Using Evergreen Content to Improve Business Sales and Marketing ...

Content marketing is a marketing practice that has been recently embraced by a lot of online marketers, especially people in the SEO industry.

Although the principle has existed for decades, continual changes in the online marketing landscape have substantiated the immense weight that Content Marketing can contribute to today?s businesses. Given that it allows small to large brands to be more competitive in their respective industries and this channel enables them to empower both sales and marketing efforts.

Infographic via Junta42

Now that you have a brief background of what content marketing is, let?s head on to the one approach in content marketing that can extremely grow your business in so many ways -?pushing out evergreen content on a massive scale. Why? Because this methodology for content strategy can touch several aspects of online marketing in one go (particularly the important ones), such as:

• Scalable link acquisition
• Achieving high search rankings for industry terms
• Continuous social sharing of content
• Constant traffic generation from different sources (referring sites, social and search)
• Helping the site?s online conversions in terms of lead and revenue generation
• Uncovering more opportunities for the site (links, relationships, coverage, partnerships, etc?)
• Supporting and giving more visibility to the other important pages of the site
• Growing subscribers, social followers and brand advocates as the content consistently draws traffic to itself.
• Brand strengthening

We?ll go more on the details and on how to optimize content for each listed aspects below. But before everything else, I just want to share that this post was heavily inspired by Nick Eubanks? case study of my blog (which will be out soon).

Creating an evergreen content that will create impact for your business

Evergreen content, as the term defines itself, is a content that never relies on current trends and is simply an informational or reference material that somehow never goes out of date (as explained by WiseGeek).

Content marketers commonly use this type of content with the intention to drive consistent web traffic to it (for a long period of time), since this type of content discusses generally searched information most of the time (such as guides and historical information).

So how do you create one? Here are few tips on creating a robust evergreen content that will influence your overall online marketing campaign:

• Build content based on keywords that a specific segment of your target audience/customers generally seek for (ex. ?learn SEO? or ?advanced SEO tips?). Use Google Keyword Tool to identify topics that are being constantly searched and appeal to your market.
• Make your content as in-depth as it can be. Look at how the content is presented on Wikipedia. Their pages are mostly cited as a reference mainly because of the extensiveness of their content.
• Use visualizations, like rich images, to generate more interest from your readers/viewers.
• Explore other content formats in presenting content, such as videos, slide presentations and/or data visualizations.
• Aim to have the best content about that certain subject in your industry?s online sphere. Research your competitors? similar content. This principle will help you create a better copy and will also be its unique selling point in continuously attracting traffic and activity.

Once you are done with the content, interconnecting other areas of web marketing efficiently will be more often than not its end-results, seeing that you?ll have plenty of time to make use and benefit from it.

Scalable Link Acquisition

Getting voluntary given and editorial links to an evergreen content is almost always certain to happen. It can even work on continuously acquiring natural links to itself over time, as long as people can find it and as long as the content provides useful/relevant information by the time they see it.

Making an evergreen content very comprehensive is so important, because it?s the element that will entice people, especially content creators in your field, in using it as a reference (whether on blog posts, forum threads or other community discussions).

For instance, the link growth for an evergreen post that I?ve published last March 16, 2011 about Ecommerce SEO strategies has been increasing for the past 17 months.

That post also received a link from SEOmoz recently (May 2012, after 14 months of being published). And one reason why the amount of new links acquired on that month increased is because of the sites that have scraped the linking content from SEOmoz.

How to optimize your content for linking:

• Make sure that the content will be found by people who are specifically searching for it. This will involve optimizing the page/content for several possible search terms that are used when researching for information (both short and long-tail keywords).
• Build internal contextual links to the content to improve its visibility through search rankings and referred page visits. A useful advice for this method is to use longer strings of texts for their anchors, as longer anchor texts are more receptive to readers and can also allow the destination content to target multiple keywords that they can rank for.
• Build incoming links to the content from other websites through outreach or content distribution (contextually linking to them through your guest blogs). This will increase the chances of getting more traffic to the page, which can also encourage more people in your industry in referencing the content.

Basically, the key to make your content a scalable link building machine is to build channels that will consistently send traffic to it, whether from search, social or links. The more new visitors the page can get over time, the better chances of getting people who might find and use the content as a resource for their works.

Better Search Rankings for Industry Keywords

Solid content that?s meant to last a lifetime (or almost) has higher potentials of getting good SERP rankings, as they have most of the factors that search engines tend to look for in terms of quality of information/content, page activity, user engagement and ability to continuously attract natural links.

Having good rankings for your content can stretch possibilities for your business? marketing and sales efforts, knowing that it can almost ensure highly targeted traffic to the page who may take actions (sharing, linking, subscribing and even purchasing).

As soon as your content is capable of generating search-traffic, the likelihood of getting natural links, continuous social shares, followers and potential customers will be higher.

How to get higher search rankings for your evergreen content: ????

• Optimize content for search, especially in making the content absolutely relevant to the keywords it?s aiming to rank for.
• Build more exposure and authority to the content through both internal linking and content-based link building.
• Utilize social media marketing techniques to send out more positive signals from the content as well as for the content to be more visible on personalized search results.

Continuous Social Sharing

One of the most awesome things that you can get from an evergreen content is its ability to create a recurring cycle for social sharing.

In social media, even if the content is already months or years old, it can still work for you as long as the content has proven to offer value to its audience.

For example, the ?SEO for ecommerce? post I?ve shared earlier is still generating social shares even its publication date was a year and half ago.

These instances can tremendously help in keeping your content alive, as it can generate traffic, possible linkers, subscribers/followers and leads to the site.

Being able to get social shares to already existing content can also generate sudden traffic spikes, depending on the authority/influence of the sharer.

How to optimize your content for social sharing

• Make the social buttons serve as the secondary call-to-action of the content by making them very visible to your visitors. Place it above the fold and right after the content.
• Use awesome titles for your posts that aren?t limited by trends (extensive tips, guides and lists are usually effective in this type of content). Check out Dan Shure?s guide on writing effective titles.
• Implement the ?unexpected hook? element when creating content, where you try to exceed the readers? expectations out from the content. This will increase the likelihood of the content of being shared on social networks.
• Build more channels to draw new traffic from (sites/pages linking to them or keywords they are ranking for). As the more new visitors the page can get, the more social shares it can eventually generate.

Evergreen Content Generates Constant Traffic

A special feat that a strong evergreen content has is its capability to consistently draw traffic from different sources, particularly from the first 3 areas that I?ve mentioned above (natural links, search rankings and social shares).

Using this approach for your content strategy is like building a marketing army that will promote your brand on autopilot, because it will continuously bring traffic to your site that may:

• Link to your content
• Share your content
• Subscribe to your feed/newsletter
• Follow you on social networks

Just imagine the power this method can lend to your site if you have tens or hundreds of this kind of high performing content hosted in your domain.

How to drive constant traffic to your evergreen content:

• Improve its search rankings by optimizing the content for its targeted keyword(s), building internal links to it and acquiring links that will generate traffic (editorial, contextual, and links from relevant discussions from pages/threads that are also getting constant traffic).
• Update content if necessary to make sure that new visitors will be satisfied with the content they?ll be landing on. This will increase the chances of the established content of being shared.
• Share your old content on social networks once in a while to send your new followers who might have missed the content.

Grow Conversions (lead and revenue generation)

Given that your content will going to continuously drive traffic to itself, getting potential customers/clients will not be impossible, since the content strongly exemplifies your expertise in your field.

Just like what I?ve mentioned on my guest post on Kikolani, I mostly got my past and current clients because of my blog posts, not through rankings. And this can certainly work for any size of businesses.

To further illustrate what I?m meaning to say, an evergreen content usually acts as a middle of the funnel element that can stimulate the buyer?s decision process.

For instance, the ecommerce post I?ve mentioned as a sample above has generated several client inquiries through my blog?s SEO consulting services page and contact page over the months it?s been live (approximately 14 potential clients out of 443 highly-engaged readers ? 3.16% conversion rate).

How to optimize content for conversions:

• Improve the page?s loading speed. You can use tools like Page Speed Online or Pingdom to see how the page is performing in terms of speed and the areas you?ll need to optimize to enhance load time.

• Include strong CTAs right after the content to attract leads. Look at how Hubspot attract specifically targeted leads on every end of their blog posts:

• Internally link to other useful pages or high-converting pages of your site, to improve visitor as well as brand retention and to move them further down through your conversion funnel.
• Identify the content?s keywords that are sending converted visitors through Google Analytics. Optimize the content for those keywords for them to generate more traffic that have high chances of converting.

Grow Subscriptions and Social Following

Bringing continual traffic to the evergreen content can also successively increase and grow your subscribers (feed or newsletter) and social followers. You can make these aspects be parts or goals of your conversion optimization, by simply adding them to your content?s calls-to-action (placing it on parts where readers can easily see them).

Support and lend visibility to other important pages (through internal linking)

Your evergreen content will continually improve its page authority, due to various activities that will occur within the content over time. It?ll eventually be a strong asset that you can utilize to support your other important pages (useful content, transactional pages, etc?) through internal linking.

These internal links can funnel through your content?s new visitors to your other important pages, and most importantly, the internal links can also pass link value to the internally linked pages, which can help them improve their search rankings as well.

Scale Link opportunity discovery and Relationship Building via social shares

Once your content is already well-established (constantly receives traffic and new social shares), you can start tracking those who have shared your content, as it can lead you to finding more opportunities and easier-to-acquire links.

Monitoring these can also help you build relationships and alliances in your community, which your brand can benefit from for your future content marketing efforts (through social outreach).

How to do Social Reverse Engineering:

For Twitter, you can use Topsy. Monitor and make a list of those who have recently shared your old content, especially those who run or have websites/blogs.

You can also use Google Search in finding people who have shared your content on Facebook

and Google+

Check the ones who own websites (from the search results) and start engaging them.

Initiate conversations by simply thanking them for sharing your old post/content. Building a good rapport will help you get easier ? but higher value ? link acquisitions or higher response rates once you start pitching for guest blogs and/or link requests.

Online Brand Strengthening

Serving high value content that?s meant to attract traffic for a long time ? and being consistent with production ? can definitely be a solid ground in creating advocates/loyalists/evangelists for your brand.

Another factor that helps in shaping a unique identity for your brand as a thought-leader, aside from the expertly done content you provide, will somehow rely on the industry keywords that your site is ranking for or your brand?s search share in its specific niche.

Since people, particularly from your industry or interested in your industry, are easily reminded by those who they mostly see when they search for your industry?s major keywords (for both research and consumption purposes).

For instance, I?ve been kind of popular in the link building scene and have been mentioned on several blog posts that mainly discuss link building:

Why? Because I?ve created dozens of remarkable posts about it.

A lot of people also know me as an SEO strategist because I?ve been ranking for this keyword for over a year now:

Creating an evergreen content that appeals to a large audience, which people can also easily find (through search engines), can instantly build perceptions about you as a brand.

If you?re in the SEO industry and you know who Jon Cooper is, then I?m kind of sure that the words ?link building strategies? are already playing around your head.

That?s how evergreen content can strengthen and expand your brand presence as well as the perceived value that people see in your business.

Making this content approach as the foundation of your online marketing strategy and having ton of them will scale and almost automate your business? marketing and sales efforts.

And the best thing about this approach is that even if the content failed to attract massive traffic/links on its initial launch, it?ll still be able to survive and eventually attract people to share/link/consume it? because it?s evergreen.

If you liked this post, you can subscribe to my feed and follow me on Twitter @jasonacidre. For more tips you can check out my list of online marketing strategies.

Related posts:

1. Viral Content Marketing: Creating, Promoting and Scaling Content
2. Online Brand Marketing ? Building a Strong Brand Presence using SEO, Social and Content
3. Viral Content Ideas for Boring Industries

Tagged as: Content Marketing, SEO Strategies

Source: http://kaiserthesage.com/evergreen-content/

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