Evergreen was once a common buzzword that was thrown around as the “must” thing for your blog.
If your content wasn’t evergreen, there wasn’t much use in writing it.
Fortunately, “evergreen” has now become a general concept used to describe content rather than a definitive goal to aim for. Fortunately, blogging is flexible, and you can write content how you see fit.
Evergreen content and timely content both have an impact on your long-term results. While both have their benefits, the best approach depends on your business model, goals, and available resources.
In this post, I’ll compare the two and highlight key considerations before choosing either method.
Evergreen Blog Posts Drive Long-Term Value
Evergreen content is content that remains relevant over time. It won’t go out of date, and regardless of whether you view it tomorrow or in two years, it should still be relevant.
Some examples of this include:
- What is content marketing?
- How to write a blog post
- What is Google?
Generally, topics that are set in stone or have a definitive answer make for good evergreen posts.
Benefits of evergreen content
Consistent Traffic Over Time
Since the topic is always relevant, search engines can continue to rank your post without worry that the content will be outdated. This is usually why you’ll see high-quality pieces of content on page one, even if they’re older posts.
Over time, these posts generate traffic with minimal impact from you once they are created.
Strong Foundation for Content Clusters
If you’re building a content cluster around a topic, then the evergreen nature of the content can be a boon for internal linking.
Evergreen content ensures that, when you internally link from and to it, it’ll always be relevant and accurate to the topic. As the topic won’t change, supporting topics can be created from it to further establish authority.
This highlights why many pillar posts and posts targeting long-tail keywords are evergreen.
When to Create Evergreen Content
Resource-limited teams benefit the best from evergreen content. The pressure of creating high-quantity, consistent posts isn’t there, and more time can be spent on crafting a purposeful piece of content that will support the business into the future.
Evergreen content is also great at building authority and targeting search queries – important aspects of SEO which are likely to be a focus for overall brand and site growth.
Evergreen content typically forms the backbone of most business blogs and is a great option when you’re looking to maintain a consistent blog.
Timely Content Grabs Short-Term Attention
Timely content acts as the polar opposite of evergreen; its lifespan is shorter, trend- or seasonally based, and often relies on reactivity.
Some examples of this include:
- Top marketing trends for Q3
- What Google’s latest update means for small businesses
- Random celebrity did what this June?
Timely content is popular with news outlets, gossip sites, and trend-forward businesses. This, however, is completely necessary for their business model.
For the average business website, timely content typically appears in the form of date-specific topics, such as “top X insights for 2025”, etc.
Benefits of Timely Content
Can Rank Quickly
Focusing on currently spoken-about trends or topics can result in content ranking more quickly than evergreen counterparts. Users are actively searching for these topics now, and Google needs content to facilitate the increase in searches.
News and gossip sites thrive on this, as being the first to create can often mean being the first one seen.
Drives Engagement and Shares
The nature of this type of content naturally lends itself to being more shareable.
While an evergreen post can be shareable, it doesn’t meet the immediate need and value of a timely piece of content. Shares can also be great flags and indicators of how valuable a piece of content is, especially on Bing. Timely content is typically considered when you’ve set the primary goal of your blog as shares/social impact.
Shows Relevance and Expertise
You can consider expertise in numerous ways here. While low-quality, timely content doesn’t demonstrate expertise on a specific topic as effectively as an evergreen post does, it does demonstrate expertise in the genre or niche as a whole.
Relevance is also a significant driver of timely content, as people are now searching for it in waves, rather than the volume being spread across multiple periods.
When to Create Timely Content
Your business model and niche will likely determine whether you need to be creating timely content or not.
As noted, news and gossip outlets have to publish timely content.
Fast-paced industries and businesses with time-sensitive campaigns can also benefit from this style of content. Shorter, more timely blog posts on new product releases, new services, or new offers can be a powerful way to deliver a message quickly.
Similarly, businesses with strong social-driven strategies can effectively utilise timely content to increase shares and engagement. Repurposing blog content can also fuel other channels, allowing for the retention of publishing speed without requiring additional resources.
You Don’t Have to Choose. Blend Them Strategically
Being opposites doesn’t mean that you can’t use both strategically.
A mix of both can create a balanced, resilient blog, allowing you to fine-tune your resources and content delivery for your in-the-moment goals.
Evergreen and topical content can also complement each other.
You can write an evergreen post, then follow up with a trend-focused spin-off. An example could be: “How to optimise your marketing strategy” with a timely post reflecting this, such as “X Marketing Trends “.
X being the current year.
A smaller, more nuanced use of this combination is not in full posts, but rather in leveraging the “timely” nature of the data. While a post may be evergreen, the data it contains, if used, may not be.
Updating older evergreen posts with more timely data can prove to be a fantastic way to further optimise user experience and SEO.
Finally, you can tie this combination into your content calendar. For quieter months, you can run evergreen content that supports your blog and overall traffic and keyword goals.
Then, for busy periods or important business months, you can flip the switch and work on timely, more relevant-to-the-moment, driven content that supports conversions.
Want a Blog Strategy That Works for the Long Haul?
What I enjoy the most about blogging is that topic selection is never really black or white.
While that can make it challenging to decide what to write about, it does give a level of flexibility baked into a strategy that’s right up my alley.
A core part of blogging is experimenting. If you have upcoming changes or updates in your business where you think leveraging timely posts would be most effective, give it a try and see the results.
Then, you can make an informed decision about which approach is right for your business.
If you need an extra hand or expert insights into what structure to use for your blog strategy, please get in touch, and we can review it together.
FAQ: Evergreen or Timely Blog Posts?
What’s the ideal ratio of evergreen to timely content?
Evergreen posts are what drive long-term SEO value and consistency, while timely posts help keep your blog relevant and responsive to current topics. For most industries, evergreen should be the focus. For that, I would suggest a 70/80% to 20% focus in favour of evergreen content.
This could be flipped if your business is more timely focused.
Can timely content become evergreen?
This can happen naturally, but most of the time, it requires revisiting the post to achieve this. Timely topics themselves can still garner traffic long after their initial spike.
For topics that are timely but still relevant, such as posts that utilise the current year, re-editing the blog to remove timely language and reposition it as an evergreen post is a great way to extend the life of an otherwise non-relevant post.
Should I update evergreen posts or leave them as they are?
While evergreen means always relevant, it doesn’t mean permanent. You should refresh your content every 6 to 12 months.
Add new statistics and internal links, improve the formatting, add a new image, optimise keywords, and so on. This can help give it a new ranking spike and keep an already ranking post from losing its SEO.
I would suggest not editing posts that are already working well too much, as you don’t want to make a non-favourable change and negatively impact their rankings.
