6 Evergreen Content Ideas to Inspire Your Editorial Calendar

Your editorial calendar likely encompasses various holidays and special sales events for your business. However, you should also look to evergreen content to ensure people find your posts and website year round. Evergreen content is relevant month after month and year after year.

Backlinko conducted an evergreen content study where they looked at 3.6 billion articles and analyzed them. They found lists and how-tos were the most popular evergreen formats. A list post was 15 times more likely to become evergreen than a presentation post.

If you’re seeking ideas for evergreen content for your editorial calendar, here are six of our favorite ideas.

1. Answer Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

What are the questions you get over and over again? Look back to customer service logs, comments on social media and interaction on your website. The topics appearing over and over are often ongoing questions.

Keep your posts evergreen by focusing on general answers. For example, if a question is about how a particular product works, the product might change over time. Your evergreen post should focus more on how to troubleshoot or where to find resources.

2. Solve a Problem

If you want to create a lot of buzz around your posts, you should figure out what problem people in your sphere of influence face and attempt to solve it. Get people talking. While the content may not stay evergreen forever if it involves technology, it can remain relevant for quite a long time and you can update in the future.

One example of an editorial campaign solving a problem was Three and the “Connected Island.” People were moving away from the island of Arranmore because of lack of connectivity and opportunities. The human to human approach helped the campaign be one of the best ever. Their new business leads grew by 18% and overall business by 153% in a year.

3. Write a Tutorial

Tutorials are popular how-tos. Try to stick to general topics. If you get too specific, it might not stay evergreen. Be aware that tutorials might not stay evergreen forever. An article on how to get on the internet from 1985 isn’t going to be relevant today. However, a post on how to get the most from a particular web browser may stay relevant for years.

4. Consider Broad Topics

One of the most cost effective ways to market your brand is by repurposing content. When you write a post, think about how you can gather various topics and turn them into an ebook or seminar.

For example, if you sell shoes, you might write a series on the best shoe type for different activities. You could then gather all of those posts into a guide for readers. Because the topic is about types of shoes, it should stay current no matter what style trends take hold.

5. Revamp Current Content

Do you have pieces already posted that are popular at the moment but not evergreen? Consider how you might write a post that is evergreen around the subject.

For example, you wrote an article on how to prepare for the current tax season. The article gets tons of visits each month. How can you make it evergreen? You could write on how to find a tax professional near you or about top tax tips for small business owners. Look for ways to keep the content general so it doesn’t get dated.

6. Create a Glossary

No matter what industry you’re part of, there are likely some terms that arise repeatedly. Your customers may not know what they all are, so creating a glossary of terms can give you evergreen content without a lot of extra thought or effort on your part.

Be Open to New Ideas

Pay attention to what people discuss on message boards, the questions they email you and the problems arising more than once. These are all great ideas for evergreen content you can offer to help your audience solve problems and learn more about your industry.