Evergreen content can be hugely useful for bringing in consistent streams of organic traffic over time. However, with the emergence of generative AI, it can be tempting to let the robots create your content while you sit back and relax.
The problem with this approach is that you will be creating content that looks identical to what many other sites have produced for the SERPs, and you won’t be ticking any of Google’s boxes when it comes to EEAT – Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trustworthiness.
By following our guide, you’ll learn how to give your evergreen content new life with methods that will also make it compliant with Google’s EEAT guidelines. Read on to find out what you need to do…
1. Assign authorship
If you have a library of evergreen content that was authored by ‘the team’ or worse, nobody at all, then your pages won’t be seen as expertly or authoritatively written. Ultimately, Google is looking for high-quality content which has been written by someone with knowledge in the field – which means that assigning authorship is the least you can do to get your content on the right track.
However, that isn’t the only step you need to take. Once your content has been assigned to its rightful author, it will need to be clearly written by that person. That means the copy should have some personality and creativity applied to it, so it doesn’t read like a text output from ChatGPT.
Those who read content from a particular author should ideally be able to tell it comes from that person. They may also want to read further content from them, in which case having a clickable byline on each piece encourages an onward journey within the site.
Ensure each author bio is well populated, with their entire archive of content and ideally a photo of the person. There should also be a section providing an overview of who that person is, why they write about this niche and what their experience is in the topic. Assigning all of the relevant evergreen content to the respective authors and making their bio pages pop is a surefire way to get that EEAT boost.
2. Insert original insight
Where possible, insert first-person narratives into your evergreen content. For example, if you are writing about the best ways to cultivate tulips, talk about your own experience with this activity. In our discussion on the ways humans will always have superiority to AI, we describe how we can speak from experience instead of simply stating facts that can be pulled from the web.
It will still be important to conduct a competitor analysis to establish you are covering the sections that users are expecting to see according to the top pages in your target SERP. However, anyone writing on a particular topic should be able to pull from their own experience – or at least source experts who can verify the information, providing original insight of their own.
Another way to include original content is to utilise statistics you may have available by analysing your customer base and including it contextually in your piece. Such information can also be leveraged in digital PR campaigns.
3. Update imagery
Legacy evergreen content which has effectively been left to decay will likely have stock images – or no imagery at all. While image optimisation does not carry a huge weighting in the context of on-page SEO, it’s still important to make use of the opportunity to appear in Google Image results and satisfy EEAT guidelines.
In a nutshell, Google indicates that original imagery is better than illustrations pulled from stock picture databases. A worthy investment of time and resource is ensuring that unique photos or illustrations are taken or created by professionals. You could hire a photographer to get unique images of your products or assign an illustrator to create bespoke imagery for concepts in your evergreen content.
Consider getting infographics made for content which describes processes or concepts that could be visually represented. This will help visual learners to grasp ideas and engage with the content more, as well as improve your chances of ranking in Google Image results.
Once you have your imagery, check out our guide to image SEO to ensure you have optimised the attributes.
4. Update your links
As part of your regular content updates to prevent issues such as content decay, ensure you carry out a link audit. Part of this process involves checking your external links. You want to ensure that the sources you are citing are still up to date and accurate – plus, if any links are broken you will want to remove and replace them. When updating external links, look for the most recent research – ideally from the last six to 12 months.
The other half of the process is checking your internal links. As with the external ones, ensure any broken links are fixed promptly. Besides this step, check if there are further internal linking opportunities – perhaps the page was never given links, or new content has been published which could be linked to. Just make sure that there aren’t too many internal links per page to avoid issues such as thinly distributed link equity.
5. Repurpose content where applicable
When performing keyword research for a particular topic, you may find that user preferences have changed and the SERP is now prioritising video content over written content – which means your blog from 3 years ago has no chance of ranking anymore.
Instead of giving up, consider turning the blog into a video instead. Recycling content is a great way to keep information refreshed and relevant. You can hire a professional or create a faceless video with a voiceover and visual prompts depending on your budget.
There may also be opportunities to retire blogs which have not performed for a while and instead turn the information into an infographic which can be uploaded to a high-performing content page. By thinking of new ways to repurpose content, you will not only avoid content decay but also create a wider range of mediums which will all help with EEAT.
6. Know when content has died and needs to be retired
Content will naturally decay over time and when you encounter situations where pages have declining traffic, the right fix may be to give the content a refresh and effectively bring it back to life. However, in some cases it may be more appropriate to retire the page instead.
For example, if a page is competing with another for the same keyword and it isn’t as comprehensive or well-optimised, it may make sense to remove it as you could encounter keyword cannibalisation otherwise. But if the page is receiving a steady stream of traffic and engagement, even if it’s lower than you want, this means there is a chance to optimise and improve instead. Read our guide on deciding whether to improve or retire content to find out more.
Need help with reviving your content?
If your evergreen content is looking worse for wear, we’re here to help. Get in touch today and we can call or email you to discuss options moving forwards.
Alternatively, book in for a Free Acquisitions Workshop to discuss your contents strengths and weaknesses, competitor insights, and channel performance, along with a personalised action plan and a range of resources for future use. Book today to avoid disappointment!
