Content creation in 2016 is more challenging than ever. Many remember the days in which content creation was not a huge consideration – by crafting keywords and optimizing tags, you could easily rank in the top positions in search. Today, however, content is king, and you’ll need a constant supply of it in many cases in order to remain relevant. Evergreen content is one of the two main types of content that blogs and websites serve up to readers and visitors. Deciding whether to produce content that is time-sensitive and temporarily relevant is often affected by which niche a blog or website covers. For many evergreen content makes more sense, as it remains relevant for long periods of time. Below, we’ll review how to build evergreen content that gets the most mileage and that performs the best in search results, social media and beyond.

Pick the Ideal Post Format

When pinging servers with content, the first and perhaps most important element in being successful is picking the right post format for your content. With evergreen content, there are several different post formats that can be used. One popular format is the how-to post, which explains to people how something is done, how to do something or otherwise provides tutorial assistance. List posts are another popular form of evergreen content, and can be used to rank items or ideas, build suspense for the best and most effective items, and otherwise generate interest from beginning to end. Surveys and quizzes are yet another popular evergreen post format, which can generate interest for months or years after the original post is made.

Longer is Better

The nature of social media continues to transform much of the internet. One particular way in which this is occurring is through the average length of communication. Many posts and interactions are now much shorter than they were several years ago. Despite this, search engines are increasingly prioritizing longer forms of content over shorter forms. When crafting evergreen content that is to perform well not only in terms of substance but also in terms of structure, it is imperative that the content be as long as possible (while still maintaining relevance). As such, creating individual posts and pages with at least 1,000 words is highly recommended.

Speak Simply

In order to ensure content performs as well as possible, it needs to be readable to as many people as possible. Most forms of evergreen content will be aimed at audiences who do not wish to read about subjects in technical terms. This means that the words and phrases used should be as simple as possible. Shorter sentences should take priority over longer sentences. Pinging servers with content that is too complex in one or more of these areas will likely cause it to under-perform over the long-term. Remember: evergreen content is in high demand, but in order to perform well in search, people have to find the content desirable. As such, aim to communicate on a level that practically everyone can understand.