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Evergreen Content Marketing for Lawyers

September, 22 2021
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Jo Stephens
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Evergreen content gives readers helpful information no matter when they look up the topic. While evergreen content is generally simple to understand, you should learn about what it really is and how to make some of the articles you post as evergreen as possible.

Evergreen Content Definition

What is evergreen content? It’s content for which there’s basically no time limit in terms of reader interest. It’s content that someone would find relevant today or even a year from now. It is possible that the evergreen content will one day no longer be evergreen, but that would happen only if there were some major change to whatever the content described.

For example, an article on SEO tips for lawyers really has no end date. Someone looking up SEO tips for legal blogs could use the information this week or two years from now, as long as there’s no major change to how SEO for law firm websites is used.

Evergreen content examples include how businesses could use Facebook to succeed, or how you’d create an estate plan. As long as Facebook continues to operate essentially the same for businesses, people will be able to use the content. People will always need to make estate plans, so your advice in that blog will remain useful for an indefinite amount of time.

What Does Non-evergreen Content Look Like?

Non-evergreen content has a definite end date.

For example, the eviction moratorium in California due to the COVID-19 pandemic is non-evergreen. Some information may be useful for a time, but the moratorium has an end date. As of mid-September 2021, the moratorium will end on September 30, 2021, and the advice that people should follow during the moratorium will no longer be good.

Other examples include things like the 2021 algorithm update from Google or immigration changes made during the Biden Administration. The algorithm update won’t be relevant once Google releases another algorithm update. Immigration policies could change again.

Seasonal content is a mix. Content about drunk driving over the Labor Day weekend isn’t relevant in the middle of the workweek in October, but general drunk driving content geared toward Labor Day could be reused the next year. 

Why Do You Want Evergreen Content?

Evergreen content continues to bring people to your blog, increasing your potential customer base. It also helps keep your blog partly full, so you’re not desperately trying to come up with new content that will show up in search engine results.

How to Create Evergreen Content

Creating evergreen content requires some research. You need evergreen keywords – essentially, the keywords for the topic that people will look up – and you need to find those keywords that are specific enough to make the article stand out in search engine results.

Create high-quality content that uses these and related keywords. Do not “keyword-stuff,” or use every possible variation of a keyword; that creates awkward content. (It used to be OK because the point of the content was to simply get page views rather than actually help people out. Now, people look up everything online, so what they find needs to make sense and be easy to read quickly.)

The real key to making the content evergreen without making it too general is to make the content timeless. Barring some major change that no one can foresee now, will the content you write be relevant next year? Five years from now? If not – if there’s an upcoming change that you know about or have been hearing rumors about – then it’s not evergreen.

Monitor the Results

Don’t just write something, post it, and forget about it. Use analytics to see how the post does. You’ll get an initial spike of views that will taper off, but then, over time, you should see the view count continue to accumulate each month. It might not be as big as the initial spike, but it shouldn’t be very low.

Go back to that article, and to all your evergreen content, and update it periodically. Add studies, related information, and update the post date every time you change the article. These tweaks help keep the content fresh in the eyes of search engines.

Why Not Have All Evergreen Content?

You need a mix of evergreen and non-evergreen. Timely topics help draw more and more people to your website, while the timeless topics grab the attention of web surfers who need the information.

If all this seems a bit too involved for your already busy staff, Law Firm Sites can help you. We create evergreen content for legal sites that can help new readers find your firm.

Do you want to see your site with a new look?