How to Write Evergreen Content That Lasts

We’ve all read stories on Vocal that compel us to act on the words bestowed upon us. One of the most useful articles I read pertains to growing my money while in my early 20’s.

Throughout the article, it speaks on gaining assets, being disciplined on expenses, and having multiple streams of income.

The article has been the second most significant reason for my late success — 2nd to Gary Vaynerchuk’s motivational content.

I read the article in November of 2019. Why does that matter? The author published the piece in 2015! Evergreen content is content that is always relevant — much like the way evergreen trees retain their leaves all year round.

I didn’t even know Medium existed that long ago! The key here is that as long as the content you write provides value to its readers in the long-term, you are guaranteed to have a bigger, much more impactful footprint on Medium.

As long as your content contains these three aspects, you’ll write evergreen pieces.

• Valuable content
• Universal and relatable
• Applies at any point in time

Content is King

Provide useful content people want to read, and you’ll make an impact. Using personal experiences and tying in practical lessons is the fundamental formula for a quality article.

What is the point of writing if there’s no key takeaway? At that point, you’re just reading because of the joy reading brings you, which isn’t a bad thing!

All I’m saying is that the best articles I’ve read have given me at least one piece of valuable knowledge. Value is the reason I clicked on the title, after all.

Clean, organized, and genuine value is what people crave. We have a burning desire to learn something advantageous to us.

Let’s practice honesty, use truthful information, and speak to our readers with respect.

Universal and Retable Content Wins

The more universal your content is in an evergreen article, the better response you’ll receive. If someone in downtown New York can apply the same knowledge as someone in India, that says something.

Without action, you experience stagnation.

The more stories you include in your writing, the more relatable it becomes. Anyone can advise individuals methods to save money and work hard, but without compelling stories, things get stale.

Great writers take their readers on a journey.

Allow your readers to consume your lessons in an intriguing way.

You present a Problem, share your experience, and share how you overcame it, and those are the moments that stick.

Being a Medium member is advantageous in life. We are all learning priceless lessons from one another in less than two minutes at times.

If you’re an open-person like me, you’ve probably shared something you learned from Medium with others.

Medium has sparked conversations start like, “Oh, I read this article on how to solve that problem! It says this..”.

We all have valuable lessons within us. All that’s left is to write it in a way that resonates with the world.

Evergreen Content Applies at Any Point in Time

The ultimate advantage of writing evergreen content is that it provides value from this point on, no questions asked.

Unless we all started living in a parallel universe where everything was completely sideways, everything would remain evergreen.

Using dates and times can throw off readers when they are determining whether the content is relevant.

In school, teachers and professors taught us to cite sources that didn’t proceed five years prior because it may have been irrelevant by then.

When you’re scrolling through threads for quality content, try to give the two, three-year-old ones a chance. When the articles have over 20k claps, there’s value within the piece.

Hopefully, the idea of producing evergreen articles wasn’t too complicated.

Show Medium that you care about your readers no matter which walks of life they come from.

As long as your writing comes from a place with love, that’s all that matters.

The Key Takeaways Every Evergreen Article Contains

• Valuable content
• Universal and relatable
• Applies at any point in time

For a final thought, imagine a grandfather giving his grandson advice on love.

He tells his grandson that “to love someone for a very long time, you’ll have to make sacrifices to allow the relationship to blossom.”

The grandfather lived nearly five times as long as the grandson, however, the lesson still carries over beautifully.

“You really can change the world if you care enough.”