Category Archives: Content Strategy

20 Evergreen Characteristics of Quality Content

20 characteristics of evergreen content.

Quality content with evergreen characteristics isn’t just a phrase to be thrown around in order to sell content writing services, it should carry some substance and a sense of reality.

What are the main characteristics of quality content?

Quality content should be able to achieve the following for you:

Improve your search engine rankings for the correct search intent.
Help your prospective customers and clients make the right decision.
Encourage people to visit your website more than once.
Give people enough reason to stay on your website.
Help people find the right information that can solve their problem.

In this blog post I will cover

What are the chief characteristics of quality content?
How do you define quality when writing content?
What makes your quality content Evergreen?

I personally believe that when a client pays me to write content for him or her, he or she assumes (or at least I assume that he or she assumes) that I’m going to give my best shot.

What is this the best shot?

When my client publishes the content written by me on his or her website, it must achieve the following:

Improve conversion rate.
Give appropriate information to the visitors.
Increase engagement levels.
People stay on the website longer.
Improve search engine rankings.

These are given. The client doesn’t even have to tell me that the above-mentioned need to be achieved.

I don’t need to remind myself that the above-mentioned need to be achieved.

There are no ifs and buts.

Content quality for SEO is as important as content quality for conversion rate.

For me, these traits, or these achievements, define quality content writing.

So, if you ask me, what are the characteristics of quality content or quality content writing, I’m going to point you to the above achievements.

Is there a quality content definition?

The definition may differ from person to person or content writer to content writer.

For some, the only thing that matters is the search engine rankings.

Some want to be famous on social media websites.

Some hard-core salespeople want to write a tightly-knit sales copy.

Quality content contains all of these characteristics.

A business needs all these things to use content as a highly productive business tool.

One of the main characteristics of quality content is also that it is evergreen.

Yes, technicalities may change but the fundamentals remain the same.

For example, for better search engine rankings, you must keep the needs of your visitors first.

This is the fundamental characteristic: people have a problem, and you present a solution to them.

No matter what algorithmic changes Google makes, the ultimate aim is to find the right information according to search intent.

As long as your content helps Google achieve that, you are publishing quality content that is timeless.

Evergreen characteristics of quality content never go out of fashion

Why I call these characteristics evergreen is because they never change, because inherent qualities in people, in behavior, even the nature of sub-atomic entities, remain the same throughout the ages.

There is a reason why philosophers like Aristotle, Socrates and Panini are still read and admired.

Philosophers like Panini created Evergreen quality content that is ageless.

Their teachings never go out of fashion.

The same is true for the chief characteristics of quality content.

These are the fundamentals.

These fundamentals are not just applicable to writing content, they are applicable to every aspect of your life.

These are like the gospel truths.

The 20 of these characteristics of quality content are listed below.

1. Quality content is relevant to the target audience

Content written for a particular audience always performs better than content written for pretty much everybody.

Write targeted content for a single person or persona.

For example, if on my website I write about all sorts of writing including poetry, fiction, sci-fi, eroticism, horror, and whatever, it will become a portal of sorts.

There will be no target audience.

For a business it doesn’t work that way.

Your content needs to be relevant to a specified audience and only then it can make an impact.

Hence, although I talk about writing on this blog, I’m primarily talking about content writing, especially writing quality content for those who have business websites.

Why quality content is important for a business website?

According to the characteristics mentioned above, quality content must improve your search engine rankings.

It must engage your audience in a manner that people want to do business with you.

2. The writing must be professional

Now what does professional mean?

The language should be decent
There should be no spelling mistakes
There should be no grammar mistakes
Industry-specific language must be used
A consistent style guide must be followed
The text must be arranged under appropriate headlines and sub-headlines
Shorter facts must be arranged in bullets

3. Focus on a single topic

One of the most important evergreen characteristics of quality content is its level of focus.

Are you writing about a single topic or are you trying to handle multiple topics in a single article or blog post?

Try to keep your content as focused as possible.

4. It should be written in scannable format

Scannable format means your content should be readable without having to read the entire body text.

Even if someone quickly goes through the headlines, sub-headlines and bulleted points, he or she should be able to get the gist of what you’re trying to say.

This is not to discourage detailed writing, it just makes sense to make it convenient for those who don’t have enough time to go through the entire thing.

5. Highlight the benefits of the product or service being promoted

Quality content writing highlights the benefits.

What are benefits people going to derive from your product or service?

If you want to hire my content writing services, how am I going to benefit you?

Very few people hire me for my writing style.

As mentioned above, the chief characteristics of quality content are:

It should inform your visitors.
It should reduce your bounce rate.
It should improve your search engine rankings.

These are the benefits. How I achieve these, I can explain in various blog posts and webpages.

But these are the main characteristics when I say I provide quality content writing services.

Ultimately, your business must grow due to my content writing services.

A cool writing style is of no help if I’m not able to grow your business.

People are interested in knowing what they are going to get rather than how great your business offering is.

6. Encourage the desired action among your visitors

What should people do once they are on your website?

Should they fill up your query form?

Should they subscribe to your newsletter?

Should they download your e-book or catalog?

Should they buy one of the products listed in your online catalog?

Whatever you want them to do on your website, you should write your content accordingly.

7. Include valid data and statistics

Use data and statistics to make your content writing authoritative.

People always find numbers reassuring.

How many people in the previous month have used your product or service?

What are the worldwide trends?

How are your competitors doing?

Among all your customers last month, how many of them saw a marked improvement in the concerned aspect of their lives (in whichever manner your product or service is meant to affect them)?

When you mention exact facts, people feel more reassured.

8. Whenever possible, write in the first person

You strike a personal chord when you write in the first person.

This is an evergreen characteristic of quality writing writers have been following through ages.

Personal accounts are always fascinating.

“I had this problem and this is how I solved it” always sounds better than “Peter had this problem and this is how he solved it”.

Also use “This is the problem that you have and this is how you’re going to solve it” rather than “This is the problem Peter has and this is how he is going to solve it.”

9. Quality content is available in preferred format

Although I’m a content writer and my sole focus is on writing, not everybody is crazy about the written word.

These days I post lots of small videos on Twitter and LinkedIn explaining various aspects of content writing and SEO copywriting.

My engagement levels have increased ever since I have started posting small videos accompanying my blog updates.

Maybe your target audience prefers videos?

Pinterest has proved that there is a great demand for images.

Some prefer slideshows and some prefer animations.

You should know which format of content your audience prefers and then create your content accordingly.

10. Quality content changes perceptions

When you convince people into believing in what you believe in, you are changing perceptions.

People come to your website with a certain set of ideas.

But when they access your content, when they read it, you change their way of thinking or at least you influence their way of thinking.

This is what quality content must achieve.

If it is not changing perceptions, people are not going to come to your website and buy your stuff.

11. Encourages people to engage with you and vice-versa

Engaging people in a constructive dialogue is the best way to make an imprint in their minds.

People will remember you more if you engage them, if you ask them questions, if you provide them answers and even when you seek answers from them.

The ability to engage people gives your content an evergreen characteristic of quality.

How is your content considered engaging?

It encourages people to stay on your website or blog longer.
People feel like reaching out to you.
They are prompted to explore other parts of your website or blog.
They share your content through their social media profiles and mobile apps.
They leave comments.
They “like” your social media updates.

12. It’s okay to have a mix of original, curated and aggregated content

Good characteristics of quality content don’t just involve original content.

Don’t have enough time to write?

You can always curate content.

You can routinely aggregate high-quality content from other websites or blogs.

But don’t simply copy/paste that content.

Even if it is just one paragraph, add your own take on it.

In fact there is no use regurgitating quality content that already exists on other websites and blogs.

13. Quality content involves a consistent publishing schedule

Although, frankly, this has less to do with writing and more to do with content marketing, still, the evergreen aspect of your content is more sustainable if you follow a consistent publishing schedule.

If for the next five months you are going to publish a blog post every day, then do so.

If you feel that on certain days you’re going to be busier compared to the other days, you can schedule publishing in advance, but make sure you publish every day.

Similarly, if you want to publish every Wednesday, then make sure that your blog post or article appears on Wednesday.

This is because after a while people begin to expect hearing from you, even unconsciously.

14. Write content around a persona

It is very important to know for whom you are writing.

It gives you a clear idea of what problems to solve in the present piece of content.

Once you know the persona of your reader, you will be able to decide whether

You want to use formal or informal language
You want to follow a personal or a professional approach
You should use industry-specific terms or not
You should focus on facts or rhetoric

For example, if you are writing content for a product that caters to teachers and academicians your writing must be flawless, appropriate and must adhere to the proper usage of words and expressions.

On the other hand, if you are writing for a product that caters to youngsters you can use the hip-hop expressions used by them, worrying less about the accuracy of language.

15. Storytelling is one of the most prevalent evergreen characteristics of quality writing

Improve the quality of your writing through storytelling.

Storytelling creates a context.

It dramatizes that context so that you can visually imagine it and if possible, apply it to your own circumstances.

A story lays bare the problems, tribulations and challenges faced by a person and then how either he or she solves those problems or the problems are solved by your product or service.

Through storytelling, instead of directly telling people to buy your product or service, you present them with a reason.

16. Keep your content constantly refreshed

Keep your content fresh through regular writing.

Outdated, stale content fails to attract people.

Just as it is important to constantly create new content, you also need to keep your existing content fresh.

Quality writing also involves rewriting your existing content to bring it at par with contemporary trends and developments.

17. Quality content is search engine optimized

Quality content writing improves your search engine rankings.

Although quality content is by default search engine optimized, in case the thought hasn’t crossed your mind, don’t ignore this aspect.

When you are publish quality content, why do you publish it?

It is because you want people to benefit from it.

How do people benefit from it?

They benefit from it by accessing it.

A search engine like Google is a great way to find good content.

Even if people don’t actively look for great content, chief characteristics of quality content ensure that Google Discover can find your content.

You may like to read How to optimize your content for Google Discover.

Make sure your content is searchable and written according to Google’s guidelines.

It will make it easier for people to make use of your content and you will also get new customers and clients.

18. Quality content is social media optimized

Millions of content updates are shared on social media and social networking websites like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube.

Do social media users find your content attractive enough to share?

Is it possible to share your content on social media and social and networking websites easily?

Content that is optimized for social media websites should ideally be topical because people normally share content around a current topic.

Take care of the following in order to make your content social media optimized

Keep shorter page or blog post titles so that they can be easily shared on Twitter that allows just 280 characters.
When you are writing blog posts, articles and webpages use quality images. Images often accompany your update, attracting more eyeballs.
Focus on different formats for different social media channels, for example, you can create attractive and interesting graphics for Pinterest, informative slides for Slideshare and captivating videos for YouTube.

19. Entertainment is an evergreen characteristic of quality content that never loses its value

Does your content entertain?

People love to be entertained.

But what is entertainment?

An avid reader may find reading Nabokov or Camus entertaining.

Some find popular soap operas on television entertaining.

Kids love to hear stories from their elders.

Not only funny articles and essays are entertaining.

Try to find out what would be entertaining to your audience and create your content accordingly.

You don’t always have to entertain, but whenever you can, do that.

20. Show your love and consideration for causes

Your business doesn’t exist in isolation.

It will always function within the circumstantial parameters of the world around you or even across the globe since we are all connected these days.

When you associate your content with a cause whether it is about saving the environment or the polar bears or fighting for the education and health of the underprivileged, people will appreciate it.

Get involved with the causes and then write about them. Or simply create content to raise awareness about your favorite causes.

Please keep in mind that what I have listed above are the “evergreen characteristics” of quality content, I haven’t written about creating evergreen quality content, that would be a totally different topic.

If someone wants to know what the characteristics of quality content are or what are the chief characteristics of quality content, this blog post will help.

What is viral content and how to use it to get more traffic to your website

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You must have come across the phrase “this has gone viral” especially when it comes to some amusing video or an image or even a meme (remember Kim Kardashian’s break the Internet?”). When your content goes viral, it means it is being shared on the Internet in general and social media and social networking websites in particular like crazy. Millions of people may share it on their blogs, on Facebook, on Twitter and personal websites.

There are two ways you can use viral content for content marketing and consequently, get more traffic to your website:

Create viral content yourself
Create content that is somehow associated with the content currently going viral

There is no exact science that explains what sort of content goes viral although there are some fundamental ingredients that may go something like this:

Your content is outrageously funny or outrageously, well, something
Your content is some breaking news that can change people’s perception or can give them a totally different point of view
Your content is something that gives a new twist to an existing piece of information
It captures attention immediately
It encourages people to create their own content based on what you have created
It should have global relevance

How can you make your content go viral in order to generate traffic to your website?

Remember there used to be Digg? The website is still there, it is not as popular as used to be to make content viral. Every start-up would dream of appearing on the first page of Digg. Once you had reached there, you could rest assured that your content would go viral and even if it didn’t go viral, the massive traffic would stall your servers.

There were many ways you could get Diggs for your link, but the best way was to be friends the so-called Digg power users. They were a part of an inner circle that could push any piece of content to the front page. In fact, this also proved to be the undoing of the website. All sort of shitty content was being pushed (because a small group controlled which content would reach there) and eventually they had to back up. Anyway, this is how content used to go viral back in those days.

Listed below are a few ways you can make your content go viral:

Keep creating content: Since there is no exact science to know exactly which piece of your content can go viral (even if you apply the above-mentioned fundamentals) keep producing as much interesting content as you can. If you don’t have much content, there is no chance of your content going viral although in rarest of the rare cases, the first-most blog post or an article written and published can go viral but then again, it’s a once in a million chance. Most of the websites and blogs whose content goes viral have been publishing for many years on an ongoing basis.
Properly know your target audience: I’m not sure when Kim Kardashian posted her epic butt-thrusting photograph she knew it would go viral or not – maybe she knew because if you know that millions of people are following you, even if a very small percentage reacts, it can set off a chain reaction. But one thing is clear, she knew that her fans would love the photograph and they would share it. What turn it took (according to the Mashable link given above), maybe even she hadn’t expected that. What matters though is, it went viral and as many claim, it actually broke some servers. So knowing your audience helps.
Be spontaneous and don’t invariably worry about your content going viral: Again, since there is no exact science to predict whether a particular piece of content will go viral or not, you cannot specifically create content for this purpose. Just keep following the fundamentals because they should anyway be followed for writing, creating and publishing valuable content, use the appropriate channels to promote your content and then move on to your next piece of content. Something triggers the viral effect. It is unknown exactly what triggers it.
Keep in mind that visual content has more chance of going viral compared to textual content: This is not some rule that is written in stone, but visual content always has a greater chance of going viral.
Network with influencers: Influencers, merely because they are influencers, wield more influence compared to people who are even more talented than them. This is a hard reality of the world. Even if you are a PhD in philosophy, if Kim Kardashian, even with her Internet-breaking butt thrust forward in full glory, says something philosophical, it will get more attention and more responses compared to you. So it would make sense if you somehow convince Kim to promote your content rather than you promoting it yourself.

Creating content that is associated with the content that has gone viral

This may seem like piggybacking, but sometimes, some content that is associated with a viral content also can generate massive traffic. I remember once I wrote a blog post about a herd of buffaloes rescuing a calf from crocodiles as well as a group of lions. A few years ago that video had gone viral. I just blogged about it, wrote a couple of paragraphs and then embedded the video from YouTube. I still don’t know how it happened, but in a couple of days, I received 25,000 visitors to that particular blog post. It was my literary blog and aside from making me some AdSense money (around $15 every day for almost a week) it didn’t give me any business benefit but the blog post still remains one of the most popular posts on that blog.

How viral content can generate more traffic for your business

Remember that if your content goes viral and nobody knows who originally the content came from, it is going to go waste. There has to be some association. If it is one of your images that is going viral, somehow people should be able to know that you are the originator of that image. Maybe there is a prominent photograph of yours or your business product or service. Maybe there is some branding message that makes it easier for people to know that it is from you. Maybe it is your company name that appears with a photograph. If it is a blog post, then it should have links back to your website or blog, If it is a video, there must be some information or some tag that lets people know that you are the one who has created it.

There is a parallel between Rahul Gandhi and an unsuccessful content marketing effort

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If you don’t know Rahul Gandhi, he is the scion of the Nehru-Gandhi family who is the cynosure of the English media lady journalists here in India and also, seemingly, the only beacon of hope for the Congress party. He is the son of Rajiv Gandhi who was assassinated by the LTTE terrorists, and Sonia Gandhi, who is presently the Congress president.

Why is there a parallel between Rahul Gandhi and an unsuccessful content marketing effort?

In order to succeed in content marketing you need to be regular. And not just any regular, you need to be regular with creation, publication, marketing and most importantly, quality and relevance. These shouldn’t be activities and traits that you orchestrate just when you feel like it. They need to be ongoing otherwise they never take off.

In fact, another good parallel comes to my mind. It’s like riding a bicycle. Unless your bicycle attains a certain speed, you cannot balance. You will fall if you pedal too slow. I remember once Rahul Gandhi also talked about the escape velocity – he had said something to the tune of that India needed Jupiter’s escape velocity in order to experience some progress. Or something like that. The concept of escape velocity can also be applied to content marketing – unless you put in a certain amount of work, it is never effective.

Rahul Gandhi is not a career politician. He is in this field because of his family history and maybe because he has never been able to build another career. He comes and goes according to his own whims and this is why he always fails to make an impact. Had someone else had the sort of opportunities that he has got, he or she would have worked wonders.

Politics is not a part time job, it is a full-time job, just like content marketing. When you’re doing content marketing for your business, you have to take it seriously, you have to give it all it takes. It cannot be a half-hearted effort. To ensure the success of your content marketing effort you need to

Create and publish quality content regularly (if possible, daily).
You need to use the channels available to you to disseminate that content and advocate it.
You need to respond to other people’s content with your own input.
You need to engage your audience so that it begins to recognize you for your strengths and other characteristics.
You constantly need to provide people something of great value.
You need to be there, be one with them.
You need to be present on the same channels being used by your audience.
You need to talk to people in their own language rather than using your own gobbledygook.
You need to take care of the core issues, the issues that really matter to people rather than simply beating around the bush.
You need to be able to inspire loyalty and turn people into your evangelists.

Just as all these qualities are missing in a badly executed content marketing strategy, they are also missing in Rahul Gandhi and this is why he comes out to be a quintessentially failed politician who, instead of inspiring confidence, inspires disenchantment, and sometimes ridicule (because he tries to portray himself as someone he is not).

How to make your content marketing better in 2015 than it was in 2014

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A few days ago I had written about how to make your content marketing more effective in 2015. As I had mentioned, the basic fundamentals remain the same, it’s just that every year comes with its own latest trends, techniques and opportunities that were not available in the previous year. A trait of a successful marketer is that he or she is able to leverage the available resources.

Nonetheless, sometimes we don’t even follow the fundamentals, whether they are pertaining to content marketing, or other aspects of business and personal life. Just as we make resolutions for the New Year, even for our content marketing goals, we can make some resolutions, some decisions that were not maybe followed the previous years but we want to make sure that they are followed in the New Year.

The most neglected activity is auditing the existing content. While writing this I assume that you already have lots of content on your website but you were creating it in a phase when you didn’t mind much whether your content was optimised or not, whether it was useful or not, whether it was relevant or not. You were simply creating it to improve your search engine rankings. You could have hired very cheap content writers from poorer countries. You paid least regard to its quality.

If this is something that you have been following until 2014, and perhaps in 2015 you can decide to audit your existing content.

If you have got lots of webpages and blog posts, running into hundreds, then it will be better to dump all the URLs in a spreadsheet. Then start going through each and every URL and see what improvements you can make.

Last year I did the same with my own website (I hadn’t written cheap content, but it needed some improvements). If you are managing your website with WordPress, there is a plug-in that lists all the blog posts and webpages that you have created so far in a simple HTML page. You can copy/paste this list into a spreadsheet. Even if you are not maintaining your website using WordPress, on the Internet you can easily find perl or PHP scripts that will go through your directories and give you a list of all the URLs that you have created so far.

From 2015 onwards, when it comes to creating or updating content for content marketing, focus on relevancy rather than search engine rankings

Search engine optimization is important – everybody needs better search engine rankings – but it shouldn’t be done at the cost of quality and conversion. When you needlessly use keywords to attract traffic from search engines you end up creating lousy, nonsensical content. If such is the content you have been publishing up till now, this is a good time to make amends and audit your existing content.

What all should you take care of while auditing your existing content to make it more in sync with 2015?

Make your page titles and headlines more compelling and meaningful
Introduce focus – focus on one topic or one subject per webpage or blog post
Correct spelling and grammatical mistakes wherever you find them
Remove superfluous language and replace it with conversational language
In every blog post or webpage try to solve people’s problems rather than promoting your product or service
Introduce call-to-action phrases and links without being intrusive
If you have used images without alt tags now it would be good time to insert them
Create shorter sentences out of longer sentences
Create shorter paragraphs out of longer paragraphs
Organize content under headlines, sub-headlines and bullets
Use keywords and key phrases contextually rather than force-writing

Of course content marketing doesn’t mean just editing existing content and adding new content. A major part of it involves marketing that content, distributing it, making sure that it reaches the right audience. If you have been neglecting this aspect of your content marketing, then focus on this. There is no use creating new content if you haven’t established a mechanism to distribute it.

There are 4 ways you can distribute your content in 2015:

Improve your search engine rankings and get traffic from search engines
Create a vibrant presence on social networking websites like Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and LinkedIn (just to name a few) and broadcast your content using these channels
Build your mailing list if you haven’t already built one. Having your own mailing list is a great way to broadcast your content.
Focus on different formats of content apart from textual content, such as videos, images, Slideshare, ebooks and downloadable reports

If the thought of making your content marketing better in 2015 than what it was in 2014 a bit overwhelming, just focus on one aspect. Sometimes the beginning is difficult and once you start doing something, things start falling at their places on their own.

And of course, working with a professional content writing and content marketing service can always help.