{"id":16516,"date":"2018-08-14T17:30:25","date_gmt":"2018-08-14T16:30:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/intercom.com\/blog\/?p=16516"},"modified":"2024-07-25T11:35:04","modified_gmt":"2024-07-25T10:35:04","slug":"building-a-long-tail-of-evergreen-content","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.intercom.com\/blog\/building-a-long-tail-of-evergreen-content\/","title":{"rendered":"Building a long tail of evergreen content"},"content":{"rendered":"

The first law of content marketing is that publishing is an expensive business. No matter how hard you try to circumvent it, the first law will always come back and bite you.<\/p>\n

One common approach is to outsource content production, which can be cheaper in pure monetary terms. But unless someone, preferably an editor or someone with editorial skills, is closely managing that process you\u2019ll end up paying more for it in the long run.<\/p>\n

That’s because the second law of content marketing is that crappy content generates crappy business. If the articles you\u2019re publishing are just plain bad, then you won\u2019t generate traffic. If they are good but only tangentially related to your business, then you’re going to be attracting readers who will never become your customers.<\/p>\n

Just because you can publish to the world for free, doesn\u2019t mean content is free<\/p>\n

Lots of startups who start a blog<\/a> approach content production as something that can be done in the founders’ \u201cspare time\u201d \u2013 at weekends or evenings. That might work for a while but it\u2019s simply not a sustainable, scalable or sane strategy. And it requires massive discipline, because as a founder or early stage employee, time spent writing blog posts, hosting podcasts, or shooting videos is time you\u2019re not doing other work that often seems more urgent or impactful.<\/p>\n

Just because you can publish to the world for free with a Medium\/Twitter\/LinkedIn account doesn\u2019t mean content is free. Content marketing<\/a> should be approached and resourced in the same way that any other marketing function is, which means you have to invest in it if you want to break through the noise.<\/p>\n

So how do you make sure you\u2019re getting a return on your investment? Not in terms of how you measure success \u2013 the KPIs you need to measure will be unique to the circumstances of your business. But how can you ensure you\u2019re getting the best return out of that expensively produced content?<\/p>\n

Enter evergreen content<\/h2>\n

The strategy that has paid off \u2013 and continues to pay off at Intercom \u2013 is publishing evergreen content.<\/p>\n

What is evergreen content? Put simply, it is content that addresses timeless themes and answers recurring questions people in your industry are going to have. Rather than reacting to recent events, it takes a broader perspective on topics. It is content that focuses on enduring ideas and advice that will have currency for weeks, months and years \u2013 evergreen content retains its relevance because it addresses universal themes.<\/p>\n

When I worked as a journalist, evergreen had negative connotations. Real journalists were out breaking news, not reheating old themes at their desk. (Although that was before the internet ate their advertising revenues \u2013 but that\u2019s a post for another blog and another day).<\/p>\n

The content itself is highly temporal and has no value once the event has passed<\/p>\n

Hardly surprising when most news organizations\u2019 idea of evergreen content is \u201cEverything you need to know about X event happening in our city\u201d or \u201cHow to watch Y sports game that the whole country is talking about\u201d.<\/p>\n

The mistake is in mistaking an evergreen tactic for evergreen content \u2013 those articles will generate a nice bump in traffic in the day or two before X event as people figure out their travel plans, or when they are trapped at work instead of watching Y game, but the next day they\u2019re trash littering your Google index.<\/p>\n

At Intercom, the tactical equivalent would be to publish articles on how to survive this year\u2019s Dreamforce or speculation on the next Facebook F8 announcement. The tactic might be age-old and recyclable (the preview, the round-up, etc), but the content itself is highly temporal and has no value once the event has passed.<\/p>\n

A far more efficient and productive use of resources is to publish evergreen content that touches timeless topics and answers those recurring questions. (Sidenote: the rise of voice interfaces means if you want to improve your SEO you need to start thinking about answering questions not simply targeting keywords.)<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s just three examples of articles we\u2019ve published that answer perennial questions:<\/p>\n