Why Evergreen Content is So Important and 5 Tips on How To Write It

Yo there! If you are new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed, or through email, for more tips on better and effective blogging!

Evergreen content, as it is called, is very important for a blog. It’s content that always has value and worth and never gets old. It’s timeless. Ever wonder why tutorial websites never get ‘old’? Why they can become immensely popular even without being updated for months, even years? It’s because of the content they have. Their tutorials will never get outdated. For as long as the stuff (which the tutorial is about) is there, people will keep looking for tutorials on it. This is why tutorial and how-to articles have immense value and thus are named ‘evergreen’ content.

Image: genenphotos

The main difference between ‘evergreen’ and regular content is that regular content often soon becomes outdated and old, where as evergreen content always stays in demand.

You must have guessed from my repeated emphasis on evergreen content that it is important to have this on your blog. This provides an incentive, a magnet for people searching for tutorials. If your tutorials are really good and well explained, these temporary visitors can become loyal readers! So, to help you do that, here are some tips.

1. RESEARCH first!

This is the most important thing you should do before you start off writing your tutorial. First of all, you have to determine what is popular with internet searchers. It’s no use writing a tutorial on using Windows 98, since that is history and people won’t generally be searching for it. But, you could write a tutorial on the open source Ubuntu, since it’s recent and people are looking for tutorials on installing and using it. And so on; you get the idea.

However, it is also important that you yourself are well versed in the thing you choose to write about. So, you can’t write about the more popularly searched for Ubuntu if you only know about Windows 98. So, you’ve got to balance demand with your own knowledge.

A great place to compare several different things and judge their demand is Google Trends. All you have to do is enter your keywords and it shows you the amount of searches done on each item (with the Google search engine, that is) over a period of years and for different regions. For example, here’s what I got when I compared Ubuntu with Windows 98:

You can see from the above that Ubuntu has been more popular than Windows 98 with internet searchers since mid-2005. The amount of searches for Windows 98 are almost none towards the end of 2007, where as the amount of Ubuntu related searches soars into the sky. Therefore, isn’t it more sensible to write a tutorial on Ubuntu than for Windows 98? The question still remains though whether you have enough knowledge yourself about a particular subject. If that is the case, choose something else what you know about. But please don’t post crap!

2. Make your tutorial article long and well-articulated

Well it doesn’t have to be long, but it has to be as articulate and as comprehensive as possible. Remember that you’re writing for complete newbies or maybe people with very little experience. That’s why they came to your blog; to learn how to use something. Therefore, keep your article in a simple language and explain every step if possible.

The more articulate and comprehensive you are, the better will your tutorial turn out to be. And the more will your readers appreciate the effort. Also, more people will refer to it in their own posts, and you also will get a lot of links from other blogs, and perhaps more readers also.

But make sure that if the tutorial is long, it’s not boring or seemingly intimidating for readers. And this brings us to our next point.

3. Use Images and Illustrations in Your Tutorial

A picture is worth a thousand words. Use images and illustrations in your tutorial to help your readers understand better. Some things simply cannot be explained in words. Use images for them. If possible, use relevant illustrations for each step. This helps make sure that the reader is following you throughout the tutorial. For an example, look through the posts of this blog. You will find that most of them contain at least one relevant photograph or image.

Images bring color to your otherwise boring article. They end the monotonous feeling that a long article usually has. Also, by seeing actual pictures of something in action, readers can understand better what is being said and what’s going on and can make up their mind so as to whether they like that particular thing or not.

For the perfect example, just look at your self. Do you prefer a tutorial with illustrations? Most probably, the answer will be yes. It’s the same for your readers.

4. Use Facts, Not Opinion

This is a classic problem with many tutorial writers. Don’t provide your own opinion! Just give the facts of the whole process, so the reader is not left thinking like “but he said ‘…maybe if you do this, that will happen…’ “. Don’t take the long way round. Give only the facts and take the shortcut ;)!

Seriously, many tutorial writers do include their own opinion. Remember the word here is opinion. Opinion is different from fact. If you know something for sure, and are confident about it, don’t hesitate to tell it to your readers. But if you know something only partly, don’t even mention it! Because you see, you can leave your reader in two, or several minds if you do this. Your readers will be confused about what you said. And then they are bound to mess things up. And if that happens, they won’t trust you again, possibly never again. As I say:

It’s better to be sure than sorry

5. Shoot Straight to The Point, And Stay There

This is somehow related to the above point.

You’ve got to shoot straight to the point. Don’t ramble about in the beginning. In other words, be unambiguous. The first (or the second) line of the article must be the first line of the tutorial. A tutorial means what? ‘A step by step article teaching something’, right? So a tutorial shouldn’t contain anything that’s not part of the tutorial itself. So, don’t keep rambling about ‘…How I finally got it working with my hard drive…’. Here’s a simple rule to judge whether you should include something or not: If it’s not part of the tutorial, it’s go no right to be there. Bitter, but the best.

Also, don’t deviate throughout the tutorial. Stay on the line till the end. It might be less fun for you, agreed. But do you care more about yourself than your reader? That’s the point

So, start acting on the above tips and generate evergreen content for your blog, for it will always remain a constant source of attraction for readers!

I hope you liked this article on evergreen content. If you have any comments (of appreciation or otherwise) please speak them out without hesitation!

Don't miss a single word, subscribe to our RSS feed now!  What's RSS?