Evergreen articles

What an evergreen article is

An evergreen article answers a question that does not change, written so the article itself does not date either. Those are two separate jobs. The first is choosing a subject with a long life. The second is writing the sentences so that a reader arriving in three years finds nothing making them wonder whether any of this is still true.

It is not simply a useful article that happens to last. Most articles date through small carelessness rather than through the subject moving: a year in the second paragraph, a price without a date beside it, the word "recently", a product version, a mention of who currently holds a job. Any one of those quietly tells a reader the piece is old, and readers discount everything around it.

It is not the opposite of timely writing so much as the other half of the same blog. Seasonal pieces earn attention in a narrow window. Evergreen pieces earn quietly, every month, for years, and are what make a blog worth having built.

When you need one

You need evergreen writing when the same question arrives every month regardless of what is happening in the world. What this costs and what moves the cost. How to tell whether you need the thing at all. What the process involves from first call to completion. What goes wrong and how it is put right. Those are asked by a new person every week, forever.

It is also the right call when your blog is full of pieces that were true when written and are now embarrassing. Rather than adding more of the same, write the next ten so they cannot decay.

You do not need this if your subject is genuinely moving. A rule being rewritten this year, a market in the middle of a shift, a technology that changes twice a season: forcing that into an undateable shape produces a vague article that says nothing. That subject wants a piece about what is changing, published fast and retired when spent. And if the problem is the archive rather than the next article, start with bringing the old posts back.

What goes in it

A question with a long life, chosen deliberately. Before writing, the subject is tested by asking what would have to happen for this answer to stop being correct, and how likely that is inside five years. Some proposed subjects fail and get written another way.

Relationships instead of current figures. Not a price, but what makes the price move and by roughly how much relative to itself. Where a real figure is unavoidable it is boxed, labelled with the month it was true, and placed so it can be edited without touching the prose.

No years, no "recently", no "new". Time references are removed as a rule, not a preference. "Since the rules changed" becomes a statement of what the rules are. "Currently" is almost always deletable with no loss.

Named things kept out of the argument. Staff, software versions, suppliers and award names sit in one marked block rather than woven through the sentences, because those change first.

A structure that survives edits. Sections that can be replaced individually when one part of the subject does move, without the piece being rewritten whole.

What you get

The article. Usually 1,000 to 1,800 words in a shared document you own, with headline, title tag and meta description in a box at the top and internal links marked in place.

A dating audit. A short report listing every sentence that could date, what was done about each, and the handful that had to stay. It is proof the undateable writing was done rather than claimed.

A review interval. A stated period, usually twelve or eighteen months, with the two or three specific things to check when it comes round. An evergreen article without a review date is just an article that has not gone wrong yet, which is why this pairs with a content lifecycle plan covering the whole site.

One round of revision is included, plus a second if the accuracy read turns up a claim that needs restating.

A worked example

An illustration, not a client. A Saskatchewan firm that drills residential water wells has a popular post explaining what a well costs. It opens with a year, quotes a per-metre figure with no date, names the drilling rig they bought, and refers to a provincial grant that closed some time ago. It is the most-read page on the site and wrong in four places.

The replacement is written evergreen, about 1,400 words. It explains what actually drives the cost of a well: depth, set by geology and varying enormously across a single township; casing type; how far the rig has to travel; and whether the water needs treatment once found. It gives the relationships rather than the numbers, so the reader learns that depth dominates everything else. One boxed figure gives a range in CAD, labelled with the month, at the foot of the piece where it can be swapped without touching a paragraph. The grant is described as a category of thing that exists from time to time, with a line saying where to check, rather than as a live offer. The review interval is twelve months, with three checks named, and the old post redirects.

How it runs

1. A half-hour call. The subject, the reader, and what you have published that has already dated. No charge.
2. The durability test. Within a few days, a short note saying whether the subject can hold for years and, if not, which format suits it.
3. A fixed price in writing. Length, revision rounds, the dating audit and the review interval, stated before work begins.
4. A recorded call. Thirty to forty minutes on what drives the answer, which is the material that lasts, rather than this year's figures.
5. The draft and the audit. Eight to twelve working days later, together, so you can see what was done about each dating risk.
6. Handover. Final article, metadata, dating audit and review date, ready to publish.

What it costs

Evergreen articles are quoted as a fixed price after the half-hour call. They cost a little more than an equivalent post written the ordinary way, because the durability test and the dating audit are real work, and they are worth it on any subject you expect to be asked about for years. A batch is quoted as a batch. All figures are in CAD and agreed in writing first, and the pricing page shows the four ways of working here.

What happens next

Three things usually follow. The review interval gets written into a schedule so it survives a busy year, which is the job of deciding when each piece is reviewed, refreshed or retired. The pieces that dated badly before get rescued rather than deleted, through a pass over the old posts. And two or three lasting pieces on one subject are usually worth linking into a pillar with its supporting pages. None of that is assumed. One evergreen article is complete on its own and is yours the day it is handed over.