Evergreen vs Seasonal Content: What’s the Difference?

Terms like evergreen and seasonal get used a lot when talking about content. But what are they, and how can each type benefit your business? Today we’re taking a look at the difference between these 2 types of content, and when you can use each!

Buzzwords abound in every profession – “rigor,” “differentiation,” or “backward design.” anyone? – and content creation is no different. You may have heard people say you need to have both “evergreen” and “seasonal” content on your blog, podcast, or video channel, but what does that mean?

Seasonal Content

Blog posts, or podcast or video episodes, that are related to a specific holiday, event, or season. This kind of content will typically see a large influx of traffic when you post it, and then again when that season or day comes around again (if it does).

Some examples of seasonal content would be posts or episodes related to:

Back to school, Summer, or Baseball season
Mother’s Day, Christmas, or Teacher Appreciation Day
World Series, Google algorithm update, or a Global pandemic

Seasonal content is useful to your business in that it provides an immediate influx of traffic, and it demonstrates to your audience that you are striving to provide relevant and current events. This can generate buzz and allow you to show up in searches while they are trending.

Evergreen Content

When posts or episodes are referred to as evergreen it means that they are not bound by any day, event, or season. It is equally useful in August as it is in February and it generates a steady flow of traffic to your blog, podcast, or video show.

It’s timeless.

The benefit of evergreen content is that it is always relevant. That means that no matter when someone stumbles upon your content, they can learn and apply what you’re sharing. Also, because evergreen content is searched for all year long, it can have a positive long-term impact on your search engine optimization (SEO). And since content creation is a long-term strategy, this is a big plus.

These types of posts and episodes aid in building authority month to month because it takes time to to rank in search engines. You can also build backlinks to this type of content more easily because you can promote it year-round and other content creators or curators may reference your work at any time.

Another benefit of evergreen content is that it can be prepared and scheduled in advance. As a busy professional, there are many times throughout the year that you can’t spend the time to create quality content. But if you have some posts or episodes in the bank you can publish them any time life gets busy and it will still be relevant.

Striking a Balance

Creating content that is a mix of seasonal and evergreen is beneficial to virtually every business, however, in most cases, focusing the majority of your content on evergreen has the biggest return on investment.

Exceptions to this would be content creators focused on deals and coupons, seasonal events (like a sports channel), or hyperlocal publishers.

There’s no perfect balance of evergreen to seasonal content. But a good place to start would be to create 1 seasonal piece per month, and the rest evergreen. You can then see how your audience reacts and adjust as necessary.

Join me on Tuesday, July 6 at 7:30 pm (EDT) in the Side Hustle Teachers Facebook Group for a LIVE recap, answers to your questions, and how to use evergreen and seasonal content in your business! A replay of the video will be posted below the Friday after the live. ↓↓↓