How to Increase Blog Traffic with Evergreen Content

What is Evergreen Content?

Evergreen content is a post you have written months or maybe even years ago, depending on how long you have been blogging. We often write really great posts and they do very well for the first little while after they have been written but then they are just kind of forgotten about because as bloggers we are very busy! We focus on getting that next article written and promoting it, we are trying to network, keep up on blog maintenance, social media etc and we forget about the great pieces we have written in the past.

How Can Evergreen Content Help Your Traffic

Your content did very well when you first published it and it is still great information. It is important that you use this content as part of your social media strategy to continue bringing new eyes to your blog.

The social media sites that I reshare on most frequently are Pinterest (on group boards), Twitter, Facebook (no more than once every few months) and Google+.

 

Types of Evergreen Content To Pay Attention To

Holiday/Seasonal Content

If you wrote a great post about fall recipes last year, then you want to make sure you are sharing it again this year as this is still very relevant information! Look for seasonal, holiday and special event posts.

Most Viewed Posts

Go to your stats and see which posts have been viewed the most. Although you may still get some views to these posts each day (because others are sharing it) you also want to make sure you are sharing it too! You likely have many new readers since you published that post. You also have more followers on social media which means more potential eyes on the content you share.

 

How to Organize and Share Your Evergreen Content

Organize Your Content 

Make a list of your posts by topic and/or time of year. You could use an excel spreadsheet to record the name of your post and the different times of year that it could be shared. Then each month go through and make a schedule for sharing the posts that correlate with that time of year on your various social media accounts.

You also should make a list of your top 10-25 (depending on how long you have been blogging) most viewed posts.

Get The Most Out of Your Evergreen Content

Before you reshare your evergreen content go in and look it over quickly. What to look for:

• Are there spots where you could link some of your more recent posts?
• Are the ads you have up still relevant?
• Does anything need to be removed or updated (i.e. stats, images, sources)

If you notice any of the above, then I would seriously consider spending a few minutes to make some changes as it could really affect your success!

 

Use CoSchedule

This is what I use to schedule my social media posts. After I finish writing a blog post and have it scheduled, I move on to scheduling my social media. You can do this two ways:

Schedule social media directly in the post using the CoSchedule plugin for WordPress… cool right?!? Just scroll to the bottom of your post and let the scheduling begin!

Go to the CoSchedule website and enter your social media message using the calendar

I usually choose to schedule social media directly in the post as there is less chance I will get distracted by something else.

How Do You Schedule Social Media Using CoSchedule?

When you get started, you go in and link up your social media accounts. Currently CoSchedule is compatible with Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, LinkedIn and Google+ pages.

Select the social profile you would like your message to go to, you can choose one or select multiple profiles (if you would like the same message to be shared across all platforms).

Choose whether you want a text, image (it will automatically pull images from your post for you to choose from) or link post. Add in the message you would like displayed (CoSchedule auto populates the post link for you) and then choose the date and time you would like the post to be scheduled for.

Bulk Social Media Scheduling with CoSchedule

My favourite part is that you can schedule social media posts for months and months in advance. I recently wrote a post called DIY Soothing Essential Oil Cough Drops on my other blog which is one that readers will connect with all through the winter months. I have gone in and planned tweets and Facebook posts for this post all the way up until March 2016. You just set it and forget it… unless you look at your editorial calendar in which case you can see all the social messages you have scheduled for each day.

I am working on going back into old posts (from before I had CoSchedule) and I am adding in my social media messages. For example I don’t want to forget about my post called Spring & Summer Uses for Lavender, Peppermint & Lemon so I can go in now and schedule times for it to be shared next spring and summer… how cool is that?!?

Monitor Your Most Shared Posts using CoSchedule

Your dashboard will show you your most shared posts of all time. Although you can’t connect CoSchedule with Pinterest, any shares on Pinterest are counted as part of your total shares. Also included in the count are shares on Twitter, Facebook and Google+. There is a few reasons why I love this. First it is nice to see that a post is resonating with your audience and it is exciting to see the number continue to grow. Secondly, since these posts are doing so well, I want to make sure I have shares scheduled for upcoming months so that I can keep up the momentum on these posts.

Have Your Virtual Assistant Schedule Your Evergreen Content

Although CoSchedule takes significantly less time than manually scheduling your posts, it does of course still take time! This is a great task to hand over to your virtual assistant! Your VA can go through and make a spreadsheet of all your posts and optimum times for them to be shared (assuming you haven’t already done this). Then have your VA go in and schedule your social media. Your VA will more than likely use a scheduler of some form which means you are getting the best value for your money as they will be able to schedule your posts quickly and can move on to the next project you need them to complete. It should be noted that the amount of time it would take to do this will vary based on how frequently you post, how long you have been blogging for and the number of posts that will be scheduled.

I hope this helps you to increase traffic to your evergreen content on your blog!

How do you schedule your evergreen content on social media?