How to use evergreen and topical content effectively in your SEO campaign

If you run a small business, it’s vital that your website features content that can attract viewers and help you cultivate a good position in the SERPs. No matter how well-designed a website is, you still need to practise good SEO by offering worthwhile content! There are two kinds of content at your disposal: evergreen content and topical content. Evergreen content pertains to subjects that don’t go out of style because people will always need to find information on them. Topical content concerns subjects that are currently receiving a large amount of public attention, either because they relate to a news item or real-world event, or simply because they are trending on social media. In an SEO campaign, you need to use both kinds of content in a careful balance to achieve the best results. Each type of content has its own benefits and serves a particular, useful function.

Evergreen Content

Evergreen content is the backbone of your website; if your site has enough evergreen content, it will continuously attract page views even when you are unable to create fresh topical content for your site due to a lack of news stories or trending topics that are relevant to your business. Advice, lifestyle articles and discussions of your products and services all make great evergreen content, because that type of content doesn’t date and will always be relevant to some web users. Evergreen content guarantees that your SEO campaign will have a high degree of longevity and won’t just be a flash in the pan that vanishes the moment you lower the rate at which you post fresh topical content. However, while evergreen content generates a steady stream of page views, it rarely attracts large numbers of viewers in one go.

Topical Content

Topical content is essential for quickly boosting the number of page views your site receives. If a particular keyword is receiving a high volume of searches because of a news story or social media trend, you can benefit by creating content based on that keyword – more viewers will see your site than usual, because more viewers are likely to be searching for the topical keyword at any one time than for your evergreen keywords. More people will visit your site, and if you can present yourself as a reliable and authoritative source, they are likely to stick around and eventually become customers. Even if they don’t, the high volume of page views will improve your rank in the SERPs, thereby increasing the number of prospective customers who will see your site in future.

We suggest that you post the majority of your topical content in a blog, because blogs can be constantly updated, therefore eliminating the problem of ‘content stagnation’ that occurs when a piece of content ceases to be topical.

By utilising topical and evergreen content in conjunction with one another, you can build an SEO campaign that attracts visitors to your site (and therefore to your business) quickly but also offers lasting benefits!