Evergreen Content Case Study: Why Long Form Content Performs Infinitely Better on Google’s Search Engine

• Topical, short-lived content: Content that is timely and relevant to a particular topic and generally shorter in length and depth. This type of content is generally news-related, but can also be playing into a trend. Because of its timely nature, topical content can result in a short-term boost to your traffic, but will generally fizzle out over time. And this can be exhausting to continually have to churn out new topical posts month after month to keep up with what’s trending lately.

• Evergreen content: This content focuses on offering timeless, invaluable, and in-depth information to the reader. Unlike topical content, evergreen content doesn’t focus as much on timely information, but information that will be relevant in 2, 5, 10, or 20 years from now. Evergreen content done well and following a specific process will result in a much longer-term SEO traffic, as it contains information people will always be searching for and is more comprehensive in covering the topic.  Plus, it will gain more social shares and backlinks over time: two primary ways to get Google’s attention.

In a nutshell: both of these content types provide a boost to your SEO, but evergreen content provides a long-term sustainable arc (that typically continues to grow over time, not just stay flat), while topical content is in it for the short game. This doesn’t make topical or shortform content bad, it’s simply suited to a different type of content but shouldn’t be used as a primary way to drive SEO traffic.

Evergreen content, on the other hand, requires extensive research (both on keywords and the topic itself) and is usually much longer than topical content around 2,000-5,000 words (some as high as 30,000 or 50,000 words) to shortform content’s 500-1,500.

You might be thinking, “So Miles. I don’t believe that people will actually read a piece of content that is tens of thousands of words long.” And while people’s attention spans are getting shorter, if youprovide in-depth information on a topic that lots of people are searching for, they will read, link to it, and share it.  

When you think of evergreen content, think of lists of tips, guides, and so on. This piece from Marketo is a great example of evergreen content on the topic of content marketing.

As the name implies, topical content is, well, topical. As long as a topic or subject is trending, topical content can thrive, netting you traffic. But that assumes you have a large audience that already regularly visits your site.

So what if you don’t have much of a following on social or don’t have much site traffic or don’t have much, if any of an email list?

That’s precisely where using evergreen content to get SEO traffic from Google comes in…

The other thing you have to deal with is that when your topical subject has trended for the last time, so has your content.

And not only this, but because of how quickly short form content can be created, there’s a lot of competition. In a study done by Moz and BuzzSumo, they found 85% of one million articles examined were less than 1,000 words long. But in that same study, they found a positive correlation with the length of content and the number of shares it received on social media.

SEO gains will never arrive if your domain or page authority is too low.

Domain authority (DA) is a system developed by multiple third party software tools (Moz & Ahrefs being two of them) for measuring a site’s potential SERP performance from 1-to-100 when compared to other domains across the web. DA is determined using a series of factors, including a site’s age, backlinks, popularity, trust, and more. If a site has a high DA, its content is more likely to rank higher than a site with similar content but a lower DA.

Similarly, page authority (PA) is a scoring system that calculates how well a particular page may rankon SERP, but Ahrefs calls it URL rating. Much like DA, this is determined by examining link counts, social shares, trust, and influence. A page with a high PA or URL rating is more likely to rank well for a particular keyword phrase than a similar page with a lower PA.

You might think that you should just shoot for a DA and PA of 100. First off, that is really hard to do. Most media sites struggle to stay above 90, and they are producing content every day. Plus, it is important to not that these metrics are a relative measure since this isn’t Google telling us the score. These are third party best guesses (based on data).

Basically, you want to know the DA and PA of your site and your competition so you don’t end up spending tons of time on creating content that you will never rank for.

Yep, you heard me right.

You should pursue this strategy, but only if you are going to stick with it for 18-36 months. It not only takes awhile to write and publish the content but then to gain enough links, initial traffic, and social shares for Google to notice.

It simply takes that long to start seeing results…

Plus, this is one of those things that builds on itself over time, and as you prove your authority on your topic to Google, it gets a little easier to rank the next article by linking from that high ranking post to your latest evergreen post.

Two primary things: Organic traffic from Google and lower cost advertising.

I’ll be frank with you; there’s not.

So why should we even invest in evergreen content marketing for SEO?

In the current marketing landscape, creating quality content is everything. In fact, the lines between marketing and content marketing as a way to build brand awareness and essentially build your own media site for your brand is winning out over the effectiveness of digital ads themselves.

More and more people are tuning out ads. With ad blockers and blindness proliferating as well as digital ad costs expected to continue rising, it will get harder to compete for online advertising. So why not become your own media company where you own the ad channel (your blog traffic, email list, social media, etc.)?

So why not build your thought leadership for your business and just happen to sell them something at the same time? Think like a media company…

On top of that, when viewed over the long term, the cost per conversion for content marketing is less compared to digital ads. True, the upfront investment of evergreen content is more, but you benefit from that content ranking on Google month-after-month, year-after-year. Compare that with digital ads that stop as soon as you stop paying for them.

For the uninitiated, content marketing is a type of marketing that involves the creation and sharing of content online. Think of it as a perfect marriage between content and promotion. Or in the words of Gary Vaynerchuk:

• Let’s say you have a business that creates premium leather boots. While your site looks nice, it’s not getting any traffic. So, you turn to Google and see what people are searching for when it comes to leather boots. Turns out, there are a few guides on caring for boots but you can create one that is 10X better, curating all of their content and adding your own into one large master post.
• You perform extensive keyword research on all things pertaining to leather and boots using a reputable tool like SEMRush. Then, you create a killer guide on how to care for leather boots, taking care to incorporate key sections from similar posts that are already ranking. You load it with quality keywords (not keyword stuffing), some links to respected sites (again that are ranking themselves), videos, and use proper formatting.
• As readers begin to find your guide they begin sharing it with their friends, who then share it with their friends, and so on. And not only this, people are starting to link to your guide in their own content. This is driving even more traffic to your site and building your page authority.

Obviously the above example is grossly oversimplified, but it does show the basic benefits of content marketing: traffic, authority, rank, and all things great for SEO.

“SEO makes demands. Content marketing fulfills those demands.” – Neil Patel

The days of simply and inexpensively buying ad space on Google are over; as the market has matured, ad platforms are getting much more expensive. This goes for Google ads as well as other digital ad platforms. While ad space can always help, many internet users demand more from their online experience. People want answers, and it’s your brand’s job to deliver them in-depth value for free via content marketing long before they ever decide to purchase from you.

There are numerous types of evergreen content, and we are going to touch on 6 of the most successful types next. While the end goal of evergreen content is usually to drive traffic, build brand awareness, and strengthen SEO, each content type is suited for various situations.

Because of the effort required for longform evergreen content, you may need help from an outside firm rather than doing this in house depending on your manpower. However you approach longform content, it is worth the effort in the long run to build credibility while acing your SEO game.

Just make sure you are committed to this over the long haul; it is not worth pursuing if you are going to expect results in 6 months. This journey will take 12, 24, or even 36 months to pay off, but pay off it will!

That being said, a solid case study can not only draw the attention of those seeking answers or information, but also draw attention from competitors or others in the field. This can lead to online discourse between your brand and theirs, and garner even more attention.

This type of content proves your case through the use of examples and precise data to back up your claims and is very powerful for building trust!

Check out this example of mine. https://www.milesanthonysmith.com/blog/how-to-sell-books-on-amazon 

This list from SearchEngineJournal is a great example, as content marketing is something people are always researching and searching for, and the list will only need minor updates as the content marketing game changes. Their particular list also does a great job of providing more general advice that won’t need to be tweaked nearly as much as an overly-technical list on content marketing would need to be.

Keep in mind that you want to expand the number on your list to be at least equal to or greater than the numbers on the list posts you are competing against on the first page of Google. If competitor’s lists are 10, 13, and 23, then you might want to make yours 31.

To help your list be as evergreen as possible, try to focus on the more general aspects of a topic that are unlikely to change. If you’re going to be tackling a technical subject, lists can be a nice supplement to a more in-depth article, but be prepared to update them more regularly as things change.

Check out this example that I helped guide for a client of mine. https://learn.acendia.com/grant-writing-books/ 

Explainer videos may not work for every situation, but the evergreen video treatment can be applied to most other evergreen content models: testimonial videos, “About Us” videos, case study summaries, and more.

For some quick SEO tips to sharpen your video SEO game, check out this great Brian Dean video.

When creating an expert roundup, start by finding a question or hot topic that relates to your brand. Next, reach out to numerous experts in your field and ask if they will weigh in on the topic. They usually will agree since they are looking to grow their influence and brand awareness as long as your “ask” of them won’t take much of their time to create.

Finally, compile these answers in a presentable format and be sure to link to all of the experts’ social media pages and sites and then reach out to them to show them the article and ask them to share it with their audience.

Naturally, expert roundups are a social media magnet. By featuring so many experts in a single piece, you have numerous “authors” that are likely to share the piece on their own social media pages, giving your site and article exposure to all of their audiences.

Not only this, expert roundups are also a great way to get discussions going in the comments on your own site, especially when they pose a difficult or controversial question. More people commenting on your site means more people likely to dive into the discussion and share the article. The best part is that you don’t even have to do a lot of writing, simply stitch the answers together in a way that makes sense and frame the entire thing with an intro and closing paragraph.

The above example from MarTechExec does a great job of this, and goes above and beyond by adding in entertaining gifs to make the piece more readable.

Here is an example that listed me as an SEO expert for their roundup post.http://www.robbierichards.com/seo/seo-metrics/ 

And I’m not talking about a 2 or 3 section infographic. While it will take more time and investment to create an 8-10 section, high quality, engaging infographic, it is worth it since it will get shared and linked to much more than a short one.

Infographics, much like evergreen lists, are a useful way to present complicated topics in a visual manner. Unlike evergreen articles and videos, infographics can be quickly digested without any reading or watching a video. This makes them perfect for sharing on social media. In fact, infographics reach54% more readers than blog posts.

The downsides to infographics is that they require a lot of work. First and foremost, you need a skilled designer who can make your infographics pretty and simple. Plenty of infographics are flashy but difficult to digest. On the other hand, some are simple to interpret but not visually pleasing.

Your designer must be able to strike a balance between the two. Lastly, you need to do extensive research and stat collecting for many infographics based on your topic and what similar infographics are already getting shared (and what they include and look like).

I use Buzzsumo to identify infographics that are already trending and select a topic from what is already successful.

Here is an example I created for a client. https://learn.acendia.com/crowdfunding-for-nonprofits/

Unlike the list post, a how-to guide is a great place to cover more in-depth or technical subjects where you need to show and walk them through each step in a process.

This guide from Quicksprout tackles a difficult and very in-depth subject: online marketing. This particular guide goes the extra mile and presents the information in an infographic style, using tons of stylized text and images. You can then click each section for more information, like an e-book.

If at first you don’t feel a how-to guide would be appropriate for your brand, do keyword research and see what kinds of questions people are asking about in your industry. The odds are pretty great that people are having some kind of issue you know how to solve.

See another client example here:
An Exhaustive Guide: How To Write A Mind-Blowing Grant Proposal (Sample Grant Proposal Included) 

You might be wondering how this diagram can be useful as evergreen content. First, let me explain what a fishbone post is:

It is essentially a list post on steroids! The key is to find clusters of keyword phrases all related to one topic, so creating one of these is hard since you must identify this first. Otherwise, there is no reason to create fishbone post.

Check out these examples that I’ve done for my clients and then come back, and I will explain the process further.

• Can You Guess the 25 Most Popular, Different Leadership Styles?
• Get a Clutter-Free Garage With 61 DIY Garage Storage & Organization Projects
• The Insider’s Guide To The 67 Freshest Nonprofit Fundraising Ideas

Did you notice that many of the headings for each section were external links? 

There are the H2s and H3s that are the secondary and tertiary headings throughout the post. What makes this approach so powerful is having keyword phrases that people are searching for beyond the primary keyword. These become your H2s and H3s, and you demonstrate to Google and your audience that you are authoritative on this topic by adding external links to the H2s and H3s that are the authoritative and ranking well themselves.

Many fishbone posts would stop there, but a final step would be to create an internal post for each of those H2s and H3s you originally had external links point to. But those new pieces of content must be much better in quality and depth or Google won’t see those internal as authoritative, lessening the overall impact of the master fishbone post.

If done well, this approach can create thousands, tens of thousands, or even hundreds of thousands of visitors per month.

Take a look at this example created by another company:
145 Homesteading Skills Every Homesteader Must Be Well Equipped

This post and its subposts gets over 700,000 visitors a year from organic search engine traffic just from Google!

So, what are my results?

I’ve worked on 4 brands/websites, my own included and got the following organic traffic growth from Google.

• Mr. Rekey grew by 362%; that is over 6,700 NEW visits per month from evergreen content.
• Mr. Garage Door went from zero organic visits to over 2,400 a month
• Rawhide Boys Ranch grew by 140%; that is over 6,600 NEW visits per month from evergreen content.
• My own website went from zero organic visits to 5,000 a month.

That’s 237,648 visits from Google’s organic search engine annually! Pretty powerful stuff…

Here’s a quote from a satisfied client of mine:

Mr. Rekey Locksmith

• Grew organic traffic from Google’s search engines by 362%
• 6,700 visits each month just from Google organic traffic.
• Ranking for 4,800 keywords.
• If they would’ve had to purchase this traffic from Google, it would cost them $46,800/mo.
• The second chart demonstrates how I am able to layer many keywords on top of each other to gain maximum exposure for each post; the number in the red box is the number of keywords each post is ranking for, some are on the first page and some are not. They are all over the board.

• Grew organic traffic from Google’s search engines by 417%
• 2,400 visits each month just from Google organic traffic.
• Ranking for 4,400 keywords.
• If they would’ve had to purchase this traffic from Google, it would cost them $14,100/mo.
• The second chart demonstrates how I am able to layer many keywords on top of each other to gain maximum exposure for each post; the number in the red box is the number of keywords each post is ranking for, some are on the first page and some are not. They are all over the board.

• Grew organic traffic from Google’s search engines by 140%
• 6,600 visits each month just from Google organic traffic.
• Ranking for 10,000 keywords.
• If they would’ve had to purchase this traffic from Google, it would cost them $12,800/mo.
• The second chart demonstrates how I am able to layer many keywords on top of each other to gain maximum exposure for each post; the number in the red box is the number of keywords each post is ranking for, some are on the first page and some are not. They are all over the board.

• Grew organic traffic from Google’s search engines by 575%
• 4,900 visits each month just from Google organic traffic.
• Ranking for 5,000 keywords.
• If they would’ve had to purchase this traffic from Google, it would cost them $4,100/mo.
• The second chart demonstrates how I am able to layer many keywords on top of each other to gain maximum exposure for each post; the number in the red box is the number of keywords each post is ranking for, some are on the first page and some are not. They are all over the board.

Each one of the following steps must be followed for success. Even proper completion of phase one and two will result in failure to gain organic traffic from Google if you don’t complete phase three and four.
​

They are very different in many cases, and relying on KW Planner alone can cause you to target a keyword you will never rank for or has much less search volume than you think it has.

Paid tools like SEMRush will not only help you research keywords you’re interested in, but also show you what topics your competitors are covering and precisely how well they are ranking for them. This is crucial to your evergreen content, as it will help you fill in their knowledge gaps, giving your content an edge.

When researching keywords, you want to identify one primary keyword and several related secondary keywords. Shoot for a primary keyword with a search volume of 500-1,500 unless your domain authority is already high, and make sure there’s not too much competition. Even if a word falls in that search volume, high competition can make ranking for that word incredibly difficult. When considering secondary keywords, don’t limit yourself to the minimum of 500 search volume, as lower volume words can still be beneficial.
​

Once you have your high level outline, you start writing to those 3-5 H2s, perhaps adding H3s if it is warranted. Pace yourself so that you don’t end up with too little or too many words.

Then, identify videos that pertain to the keyword phrase, and are also ranking either on the first page of a Google or YouTube search and sprinkle them throughout the post. Add images throughout the article to make the article visually interesting. After all, these posts are 2,000+ words, and you need elements to keep readers engaged other than words.

1. Use your primary keyword in the meta title, meta description, H1, url slug, and first paragraph.
2. Sprinkle secondary keywords and LSI keywords in H2s, H3s, and their requisite body copy.
3. Add external links to other authoritative sites and video embeds that are ranking highly themselves. This shows Google that you are a valuable piece of content by offering your reader other external information.
4. Add a “Table of Contents” before your H2s start; this gives your reader the ability to skip to sections they want to go first, rather than wade through the entire article.
5. Once you have pages ranking, consider adding internal links to other pages you want to pass page authority. This is a great way to make other related pages rank faster than when you have no pages ranking.
6. Create call out boxes for quotes and bold and italic text to visual treat the copy and draw the reader’s eyes
7. Use images, videos, and/or infographics to add more visual appeal.

For a more in-depth view of on-page SEO, check out these two top notch external links. Say hi to Robbie for me!
https://backlinko.com/on-page-seo 
http://www.robbierichards.com/seo/on-page-seo/
​

Just because your evergreen content is completed and published, that doesn’t guarantee it will succeed.

While there are over 200 Google ranking factors, there are a few that are still the most important ones:

1. Quality backlinks: Notice I said quality, not quantity.
2. Social shares: Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, SnapChat, etc.
3. Click-through-rate from Google’s search engine
4. Dwell time: This requires getting some initial traction/eyeballs on your post. Use your email list or others’ lists to show Google some people are reading and interacting with it.

Proper promotion of your evergreen content is everything. I simply CANNOT understate this!

But, before you start sharing your evergreen content all over social media, you need a plan. Look at the above video and see how calculated Gary is about everything. Think about your target audience, what kind of social media activities they partake in, what hashtags they might be using, and so on. Even if your evergreen content is air tight, improper messaging when promoting your content can cause it to flop.

Once you have a plan of attack, start sharing your piece on social media. For maximum effectiveness, you’ll also want to share it via your email to hit your audience that isn’t on social media. However, you likely need to distribute it through a paid content distribution network like QuuuPromote in addition to your own which can do wonders for boosting legitimate social shares as well.

In a similar vein, a proper press release can help spread the word and cost little-to-nothing. Try using a service like PressAdvantage to get guaranteed placement on bona fide TV and radio websites. While these are “no-follow” links and they do expire after a number of months, they are brand mentions with 100s of high domain authority media sites to place your press release, all guaranteed.

Lastly, consider a guestographic approach to build quality links if you’ve chosen to go with an infographic as your evergreen content. For more information on how to accomplish this, check out this great piece from Backlinko.

Another way to build quality links is to offer a scholarship and ask colleges to link back to your website.

.edu links have even more power than .com ones do. Here is an example of a client that we did this kind of a campaign for. https://acendia.com/college-scholarship-high-school-seniors 

Plus, don’t underestimate the value of gaining links for your content by emailing your list of subscribers asking them for either a social share or link.

Following the release of your evergreen content, monitor its health monthly and see how it’s ranking. If you notice a piece of content is starting to dip, it’s entirely possible you need to do some additional keyword research or even update your article with newer images, videos, and text.

See what competitor pieces are ranking, and if any of them are now ranking higher than your piece. If so, see what keywords or information they’re using that you aren’t, and fill in the gaps.

Even if a piece is performing very well, it is a good idea to check that the information featured in it is still completely accurate at least every 12 month. Also, see if there is new information you need to add to make sure it’s as up-to-date as possible. It also never hurts to promote your evergreen content again, even if it’s a little old. This is especially true if said topic is trending in the news for one reason or another.

Plus, when you update the post make sure to update the date on it; Google and your readers will notice, boosting the likelihood that you keep ranking highly. All of this continues to cement your place on Google’s SERP.

If you have older evergreen content that’s not ranking at all, don’t worry about updating them. Focus your time and energy strategically on posts that can give you the best return on your investment of time.

But don’t give up on me yet!

Evergreen content is no walk in the park and requires a lot of effort. If you’re not sure where to start,reach out, and we can see how I might be able to help you to create a full service solution. Once you’ve started gaining traction and your piece has taken off, we can even implement a training regimen to ensure your team continues to build on that growth.