Evergreen content vs. topical content: what’s the difference?
Have you heard of evergreen content?
This is the blog version of evergreen trees that keep their needles, maintaining a similar look and purpose year-round. Evergreen content is posts that don’t have an expiration date, that you can share, direct your clients to, and leave in prominent places on your website without worrying about them becoming irrelevant.
Topical content, on the other hand, includes your timely pieces of writing on recent or upcoming events that might not have an impact once a certain period has passed. Sometimes, this is called “news-based content.”
Let’s break this down!
The importance of evergreen content
For the most part, you can create, post, and forget about evergreen content. Think, for example, of long-form explanations of your services, case studies, and fact-based listicles.
This kind of content could still need adjusting—you might decide to replace a stat with newer, more relevant research, for instance. But, generally, evergreen content serves as the permanent backbone of your web content strategy.
This is useful for a number of reasons. For one thing, Google likes posts that show increased reliability (longer time on page, low bounce rates, etc) over time.
Evergreen content also saves you time. A collection of well-written blog posts with lasting relevance gives you a deep well from which to pull social media and newsletter references and share with curious potential clients; it highlights your expertise and builds lasting trust in your brand.
The importance of topical content
Topical or news-based content is likely to perform best for a certain period of time. I’m talking about posts that are directly related to specific holidays, breaking news, seasons, or limited-time offers.
The lifespan of a topical post might be short, but if you market it right, it can really perform. Think of posts like “10 DIY Christmas Decorations” or “Create Your Own Best-Selling Memoir, Just Like Britney”. You’re hitting clicky, engaging keyterms that will only be clicky and engaging for a little while, but while they’re on-topic, they’re super popular, and this gives you a shot at a much bigger pie.
(Keep in mind, though, that while the pie might be bigger for topical content, the pieces will be smaller because everyone is vying for one. In other words, it’s steeper competition.)
Try to plan your content of every type ahead of time, but forethought is absolutely vital for topical content. Imagine if your seed company shared “15 Vegetables Perfect For Your Fall Harvest” in late August. It’s a little late to get those babies germinated and ready to pick with three weeks to go. Likewise, you’re probably not going to share “10 DIY Christmas Decorations” on December 24th. Plan way ahead for these guys.
Colour change: topical to evergreen and vice versa
It’s worth mentioning that both evergreen content and topical content can be transformed into the other.
An article sharing 15 uses for your custom sticker packs can easily be transformed into 15 reasons these packs make a great Christmas gift. A post that explains how to use your video editing software to make summer vacation videos can be generalized to deliver this information to anyone, at any time of year.
Many topical posts can also be adjusted to become topical once again, whether that’s referencing updating the date to reflect Christmas 2023 instead of 2022 or retargeting for the next celebrity memoir that drops.
Keep in mind, there are some potential penalties for having duplicate content on your website, mostly around SEO. When considering which posts you should repurpose, take a look at the analytics for the original piece.
If a post hasn’t done much for your traffic or conversions, it might be worth an adjustment to see if it can serve you better. If the post is totally killing it, leave it be and create a fresh post (or multiple posts) on the topic.
Don’t take the unguided nostalgia tour
You'll waste precious time if you constantly scroll back through your previously posted content, hunting for topics you can repurpose.
Instead, use your content management system to its fullest potential. Add a section where, when you decide on a topic or write a post, you immediately note which events or seasons this evergreen piece could be promoted during or how you might make that topical piece into an informative post your clients can refer back to again and again.
Does evergreen content make up the majority of your web content? What success have you had turning evergreen into topical or vice versa? I’d love to hear your thoughts.
If you’re unsure of how to approach your topic ideas and really make them work for you, please reach out. I’d love to chat about your content strategy!