What is evergreen content and should I be creating some?
Content updated February 2021
Evergreen content is content that can be read or viewed over time and it will always remain relevant, for the most part. It is content that is interesting, informative and relevant, and remains current – basically, it's timeless.
The amount of evergreen content topics available in professional services, including law firms, is immeasurable.
An example of non-evergreen content would be posting content about an upcoming event. The event might be on in a month’s time but once it is over, that content becomes obsolete.
Conversely, some evergreen content, particularly for lawyers, could be a title like “How do I get a divorce in Australia?” Now I hear you say, but divorce laws might change and then that article would be obsolete. Correct, but as we suggested in our opening paragraph, “for the most part” is an important factor. That said, the title will still be relevant but you'll just update the actual content to reflect the new legislation.
It is unlikely that divorce laws would change significantly, on a regular basis. They may change ever several years. The content is therefore relatively current for quite a long time.
What can I use evergreen content for?
Content on your website
Your evergreen content will sit on your website (and of course, you may make minor tweaks every now and then), for a long time. It will be content that is relevant to your target audience and your potential customer/client base and if well written and informative, it will be visited time and time again; either by new visitors or repeat visitors.
The more and more people that visit this content, the more its search engine rankings will improve. That means, when people search for this type of content, there is an increasing likelihood your piece of content will appear higher up in results.
Over time, you can create new content which relates to this piece of evergreen content and inter-link all the articles.
What might inter-linked articles look like?
- You write an article, “How do I get a divorce in Australia?”. This is an evergreen piece.
- You write a second article, “If I marry in Australia, can I divorce overseas?”. This is also an evergreen piece. (And remember, there are some exceptions – for example, if there is major legislative change).
- You can link these two articles to each other as their content is related.
- You write a third article, “Couple marry in Sydney but the husband is already married”. This piece of content is about a newspaper article. It is not necessarily evergreen content. It is a media piece about a specific case. It can, however, still be linked to your first article as already being married is grounds for a short marriage.
Posting to your social media platforms
As you build your list of evergreen content pages on your website, you're creating s a bank of articles you can continue to promote across your social media platforms; for example, Facebook and LinkedIn. It will solidify your expertise and experience in relation to that information.
If we consider our divorce articles above, you can post articles #1 and #2 several times over several years, thus increasing the number of people that see that specific article. This reinforces your knowledge and experience in Family Law, particularly divorce law.
Sharing in your eDM campaigns
To further drive your experience and expertise, you should be delivering regular eDM campaigns (email newsletters) to your database of contacts.
Having a bank of evergreen content gives you an opportunity to share this content at various intervals. For example, you may send four eDM campaigns a year to your Family Law database of contacts. You could include your “How do I get a divorce in Australia?” article once every year or two, along with other articles; perhaps new evergreen articles or a topical case review.
Again, this will get more eyes on your article, thus improving its visitor numbers and subsequently, its search engine organic results.
How do I know if my evergreen content is popular?
You should be checking the relevance, authority and interest levels of your online content regularly. For your website, you can do this using Google Analytics and Google Search Console. For social media platforms, you can use their own insights/analytics results.
If your evergreen piece is not performing as well as you’d hoped, you need to review the content; perhaps there are insufficient keywords or you’re missing critical keywords, or perhaps it is too short. There are a number of factors to consider when creating your online/digital content. For more insights on content creation, you can read our blog "8 things to remember when creating your law firm's online content".
Updating your evergreen content as required
As previously mentioned, you can (and often should) make minor tweaks to your evergreen content to ensure it’s hitting the mark of what searchers are after. You should regularly review your online content and ensure it is up to date.
Even evergreen content, although we say it doesn't change, will often require minor adjustments every now and then. When you make the adjustments and publish them, make sure you resubmit the URL to Google (via Google Search Console) and get it re-indexed. Although Google will re-index it at some point, by manually requesting a further index, you are speeding up the process of your new content (with the new adjustments) being found faster.
In summary
- Evergreen content is good for your digital development
- You should create a mix of evergreen and non-evergreen content
- Remember to check the performance of your evergreen content on a regular basis and make necessary tweaks
- Use your evergreen content on a regular basis across multiple distribution channels; your website, your social media platforms, eDM campaigns, flyers, presentations etc.
Find this article interesting and/or informative? You might also like to read:
- 4 essential tips for writing your law firm blog article
- How often should I add new articles to my law firm’s blog site?
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