What could you be doing wrong?
Imagine being in the middle of planning for your blog content. You’re starting to get some inspiration and getting a few topic ideas that you think might catch your target audience’s attention, as you usually do. But this time it feels hard, you feel defeated before even starting to write. Don’t let this bring you down. It happens to most of us.
Your previous blog post didn’t hit. When you think about it, you feel discouraged. Your blogs don’t gain much engagement.
What is wrong?
First, think about the type of content. Is it evergreen? Or topical?
Not sure? That is fine. We’ve all been got in between a piece of content and an idea that you can’t write down. Thinking that idea is a game-changer. However, when you go through it for the fourth time, you realize it isn’t going anywhere.
That is why it’s always an excellent idea to think and plan the kind of blog content you’re going to produce.
Different kinds of blog content can help you achieve different goals. And once you’re sure, the type of content you’re going to produce, either evergreen or tropical, you can make a better content strategy.
Not sure what tropical or evergreen means? That is alright because you’re going to understand everything below shortly.
What is Topical Blogging?
As the name sounds, this is about writing blogs on trending topics, content that is gaining a lot of popularity.
Topical content is an excellent way of achieving quick likes and shares, but it becomes irrelevant quickly due to new hot topics gaining all the attention.
What Are The Examples Of Topical Content?
- News-related articles
- Statistics-based content
- Current industry developments
- Latest events
What Is Evergreen Content?
Well, the name says it all. Evergreen is a type of tree that keeps its green leaves throughout the year. Just like the tree, evergreen content stays relevant for quite some time. Think about it this way; evergreen blogging is forever green, forever relevant, and forever fresh.
How do you produce an appealing evergreen content? You want your content to be as useful to the person who finds it the day you posted it, as a person who finds it later, maybe In a year or two years.
Even though the tips on the content become useless in the future, considering how fast technology changes, you can always go back to your post and update the points that need a significant change. Then , the content continues to be useful.
Examples of Evergreen content
- How-to guides
- List articles
- Top topics
- The history of insert topic
- Videos
- FAQs
- Podcasts
Benefit of Topical Content
- Instant exposure. The major benefit of topical content s that the recent news posts on the internet are instantly popular like something that has been in existence for some time. Marketers like topical blogging because of this but still others like evergreen because it’s going to be around for quite some time.
Benefit of evergreen
- Long-term exposure Evergreen blogging supports SEO strategy because it allows you to use the keywords flawlessly throughout the article, and you can also include links of different pieces of online content. Additionally, evergreen blogs may lower your bounce-back rate and bring readers on your site for an extended period because the content is timeless, informative, and relevant. Usually, a low bounce rate means it sends messages to search engines that your blog is still valuable and met the user’s search request.
- Content is also a good way of building links in terms of SEO. It helps you to create your backlink profile and dominates your website through links from different sites. Evergreen blogging adds value; thus, it’s appealing to other writers who might be looking forward to publishing-related subjects and might need to link from an outside resource to provide well researched and evidence packed content. If that resource is your evergreen content, you can get an organic link to your site. This is crucial when you want to build a strong backlink profile and doubling your rank authority.
Which is Better: Evergreen or Topical?
Even though it sounds like an easy answer, that is true; it depends on several factors like:
For those who want instant engagement
Then your best shot is topical blogging as it is a quick way to drive a lot of traffic in no time.
Articles with this kind of content lose their relevancy really quick. But, it does indicate to your users that your site is up-to-date with all the trending news. This may lead to building trust because there is proof that your website is capable of staying current.
For those that are looking for long-term engagement
There is no doubt that evergreen is going to get you long-term effectiveness of reaching your target audience and generate more likes, shares, and comments. That is the reason why it’s the most preferred kind of content and used in bulk for any site blog.
In contrary to topical blogging, evergreen is not likely to reach a massive engagement quickly. But with time, it may gain more traffic than topical.
Conclusion
Both topical and evergreen content are valuable. And they can be both a component of a successfully unified content marketing strategy. From time to time, your blog should offer a combination of topical and evergreen to increase your traffic.
But if you don’t have a full-time content marketing department ready for you, topical blogging may get tedious. It can make you worn out very fast unless you have a burning desire to get yourself out on the latest, trendy news in the industry. Or to feel proud about how you crushed it with your in-house team, whenever possible, it’s likely to be labor-intensive, and still better if you go evergreen.
But before you decide to dive into any of them, evergreen or tropical with a post, ask yourself this question. Which approach is going to give the highest boost to your long-term marketing strategy?