Expert evergreen tips and tricks

Here’s how a variety of top newsrooms define evergreen, with expert tips to shape your strategy and workflow.

Aug 19, 2024

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Hello, and welcome back. Jessie here, and guess what I did with my weekend? I played softball. Obviously. I also volunteered with a learn-to-play league — a truly heart-expanding opportunity. Teaching women and LGBTQ+ folks all about the thing I love the most? 15/10.

This week: Evergreen, our most covered topic — this time, with expert advice! Here’s how a variety of top newsrooms define evergreen, with expert tips to shape your strategy and workflow.

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If all our experts were in this room, we’d need a bigger table! Photo by Redd F on Unsplash

Let’s get it.

THE HOW TO

How newsrooms define 'evergreen'

Every newsroom is unique, with its own set of priorities and differing viewpoints on the value and place of evergreen content. This influences how evergreen is defined at each publication.

We’ve defined evergreen as content on a topic that is relevant to readers over a significant period of time and is not tied to a single, short news event.

Alli Berry, an SEO consultant, offers a broader definition: Any content where the primary objective is to rank long-term in organic search results — and not in Top Stories or on Discover — is considered evergreen. Since it’s meant to bring in consistent, loyal readers, evergreen should be on topics within your core coverage areas, she adds.

For Lauren L'Amie, the vice-president of SEO at The Infatuation, a restaurant recommendation site, evergreen are the guides that live on the site long-term and are consistently updated with new eateries.

Evergreen content should have a “long-term utility purpose,” says Louisa Frahm, SEO director at ESPN. It should be a complement to breaking news files. In that way, evergreen helps push readers deeper into your site and expands their understanding of a topic. It’s service journalism at its best.

For Kyle Sutton, director of SEO at The Points Guy, evergreen is content that drives dependable, long-term traffic. It’s “non-ephemeral traffic that we can count on,” he says.

John Shehata, founder of NewzDash and former global VP of audience development strategy at Condé Nast, says evergreen is defined not by when it was first published, but by its “enduring relevance and its capacity to generate consistent traffic.”

Evergreen content is an opportunity to showcase your publication's expertise on core topics. It should be aligned with your key content areas. “We're not chasing trends,” says Emily Schwartzberg, deputy director of newsroom SEO for the Wall Street Journal.

“We're strategically meeting readers in search who are engaged with and interested in Journal core coverage, where we're the trusted expert source,” she says.

Your strategy — and the topics you cover — should build on your writers and their expertise.

“Our journalists are some of the most authoritative subject matter experts from around the world,” Emily says. “Our evergreen strategy aligns really closely to our news strategy. We want to give our audience from search purposeful and unique journalism that gets to the heart of what they need.”

At the WSJ, evergreen content also includes market data pages. They provide information about companies mentioned in articles and key statistics that readers may search for. They are easily accessible and prominently linked throughout the site.

At The Infatuation, evergreen includes city-specific guides, like the top 25 best restaurants in New York City or the best pizza in Brooklyn. For The Points Guys, it’s guides to the best all-inclusive resorts or the best time to book flights.

These pages all have something in common: They’re expert-driven content that’s valuable to readers on topics with consistent, non-seasonal interest. And, they’re all core to the mission of the publications.

News SEO strategist Chelsey Heath breaks evergreen into three tiers:

Truly evergreen content, for example, an explainer on freezing your credit report;
Seasonal or annual content, like lists of best Christmas movies or recipes for Halloween;
Explainers tied to relative topical events, for example, ranking the best NFL coaches, or best Oscar movies of all time.

Ella Jinadu, the SEO manager for TimeOut, takes into consideration technical SEO when handling evergreen content. “We consider a lot of our seasonal guides as evergreen due to the fact that the URL stays stable and we know when we should start optimizing them each year,” she says. Guides to the best horror movies or things to do in London, England in September are considered evergreen for TimeOut — even if they have clear seasonal interest.

John poses a question to consider: “Can I still share this piece that was published in the past on social media today?”

If the answer is yes, then it’s likely evergreen.

The bottom line: The basic definition of evergreen is content that's relevant over a long period of time — but specifics will change depending on the publication and its mission. What’s consistent across all outlets is the focus on content that has long-term value for readers.

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Workflows tips and tricks for evergreen

Updating evergreen always starts with taking inventory of existing content.

When taking inventory, Louisa recommends a simple site operator search on Google (i.e., put site:espn.com “best quarterback” in the search bar) to identify existing content.

Make a copy of our evergreen tracking template, then import your subset of URLs. Follow our instructions to complete the tracking sheet.

Always look for duplication of effort: Are two pieces too similar? Can they be consolidated? Can one be redirected to the more valuable story?

“Tracking and logging evergreen content streamlines the overall process,” Louisa says.

When using our spreadsheet, add whatever additional data is helpful for your teams. Kyle uses traffic and revenue contributions to inform the most valuable evergreen content — and makes it a priority to refresh those articles first.

“Generally, we’re taking stock of our most valuable content (either by traffic or revenue contribution) and mapping out a refresh cadence,” Kyle explains.

“What I tell people is that you should really tier out your evergreen content by importance (what drives the most revenue, has the most potential from search volume),” says Alli. “I would be updating the top tier content most often, second tier second most often [and so on].”

When reviewing and prioritizing, Louisa considers how much effort is needed on the piece, asking: “Is it resonating enough to warrant a simple coat of paint? Or do we start anew with a fresh post?”

Look for duplication or overlap in your stories, and find ways to reduce instances of competing against yourself for a spot in the SERPs. John has an 11-point process for reviewing evergreen, and a key step is content consolidation for related, underperforming stories.

It may be better to have one solid evergreen post that drives significant traffic and revenue than several lower quality pieces.

Key moments on the editorial calendar and looming tentpole events should inform what content gets updated first. The importance of a piece and the ease of updating it should guide how you approach the refresh.

When updating content, look at all on-page elements, including the headline, URL, meta description, images, internal links and the timestamp. Consider what will help this piece of evergreen perform better now that it’s updated.

Ella provides all teams at TimeOut with a yearly calendar that outlines when evergreen content should be refreshed, along with recommendations for updates to each piece. Similarly, Lauren's approach involves giving editors detailed notes about ranking position changes — if the piece fell off the first page of search, or if it’s being outranked by Reddit forums or other publisher content — and strategies for improvement.

Alli also looks at the SERPs for the main target keywords to see how the environment has changed, particularly looking to see if new SERP features have been introduced that could push the results further down the page.

“That might indicate you want to target the page at other queries with fewer SERP features,” she says.

🔗 Read more: WTF is SEO? has covered evergreen 101, news durables and developed a tracking sheet to make your workflow easier.

Check if the intent for a keyword has changed, and if new questions or subtopics can be addressed in your evergreen content. Use SEO tools — like Ahrefs, NewzDash, SEMRush or Trisolute News Dashboard — and a simple Google search to glean those insights.

When a piece is updated, consider adding an editor's note at the top to indicate when it was last updated for transparency, Louisa says. This could be as simple as, “This was originally published in June 2019. It was updated with new information in August 2024.”

Make the work of evergreen really visible in your newsroom. In weekly or monthly reports, include a section for evergreen and recirculation that highlights stories still performing well (include key traffic, subscription or revenue figures), and how they’re driving readers to other stories.

“We do a monthly look back with each team to see what has worked and where we can push harder,” says Ella.

This internal reporting confirms to editors and senior leaders that consistent evergreen traffic is a priority — something that can guard against the fluctuations in daily traffic for stories tied to the news cycle.

The bottom line: When and how to update evergreen starts with the editorial calendar and how your newsroom values each piece of content. Plan evergreen updates and check for duplicate or overly similar stories to consolidate into stronger pieces. Be vocal about the work you’re doing, too, to reiterate the value of consistent, long-term evergreen traffic.

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