Lantern

Content Marketing Adventure Company

  • Content Roadmaps
  • Content Packages
  • Pricing
  • Blog
  • About
  • Contact
  • Call Us: 413-345-2696
You are here: Home / SEO Blogging for Business / Evergreen Content Is Your Greatest SEO Tool
Evergreen Content Is Your Greatest SEO Tool

December 2, 2022 By Amanda MacArthur

Evergreen Content Is Your Greatest SEO Tool

Illustrated by Patrick Yurick

There’s nothing I hate more than wasted content.

And if you’re publishing blog posts once and never refreshing or re-promoting them, then you’re wasting content. You’re wasting money, too!

We manage several blogs for our clients. Several of those blogs have thousands of blog posts. For our larger clients, like magazine publishers, the majority of content was written before we met. For the startups we work with, most were written by us.

Legacy magazine publishers have never had a problem creating new content. But that doesn’t mean they know what to do with all of the old stuff. And what to do with the old stuff is my favorite part.

That’s why, when managing blogs for our clients, we make room for 10%-20% recycling. With new clients, we might not start this process for six- to 12 months. For our publishing clients who have lots to work with, we start right away.

The life cycle of most articles looks something like this:

  1. Publish blog post.
  2. Promote blog post.
  3. Followers, fans, and email subscribers promote blog post.
  4. SEO-searchers promote blog post.
  5. Blog post never sees the light of day again.

End cycle.

Ideally, your best blog posts should be recycled in a way that looks more like this:

  1. Publish blog post.
  2. Promote blog post.
  3. Followers, fans, and email subscribers promote blog post.
  4. SEO-searchers promote blog post.
  5. Edit blog post (six months later).
  6. Re-promote blog post.
  7. Followers, fans, and email subscribers promote blog post.
  8. SEO-searchers promote blog post.
  9. Continue cycle.

At the very least, schedule your Tweets for 12 months out, so that your blog posts get re-promoted via social media automatically whether you refresh them or not.

Here’s an example of how you might recycle a blog post effectively.

Instead of writing a new version of a “12 Best Holiday Cookies” post every year, why not use the same post and add to it instead? Next year, it can be “24 Best Holiday Cookies.” The next year it can be “36 Best Holiday Cookies.”

In terms of SEO, this is great, because you’ll direct all of your promotional attention to this one article instead of trying to rank three different “Best Holiday Cookies” blog posts. This post will be your SEO champion, and all you have to do is update it every year. All of the inbound links you get via social media and other blogs will continue to accumulate.

You can do the same with other popular posts that are evergreen (meaning that they don’t go out of style).

How we find great evergreen posts worth recycling:

  • Look at your website analytics (Google Analytics, for example) and find out your top 10 traffic-driving posts (organic traffic). In order to keep those posts on top of Google, keep them updated and re-promote them regularly, as with our process above.
  • Look at the pages that drive the most organic traffic, have the lowest bounce rate, the most comments, an average visit duration of more than 2 minutes, and other positive behaviors. Pick your top 10 in each category and add those to your list for recycling.

“Most companies do such a great job of figuring out how they acquired blog visitors via keywords, but rarely do companies take the time to figure out what those visitors did once they got there,” says Patrick Hughes, our Director of Data. “If you’re using your blog to generate leads like our clients do, the content should be analyzed constantly to figure out what works. Identify your best content and continue to improve it. Re-promote it regularly to make sure it stays your top found content.”


“Good management is the art of making problems so interesting and their solutions so constructive that everyone wants to get to work and deal with them.”
― Paul Hawken


Originally published in 2013.

Filed Under: SEO Blogging for Business Tagged With: evergreen content

About Amanda MacArthur

Amanda is Co-Founder and Content Director at Lantern. She guides our team of writers, designers, and social media copywriters to create compelling content every week for our clients.

Before Lantern, Amanda ran the research arm of a consultancy for magazine publishers where she taught blogging and social media workshops to editors at Harvard, F + W, Time Inc. Condé Nast, Dwell Media and Bonnier.

Now she uses her industry experience to turn brands into publishers who are generating a significant amount of their revenue through organic search traffic to their blog.

She also loves dogs, is the author of a best-selling cookbook, geocaching, road trips, rock mining and exploring new wine trails.

Comments

  1. bush56367 says

    December 22, 2017 at 12:29 am

    Thank you so much to share this tools in here and i know it will be so more useful for the SEO workers and they find more comfy to use this. I like this feature for works.

    Reply
  2. Mittal Builders says

    November 20, 2019 at 7:59 am

    Really helpful information! https://www.mittalbuilders.com/sun-sapphire

    Reply
  3. 123 goal says

    December 11, 2021 at 2:46 am

    Some articles besides show facts in บอลไหล the article. Also providing enjoyment The author may express opinions or present ideas. Beneficial to society It is ไฮโล important to present some of the author’s own opinions. completely Because some articles may contain specific terms and academic wm casino terms in the content.
    How to write this article There are writing techniques หวยลาวพัฒนา that keep the reader interested in following the subject. This article is quite a mix คาสิโนออนไลน์ เครดิตฟรี of both the essence and the secret. Giving knowledge, inserting comments, and also giving pleasure Explain how to do a particular thing. And สล็อต123 readers can understand As well as can be followed
    It is a subject that people are 123bet casino interested in and it is a story that the author has knowledge, proposing stories and ideas Boundaries หวยปิงปอง are set to be narrow to complete and deep.

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

business benefits of blogging

The Greatest Business Benefits of Blogging Aren’t Business As Usual

The CEO’s Guide to Corporate Blogging Best Practices

17 Little Known Storytelling Social Media Formulas: Plant the Seeds and Watch Your Articles Grow!

hiring blog writers

Hiring Blog Writers: Grow With the Help of Experts

building a blog audience

5 Resolutions for Building a Blog Audience

blog collaboration

Blog Collaboration: Inviting Different Voices to Write for Your Blog

best company blogs

Lantern’s 10 Best Company Blogs

creative blog ideas

Turn Testimonials Into Stories: 5 Creative Blog Ideas Inspired by Customers & Employees

blog post types

Blog Post Types: Use Media to Enhance Your Message

construction blog ideas

If You Build It, They Will Come: 10 Construction Blog Ideas

Categories

  • Blogging Best Practices
  • Business Therapy
  • Company Adventures
  • Company News
  • Content Marketing Strategy
  • Developing Digital Customer Loyalty
  • Entrepreneur Therapy
  • Follow Friday Video
  • Managing Writers
  • Marketing Genius
  • Non Sequitur
  • SEO Blogging for Business
  • Social Media Marketing Ideas
  • Turning Stories into Sales
  • Video Blog Ideas for Business
  • Visual Storytelling in Business
  • TWITTER
  • FACEBOOK
  • INSTAGRAM
  • LINKEDIN
  • Call Us: 413-345-2696

Lantern Content Company· A QuarterFive Media, LLC Company