In the highly competitive cannabis industry, creating valuable and engaging content is crucial for establishing a strong online presence and attracting customers. Many businesses, however, don’t understand that creating various types of content is equally as important, especially those that can offer long term value. One type of content that can offer long-term value to cannabis companies is “evergreen content.” Evergreen content is timeless and continues to be relevant and useful to readers long after it is published. In this article, we’ll explore the benefits of creating evergreen content specifically for cannabis companies and how it can be utilized with a proper SEO strategy.
What Is Evergreen Content?
Just like evergreen trees, evergreen content is lasting and sustainable and stands the test of time. It is a type of content that stays relevant long after it’s been published, requires minimal updating over time, can continue to create value years after being created, help attract backlinks to your domain, and with the right strategy, it can keep generating a constant flow of traffic.
What Evergreen Content Is Not
To better understand what evergreen content is, lets quick touch on what it isn’t:
- Trending or news articles that are hot today, but gone or irrelevant tomorrow (or weeks/months from now)
- Statistics that are likely to go out of date quickly or not current
- Laws or updates to laws or actions lawmakers are taking, this is especially relevant in the cannabis industry since laws change so frequently
- Information that hasn’t been verified or is highly speculative
This is not to say articles nature to these are bad, they’re just not “evergreen” and thus will require lots of updating over time. An article today about a bill passing in the house of a state, or a highly speculative article about the next hottest thing in cannabis are likely to be irrelevant a year from now.
How to Make Content Evergreen
When creating evergreen content, there are a few important aspects to focus on.
Search Intent
First, it’s necessary to keep in mind the search intent of the person who is entering the query you’d like to rank for. Having a clear intent going into creating your content is highly important as it will give you direction. I equate search intent to a grower who is planning their crops and choosing their seeds. The intent is the seed for the article. If you intend to grow an indica dominate cultivar, but use sativa seeds you won’t end up with the harvest you had intended. So when creating a new content, it’s important to have empathy for your user and what they’re trying to find upon making their search. Notice the empathy part, its not about what you are trying to sell them.
Keywords and Search Volume
After figuring out your intent, researching relevant keywords related to the topic is a great way to start as you’ll want to get an idea of what people are actually searching for, and what questions they have around the topic to ensure you cover your topic holistically.
To do this, you’ll want to use a keyword research tool like Semrush or Ahrefs to find ideas for the terms you’ll want to use in your article. This isn’t so that you can stuff your content full of high volume terms, its so that you can be on the same page as your users and use the terms they are searching for. As an example, cannabis plants are technically referred to as “cultivars,” however, most people refer to them as “strains” and thus would likely be a better term to use for an article surrounding the topic. Typically speaking, the search terms with higher volume are what people are more commonly using surrounding your topic.
Overall Content Strategy
When creating evergreen content, you’ll still want to ensure it fits into your overall content strategy, and more important, will help you drive business results. As an example, if you are selling cannabis cultivation equipment, creating an article around the Endocannabinoid System and how it works may help you drive traffic, but its not likely going to help you attract the right traffic for your website.
Evergreen Content in the Cannabis Business & Examples
Evergreen content for cannabis business is similar for many types of companies, but as mentioned, the type of business you are, will help determine the type of content you’ll want to create to use for your evergreen strategy. Typically speaking, evergreen content is either educational in nature, or answering your businesses most frequently asked questions.
In the cannabis industry, examples of those questions and topics can look something like this:
- What is [cannabinoid]?
- X Ways to Consume Medical Marijuana
- What’s the Difference Between THC & CBD?
- How Long do Edibles Take to Work?
- What are Cannabinoids?
- How to Roll a Joint
- How to Make Edibles
- Best [product type] Brands or Best [product type] Brands in [location]
- Best Dispensaries in [location]
- X Ways to Get More Yield from Your Cannabis Grow
- How to Grow Cannabis Outdoors
- What is the Difference Between Sativa, Indica and Hybrids?
There are many other topics like these, but again, your business and product type should steer what this content looks like. When developing an evergreen content strategy for your cannabis business, make sure that you focus on:
- Answering frequently asked questions from your customers or buyer personas
- Providing advice and explanations for popular industry concepts that may be confusing to readers
- Educational articles that surround your main products or services
Additional Tips on Producing Evergreen Content
Let’s see what else you can do to implement this type of content on your site.
Focus On Answering Common Questions
Since Google is the most widely used search engine in the world, it’s no wonder that most sites are adapted to their analytics system in order to rate higher on SERPs. Naturally, your evergreen content should answer the questions that your target audience has on a specific subject.
А good idea would be to answer commonly asked questions in an article format. These articles can give readers more information about your specialty and niche, as well as provide in-depth answers to their questions so they stay on your site rather than go to your competitors.
Your extensive knowledge about your niche and business may be the exact reason why the reader will decide to purchase your product or keep reading your content.
Ultimate Guides
One of the most popular types of evergreen content is definitely “Ultimate guides” where you can include answers to common questions broken down into bite-sized information and step-by-step explanations.
The template for creating ultimate guides often starts by giving an overview of the topic you’ll be covering and proceeds to give you different alternatives for types of products, or giving you all the information about a specific process. The most important step is to update this type of content frequently so it stays relevant and keeps providing value to future readers.
Ultimate Checklists
An alternative to an ultimate guide is the “Ultimate checklist”. Evergreen content that includes easy-to-consume information in a checklist form that provides valuable information to your reader is always a good idea. What’s more, you can easily repurpose this information and turn it into a marketing video, a presentation, or even a downloadable PDF to which your readers will keep coming back every time they need to re-read the information.
Lessons Learned
People like to avoid mistakes and what better way to do than to learn from other people’s mistakes, which is where this type of content comes in. You can include articles such as “10 common lessons learned from your industry”, or even “How the cannabis industry has changed in the last 5 years”. By giving your readers advice on how to avoid and overcome some mistakes, you’ll be able to get more personal and by doing that strengthen the connection between you and your readers. You can talk about your marketing strategies, current trends, or even discuss how you think the market will evolve. You can also include a comment section to allow for more engagement on your site.
Case Studies and Personal Success Stories
If you’d like to establish yourself as an expert and credible source in your niche, keeping up with real-world information and relevant research from your field can distinguish you from the competition. This is often rather captivating content that can be enriched by including a personal story and giving your audience a way to connect with you. You can also include your customers’ success stories and give them both recognition and a chance to advertise your products.
Resources About Research
As readers are always looking for a bigger quantity of useful resources in one place, this can be a great idea for your next evergreen content. Keep in mind that this will require regular updates as new products emerge on the market each year. Depending on your niche, the resources you provide to your readers may differ.
For example, if you’re running a cannabis site, you can include current scientific research on cannabinoids and what researchers have figured out about how they affect your health and wellness, as well as whether they can treat or alleviate certain medical conditions. Or even divide this section into current research and theories that scientists are working on proving, and others that have already been proved.
Glossary
Another way to give your readers further value is by making a glossary of the most important words and phrases in your niche. This type of information is especially beneficial for introducing beginners to industry-specific terms. You can also include a number of backlinks from your own site, and other content creators can use your glossary as a link in their articles.
What to Focus On When Writing Evergreen Content
Now that you know what this type of content is and how you can create it to increase the value and traffic of your site, we’ll give you more specifics about what to focus on when writing evergreen content. It’s important to keep the following factors in mind.
- Choose appropriate keywords. Focusing on long-tail and short-tail keywords is essential when writing evergreen content as this will help your article reach the top slots in search engine results pages (SERPs). It’s crucial to organically use these keywords throughout the articles to get in the algorithm’s good graces.
- Writing for beginners and avoiding overly technical language. Sharing your expertise in a way that your audience understands regardless of their previous knowledge on the subject is essential to acquiring a large and recurring audience. Since most beginners don’t understand overly-technical language, it would be best if you use a vocabulary that everyone will understand. This is a common issue amongst cannabis companies as many expect beginners to understand what terpenes, cannabinoid ratios, and similar are. Remember, newbies to cannabis will not understand these terms at first, so you’ll need to help define them.
- SEO optimization. If you’re already using SEO to optimize your website, this isn’t a new concept to you, so remember to hyperlink related articles, put keywords in the title and headers without stuffing them, and so on.
- Repurposing content. Quality content can always be repurposed as it always provides value to the readers, so don’t be afraid to convert a successful article to a new format, and also re-run your top posts with added updates if needed.
- Find a suitable place for your evergreen content on your site. After you’ve created evergreen content, it’s wise to highlight it on your site so it’s visible and easily accessible to the readers. Build campaigns around your top posts and showcase your best work by creating bundles with guides on specific topics.
Final Thoughts on Evergreen Content
If you’re convinced of the value of evergreen content, you can take the next steps and start implementing this concept on your platform, website, or blog. And if you have any additional questions, you can always turn to us at Evergreen Digital for all your content requirements in the realm of cannabis.
Putting your highest quality content out in the digital world is the best way to make sure that you acquire new customers who will want to learn more about your brand, products, and your specific viewpoint on the cannabis market. As a company, Evergreen Digital has 14+ years of experience in helping companies and brands develop their SEO strategy – whether cannabis or otherwise, so don’t hesitate to contact us to learn more!
