What is Evergreen Content?
Evergreen content is written once, rarely changes, and keeps working. Evergreen content lives on your website where visitors find information about your business.
The point of evergreen content is that you can create something and it keeps on working. That way your time is most effectively used.
Although you create evergreen content once and it lasts on your site, it acts as fresh content to your site visitors. That’s because for that site visitor it’s the first time they’ve seen the content.
So for each visitor who encounters your evergreen content you build new trust in your business. And, for each site visitor who comes to your inspection business as a result of your evergreen content you build a greater return on investment (ROI) on the time you took to create the content.
You can be out doing inspections while your evergreen content quietly works in the background to build trust in your business and bring you new clients.
The Cumulative Effect of Evergreen Content
When you’ve built a piece of content, it’s lasting. Momentum keeps building on it.
It’s not like social media where to keep your views, just static, you’ve got to keep producing new posts. If you don’t, you’re not there. Vanished. Just to stay in place, you need to keep posting. You have to build more and more and hope people share it. Just to be seen, those postings can be a time suck.
Good content lasts. Everything it does, lasts—read by site visitors, build trust, bring new clients. It’s still going to be getting visits every month. It’s still going to be getting links building up. Time after time after time.
When that work of creating content is done, your next piece of evergreen content is an addition. It’s not keeping your views, trust, and ROI level. It’s on top of what you’ve already create. You build layer on layer on layer with each piece of evergreen content.
Your followers on Facebook or Instagram, won’t see your posts after three days after posting. After that it’s gone. It’s gone forever, lost in time. So, you’ve got to get that new content.
Your evergeen content resides on your website. Refer back to your website content from social social media. It’s much easier to keep referring back to your evergreen content from social media. You’ll be driving new viewers to the wisdom in that content.
Because your website domain is yours, it’s the part you have complete control over. Nobody controls that except you. Facebook can change its policy tomorrow. Everything you’ve ever done is gone, and all your fans. Platforms are good for drawing people in for a while but as a long term home, there is no alternative to your own website.
How to Create Evergreen Content
Start with the basics. You’ve got certain pages on your site that are already going to be turning up again and again and again.
The base for your inspection business is who you serve in your area and what you do. That’s a bit of evergreen content, it’s going to turn up again and again and again.
Make sure you put the time into it to make it really effective. Concentrate on the basic web pages.
For example, you’d be surprised how often your about page is going to be a part of people’s decision making. Make sure you put in the time to really make each page as good as it can be. Because, it’s a long-term page. It’s evergreen.
Clients want to vet you and they want to find out who you are. So the about page is your chance to close the deal.
Your Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) page is customer driven. The questions aren’t necessarily what you want to tell people, use other pages for that. Think about the things that people often ask you. Think about the things that people ask you as customers. Think about the things that people ask that draw or don’t draw business. Use the ones that draw customers.
Having an FAQ page can help you stop wasting your time. Often it matches the questions that people are asking on the search engine, or on the phone or text messages. You may not know that they asked that because, up until now, you didn’t have a base of a FAQ page. Answering the questions is the way it works as evergreen content.
Once you’ve answered the question it’s done and lives on to serve the next potential client. You won’t have to answer the same thing over and over again. It saves you time and interruptions.
Collated, Condensed Posts
Instead of letting those social media posts die, look for things you’ve shared on social media that had some traction. You can turn them into long-term content on your website, possibly combining lots of different ones together into a bigger piece. It’s already half-written. You can put it all together, collate, condense, and you’ve got a piece of evergreen content.
Articles
Articles are the content pieces you spend time on. You think ahead, because the long-term value is there. An article is like a billboard on your, that is going to be there forever. People see it, year after year after year. So you put the time into those.
If you don’t have the time to write, invest in somebody who can write for you. You want someone who takes the time to learn your business, to understand your market, and to your customers. Evergreen content (those billboards) are worth the investment.
If you really write a nice piece, then get it published. Take it up to the next level. Republish it with someone who is a major player. Start with your local newspaper, or a real estate group. Then work up to national organizations. Now you’ve written a piece and now someone upstream from you is using it.
Get The Highest Return on Your Evergreen Investment
There is no inspector out there who sits around saying, I’ve got a lot of spare time.
You have only so many hours in a day. We are always short on time. So, every time, make sure that the time you spend is where it has the most value to you.
Long term, content is always the most value. Because, it lasts and lasts.
Time is money. Consider how much time you would personally spend to write a piece of evergreen content. Let’s say you spend two hours. Congratulations. That’s good. It tends to be longer than that to research and find out and make sure that you’re thorough complete. And you have to be good with grammar and punctuation and syntax.
You may say, I don’t have time to create content. But, make the time. If you devote 10 minutes a day to social media three times, you’ve spent 30 minutes for the day.
Save that time for evergreen content. Or find a couple of hours on the weekend to create your content.
You will get a lot more out of it that content. The content you can create in two hours is going to have more long term value. More importantly, if you work on something over a course of weeks, you can create a good piece of content that really lasts.
Try your hand at writing an important piece that demonstrates your expertise. Online marketing advisor, Ammon Johns, said in an interview with Inspect.com:
When I’m writing articles about SEO, they often take 20 hours plus all the research, really getting everything in there to make it really useful, really informative all backed up or cross-referenced, that takes a bit of time, but the results are so worth it. – Ammon Johns
Even if you spend four hours writing a piece of content that showcases your knowledge, it will live forever on your website, demonstrating your expertise and converting clients choose your inspection service. Every conversion is a return on your investment of time. You’ll be paid over and over as a result of one evergreen piece of content.
Skip the Skirmishes and Battles to Win the War
Evergreen content supports your long-term goals. The actions you take to create informative content about home inspections, You showcase your skills and knowledge, reinforcing your client’s desire for thorough, objective evaluation of their property.
Clients have serious concerns about their current or future home. Your evergreen content reassures and converts.
Our job as inspectors is to perform. You are online to show prospective clients who you are. Evergreen content is the best way to be not just what the expect, but exceed their expectations.
Inspect.com is dedicated to the success of independent home inspectors. We want you to build success in your business.