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What would you prefer: grabbing a handful of visitors, likes, and shares in one day or getting a constant flow of traffic through the years? Usually, marketers rely on one of two types of content: trending or evergreen. But few of them successfully combine both types in their marketing strategy.
Content is the primary weapon of marketing and SEO. And like with any weapon, you should know how to use it. Everlasting articles may be your top priority, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t use seasonal topics when it’s justified. Let’s check out the benefits of each type.
Trending Content Benefits & Downsizes
Trending content is also known under the titles of “seasonal” or “topical” content. It may be divided into two sub-categories:
- Time-based articles that depend on seasons (“Winter tips for dry skin” or “Best ways to spend summer vacation”);
- Event-based posts (“Best treats for Halloween,” etc.)
Most marketers disregard this kind of content because of its brevity and uncertainty. But it also has its strong points that can bring traffic and users’ attention to the website:
- It’s time-saving. Mostly topical posts require less time than well-researched evergreen articles. You can create short reports about brand’s events, announcing new product features or make a list of seasonal tools, freebies or resources.
- It’s relevant. Seasonal and trending content offers users timely info at the right moment. It also shows users that your company is aware of the latest trends and keeps in touch with its customers.
- It’s popular. Fads, trends, breaking news are way catchier that regular articles and attract the attention of the wider audience. New content usually triggers people’s interest and becomes viral fast.
- It can be used multiple times. Articles from the seasonal sub-category can recur every year with some changes and the new data.
The main issue with the trending content – it loses users’ attention as fast is it attracts it. Trending articles create a short-time engagement and then lose almost all their flare and appeal.
Evergreen Content Advantages and Pitfalls
Evergreen content withstands the test of time and remains relevant and attractive through the years. It usually has an even traffic graph without big spikes.
Despite the fact it may not have huge traffic, marketers love evergreen content for its stable nature and SEO power.
- It helps you to grow. Evergreen content is an inexhaustible source of traffic, leads, shares, and social signals. Traffic to evergreen articles usually stays even through the years or even grows steadily attracting more and more readers.
- It builds trust. Well-researched evergreen articles help your brand ascertain itself as a trustful source of useful information. Readers usually bookmark such articles and will return to your blog again and again for more knowledge.
- It brings value. Most of the evergreen articles have tips and advice that always stay relevant and useful. Most readers will not look for more info after reading a thorough guide that describes the issue from all aspects.
- It’s easy to repurpose and update. You can easily break evergreen articles into digestible pieces of information to post to social media. They can be turned into videos, infographics, podcasts and other forms of content.
However, evergreen articles usually require more time and effort to create, a ton of research, studies, and resources. You should also choose your evergreen topics carefully. Many of them may be extremely popular in your niche, and the chances are that all your competitors have already published similar articles. In that case, choose a different angle for your article and write much better and catchier content than your rivals offer.
Create the Perfect Mix
As I already mentioned, most marketers tend to focus on creating only evergreen articles. They focus only on its disadvantages and forget about benefits. Just like they prefer to notice only the benefits of the evergreen content not paying attention to its drawbacks.
So, how can you mix them into your content marketing strategy?
Follow the Search Demand
Relevancy is the primary aspect of successful content, be it seasonal or evergreen articles. You should be aware of the latest trends in your industry to offer your readers the most recent information faster than your competitors. And you should know about the most common audience issues to provide them with the best solution.
You should choose the best keywords for all your articles and always keep the “searcher’s intent” in mind. It means you should understand the way your audience is searching for the information. Check out the keywords in various tools and make use of the Google’s “Related searches” section – it shows different variations of the same search.
For seasonal and trending content, use Google Trends. You may check out the performance of a seasonal topic through the years, note when it’s the right time to prepare articles for various recurring events and find the most used keywords for your trending articles, too.
Reuse and Update
Even evergreen articles need revision from time to time. Some images or examples may not be relevant anymore. New studies that confirm or refute your statements may appear. You should revise your content after a couple of months and update what needs to be updated. Evergreen content is easy to reuse. Thus, you may create infographics and short videos based on particular info from these articles. Share some valuable quick insights from it to social media or add some tips to the email to your subscribers.
Revise your seasonal content each year (check the Google Trends beforehand) and see what fresher information you may add. Thus, it can be new Thanksgiving day recipes or updated tips on how to prepare for the flight. Don’t forget to check out what keywords are trendy and maybe optimize your articles with those keywords.
Share and Link
Share your content across various platforms right after posting and do it after a significant update. Add your evergreen articles to the sharing schedule to boost traffic to them. And share your seasonal posts closer to the season or the event date.
Outreach practices help boost the traffic to the blog posts. Create personalized emails to the influencers in your niche. Send those emails after the first publication and after any significant update (don’t bombard influencers with emails after you change an image or do minor tweaks). Evergreen articles usually attract tons of backlinks what helps them climb higher in Google rankings and increase traffic. You can watch this video to find out how to build quality links fast:
And don’t forget about interlinking the articles on your website. Adding internal links to an article is an important signal for Google. When you update your articles, check out what posts you may link on your website.
Conclusion
I hope that after reading this article you understand that there is no “evergreen vs. trending” content dilemma. It’s a matter of a wise combination of both types. You can benefit from creating a short-term buzz around your events or innovations as well as from increased traffic and conversions to evergreen topics.
Experiment with the forms and topics to see what works for your website and what can be improved. Test new types and update the old posts to learn the perfect combinations!
Guest Writer: Helen is a content marketer at Ahrefs. She explores new things every day to impress her readers with catchy stories. Apart from all that marketing stuff, Helen loves listening to rock music, reading and traveling. A lot! Feel free to follow Helen on Twitter and Facebook.
