There’s an old saying in marketing: content is king. Although monarchies might not be relevant in today’s digital media landscape, this adage remains truer than ever. Content can make or break your website. That’s why it’s vital to have a robust content strategy for your business that includes a balanced blend of seasonal and evergreen content.
But which one is better for your business? Do you need to entice customers with popular trends and topical articles that reflect current events? Or should you focus on crafting content that stays relevant throughout the year?
In this article, we’ll dive deep on the pros and cons of seasonal vs. evergreen content.
Why content marketing matters
First, let’s review why quality content is essential. We often see businesses cut corners on content, or ignore it completely when developing a digital marketing strategy. This is a glaring missed opportunity. Content may not always deliver overnight results, but it’s a highly valuable investment when executed properly.
High-quality content improves:
- Organic Keyword Ranking: When blog articles and website copy are optimized for keywords, they help your website rank higher on Search Engine Results Pages.
- Domain Authority: Content that’s thoroughly researched, accurate, and well-written adds to your website’s expertise.
- Backlinking: If your content shines, others will turn to your website as a resource and link to your articles in their own content.
- Conversion Rates & Customer Retention: The right content educates readers, creates trust, and persuades them to try your product or service. It also encourages customers to keep coming back.
Businesses of all sizes, across all industries, can benefit from a good content strategy. If you’re not sure where to start, create content “buckets” or “pillars” based on different features of your product or service. Then, brainstorm topics that fall under one of these categories.
For example, let’s say you run a bakery. You can create content buckets for different types of baked goods: bread, cookies, and cakes. Under the “cake” bucket, you can create content articles such as “Easy Cake Baking Tips for Beginners,” “Best Frosting Recipes,” “Favorite Cake Fillings,” and so on.
Seasonal content
As the name suggests, seasonal content is time-sensitive. It refers to any content centered around holidays, weather seasons, or “cultural” time periods like “Festival Season” in the late spring and early summer. Content about big, semi-annual events like elections or the Olympics is also considered seasonal.
Pros and cons
The benefits of seasonal content include:
- Create buzz and provide a boost in shares, or potentially go viral
- Less competition for keywords if you’re among the first to publish on the topic
- Helps your brand appear fresh and culturally relevant
- Raises your profile as a leading expert in your industry
But seasonal content has its downsides, too:
- It requires paying very close attention to news and trends
- It requires a faster timeline for researching, writing, and publishing
- The boost in engagement is often temporary, fading once the season or moment has passed
- If poorly executed or “shoehorned in,” it can dilute your brand
- It can disrupt your existing content calendar
- Seasonal content may be limited in scope, with no room to expand upon the topic in multiple posts
- Seasonal topics may not fit into your brand’s keyword strategy
Types of seasonal content
There are many different types of seasonal content. Common examples include winter holidays, cultural moments, current events, breaking news, and viral trends or stories.
Seasonal content can also be specific to your industry. For example, a florist or photographer might create seasonal content around “Wedding Season” in May and June. Accountants and financial businesses can benefit from focusing on “Tax Season” content. Brands might also consider seasonal content when there’s a new development or current trend within their niche, even if it might not be relevant to the general public.
Seasonal content also includes any content centered around statistical data, research studies, or annual industry reports. While some statistics remain relevant past their initial publishing date, there’s always a risk that the information will be proven false or become outdated. Content articles with data from 2023 won’t carry as much authority in 2025 and beyond and may make your brand appear stale.
Evergreen content
Unlike seasonal content, evergreen content is timeless. This type of content gets its name from evergreen trees, which keep their verdant leaves or needles regardless of the changing seasons. Evergreen content stays relevant and provides value to the reader long after it’s first published.
Pros and cons
Some of the advantages of evergreen content include:
- There’s no rush to create it, so you can plan a content calendar in advance
- It creates steady growth over time, with no drop-off
- You can create multiple posts around the same topic, exploring it from different angles or expanding upon key details to build expertise
- It provides more opportunities to optimize for keywords
- It allows for advanced planning to create a thorough, holistic marketing campaign with email newsletters and social media
We’re big fans of evergreen content, yet we also acknowledge its limitations:
- Less immediate engagement, less likely to go viral
- It may feel generic or repetitive
- More competition for the same keywords and topics
- For niche businesses, it may be challenging to continuously generate new topics and ideas
- It still requires periodic refreshes to maintain accuracy and keep up with SEO best practices
Types of evergreen content
Common types of evergreen content include how-to guides, tips and tricks, “listicles,” product or service reviews, long-form answers to frequently asked questions, white papers, case studies, or articles based around expert insights and observations.
If you’re still not sure whether a content idea is seasonal or evergreen, consider these questions: Will the information in this article still be relevant and accurate one year after publishing? Will readers find it valuable during any time of the year? If you’ve answered yes, it’s evergreen.
Developing a balanced content strategy
Both seasonal content and evergreen content have their pros and cons. That’s why a solid content marketing plan includes a balance of both.
Evergreen content will build your business’ trust and expertise, create opportunities for executing your SEO keyword strategy, and enable you to schedule content in-advance for slow yet steady growth.
Seasonal content, on the other hand, provides an opportunity to be the first in your industry to comment upon breaking news, capture customer interest around a cultural trend, and appear well-informed on recent events and statistics. At Redefine Marketing Group, we help our clients develop a content marketing strategy that strikes a perfect balance for their business. Contact us today to get started and see how both seasonal and evergreen content can help you reach your goals.
