, so those products’ reviews tend to remain relevant.
• Tips and best practices — General guidance, such as "Tips for organizing your cloud storage" and "Team leadership best practices," remains relevant even as industry dynamics change. 
• Glossaries — Short, descriptive articles that define terms such as "cache" or "proxy server" remain helpful if the terms stay relevant.
• Informational content — Articles such as this one provide general information that isn't likely to change over time.

What’s not considered evergreen?

Even the content types listed above could lose the "evergreen" label if they cover seasonal or otherwise time-sensitive topics. Generally, any content about an issue likely to lose relevance within a few weeks isn’t evergreen. 

Here are a few examples of non-evergreen content:

• News articles — Current events might drive incredible website traffic for a short time, but content that covers them quickly drops off the radar when the news cycle moves on.
• Trending topics — Chasing trends and pop culture news might tick up your traffic for a short while, but these topics become irrelevant within a few days — or weeks if you're lucky.
• Seasonal topics — Covering holidays and seasonal content could offer recurring traffic, but there's no telling if this year's "Fall travel ideas" or "Best Christmas gifts" will remain relevant the following year.
• Market and tech trends — Businesses and technology can change rapidly, so any content you produce about them may soon be too outdated to deliver steady, reliable website traffic.

The benefits of producing evergreen content

Evergreen content creation is a long-term marketing investment that should be part of every enterprise content strategy. It's a reliable method for meeting web traffic goals because it doesn't suffer from the hit-or-miss challenges of topical material. 

Expect the following benefits when sharing timeless content. 

Higher ROI

Creating an evergreen article or video is typically as efficient as developing non-evergreen content. Both require authoritative information, sources, and good writing. Since you're spending time and effort during creation anyway, why not cover a topic that'll offer returns on that investment for years to come?

Steady flow of traffic

Unlike topical articles or current events media, evergreen content appears steadily in search results. It might see peaks and valleys in popularity, but it stays relevant year after year. "How to fix your A/C," for example, is an evergreen topic because it generates traffic year-round. When it's winter in the northern hemisphere, someone in the southern hemisphere is desperately trying to fix their A/C unit to keep up with the summer heat.

Timeless topics are also great candidates for cornerstone content — or content that fits under your strategy’s essential pillars, such as how-to guides or step-by-step instructionals. Articles within these pillars will often become your most-visited pages, providing reliable, robust traffic for many years.

More backlinks

Evergreen content is more attractive to other site creators looking for external links on their own websites — especially if your evergreen work is authoritative, permanent, and well-sourced. Develop as a trustworthy source of truth, and you'll soon find that other outlets backlink to your content more often, which results in better site search engine optimization (SEO).

More shares than trending topics

Trending content might get shared frequently soon after publication, but evergreen content can surpass trendy media over time. For example, a trending article about a vehicle recall might gain views suddenly and widely, but an article about what to do when your vehicle gets recalled will ultimately be shared more — audiences need that information every time a recall happens.

5 steps for writing evergreen content

An evergreen content marketing strategy looks very similar to one for current events, but the topics you're working from couldn't be more different. 

Here's a tried-and-true strategy you can follow for effective evergreen content.

1. Find a category

Before identifying content ideas, brainstorm categories that could include many topics. For example, if you're writing for a company like Figma (a UX design platform), select general categories users might care about, such as prototyping and user research.

2. Identify topics

With some high-level categories in mind, visit Google Trends and research each category. Expand the timeframe to the past 12 months to see more results. Record how many searches a term receives on average.

Then, check the "Related queries" section and change the drop-down to top results. That's where you'll find individual topics and keywords you can write about. For example, if you search for "user research," you'll see that people also search for "user experience" and "market research."

After you've recorded data about each category, see which has the most activity. Then, select a handful of popular topics from those categories.

3. Determine keywords

Take all the topics you identified and perform keyword research for each. You can use Google Trends again, but there are also tools like Semrush and Moz that specialize in keyword research. Organize the keywords for each topic according to their relevance.

4. Select a format

Some topics are best to address in a video, while others require a step-by-step article or podcast. Identify which format best suits each topic and then group them according to these formats. If you're unsure, perform a Google search to learn what formats are popular for these topics. Ultimately, you should have a list that details categories, topics, and the best format for each.

5. Create and publish content

Select a topic group that uses the same format and begin scaling that content type. Staying in the same format at first gives you a strong starting point and teaches you lessons you'll apply to other formats. You can then circle back to update your content as you learn more from other formats.

For example, if your team creates blog posts, build a content library that can link video posts. Through this process, your writers will learn essential writing skills applicable to creating the scripts for videos. Then, after producing some videos, direct team members to the blog posts and apply the lessons they learned for more engaging material. 

All formats involve skills that apply to other formats, so all that matters is growth and improvement. Have your team repeat this process until they’ve built up a diverse content offering, and implement routine web traffic analytics evaluations to identify trends and strategize accordingly.

Create timeless content to elevate your SEO strategy

Evergreen content should be an essential part of your SEO strategy. Maintaining and refreshing content requires a reliable platform that scales as your site grows. With Webflow, content teams can create and publish content quickly — without relying on developers — that drives marketing results.