I’ve Been Writing Timeless Blog Posts for 11+ Years. They Bring the Most Traffic and Backlinks
If I were to create a blog from scratch today, I would write this.
Every blog needs backlinks to get better rankings on Google and thus attract more visitors.
There are many approaches to achieving this, but almost everyone agrees on one point.
With so-called pillar articles (I call them core articles), it will be easier to get many backlinks and, therefore traffic.
Although it sometimes seems the opposite, building a successful blog or website is a long-term task, but only some types of articles offer timeless information and are, therefore successful in the long term.
As an SEO specialist, I like to write timeless articles (evergreen content) that find many readers, generate backlinks, and generate income even after months or years.
In this piece, I also investigate what other advantages timeless articles offer and whether news articles make sense.
Timeless blog posts explained
Blogs and websites often have the effect of decreasing traffic as soon as you stop publishing new articles.
This is completely normal, as many blogs and websites are mainly news-based and also have loyal and regular readers (via RSS, newsletters, social networks, etc.), who naturally stay away if you don’t write any more new articles (as often happens). ).
But this doesn’t apply to timeless, so-called evergreen content.
These articles attract visitors over the long term. That should be the goal of content creation.
Other content, on the other hand, gets out of date very quickly and therefore doesn’t generate traffic, backlinks, or revenue for long. Do certain articles make sense?
Differences between a page and an article
With WordPress and many other content management systems, you can choose between articles (posts) and pages (pages).
There are some important differences between the two formats:
Articles are the typical content of a blog. They are listed chronologically and therefore organized in time. Pages, on the other hand, are independent of time.
That’s why no date is displayed by default on pages. Yes, with articles.
Articles can be categorized, but pages cannot. However, there are keywords for both.
For pages, however, it is possible to nest them. So, you can assign another page as the parent element of a page. This makes it possible to nest information in thematic clusters.
Articles are linked, for example, on the home page (if you choose the blog view for the home page) and in the categories. However, the pages are not linked automatically. You have to link them yourself, for example via the navigation menu or the sidebar.
Articles appear in the WordPress RSS feed, but pages do not.
While you can assign fixed format templates to articles, you can choose between different templates (including your own) for pages. With pages, you have more flexibility in terms of layout.
You can present more or less the same content in both formats, but the differences can’t be ignored.
In general, you can more or less modernize everything with plugins and thus compensate for the disadvantages of articles and pages, but I try to get by with as few plugins as possible.
Are news blog articles useful?
To answer this question, you should consider the effect that current news articles have.
They often attract a lot of visitors in a short time, only to disappear completely from the scene after a short time.
For this reason, news articles are only partially suitable for the long-term development of a website or blog.
Depending on the topic, news posts make sense and should be part of the content, but timeless articles are the stable foundation of any successful website or blog.
The advantage of timeless blog posts
Timeless doesn’t mean that such a perennial article should be current 10 years after publication. In any case, such long periods can no longer be planned nowadays.
But it makes a difference whether I write an article entitled “The current WordPress 5.9 update in March 2024” or whether I write an article entitled “The most important basic WordPress settings”.
The latter may not get as many visitors when it’s published because it doesn’t seem as topical or sensational, but it will certainly attract more visitors in the long run and won’t become outdated so quickly.
For example, in June 2011 I published an article on one of my blogs entitled Taxes for the Self-Employed.
In the Google Analytics graph below you can see the number of weekly views from publication until 2024 (I used Google Analytics until then).
This article had pretty good initial views, but it wasn’t the best start ever.
Since then, the number of views has remained quite stable until today (last year I revised the article slightly and republished it).
Another example is an article I authored “7 Ways to Make Money on the Internet”. This was also published many years ago and, after a perfect start day for the time (131 page views), it had around 10 page views a day. This number has also gradually increased and currently stands at 20–40 per day. Thanks to an overhaul last year, it is now useful again in the long term.
Timeless articles aim to show that you don’t always have to keep up with the latest news and trends.
If you create a large number of timeless articles over time, you’ll eventually have the luxury of getting thousands of page views a day from old articles.
And I always get backlinks to old articles. So building backlinks also has a long tail.
Why are core articles so important?
As already mentioned, the core articles form the basis of your blog. Due to the large number of readers of these core articles, your blog will be very much defined by them. You can stand out in the industry and also make a lot of contacts.
But even in very real terms, lead articles are a very important foundation for the success of your website or blog.
Top articles are characterized above all by the large number of backlinks that other website operators and bloggers have set.
This strong linking not only leads to many visitors coming to your blog from the linked sites. Many backlinks are also an important SEO factor for Google and an indicator of good content.
Consequently, your own blog will be found at the top of Google’s search results for this topic on Google.
When it comes to freelance work on the Internet, there are 2 types of articles:
Interesting short-term articles that are read by many visitors in a short time. After that, traffic drops significantly.
Articles that are read for a long time even after the first wave of visitors therefore provide visitors long after they have been created and thus, among other things, long-term income.
In recent years I’ve started to focus more on timeless items that attract visitors in the long term.
Here you can see a sample article called How much do you earn on YouTube per subscriber, viewed, liked, and clicked? It has been online since August 2017 and, after a slow start, now receives around 2,000 to 10,000 page views per month.
But even articles that started with fewer page views can become “long-term favorites” due to their useful content.
Like the article 7 Ways to Make Money on the Internet, which managed to significantly increase page views again a good few months after its launch in mid-2017. There are now a good 2,000 per month.
Anatomy of timeless blog posts
It has to be said that a successful timeless item can only be planned to a certain extent. Some items that I thought would work very well over a long period of time didn’t. Other items, however, have unexpectedly become perennial classics.
However, the timelessly successful articles from many blogs and websites share some characteristics:
Basic topic
Timeless articles usually last because they cover a fundamental topic that will still be of interest in a few years.
So it’s about something other than current developments, trends or news, but basic information.
So instead of writing about the latest news from a software company, you can present your software products in a comprehensive history or give basic tips for using the software without going into specific current features.
Detailed
It helps a lot if this information is comprehensive and unique. Evergreen’s articles are very detailed and cover all aspects of the topic.
Answering questions
Answering and responding to common questions from readers on this subject is a very good idea.
Questions that come up repeatedly are particularly suitable for this.
For example, Google shows common questions about a keyword in the search results, which can be used very well.
Practical tips
Evergreen articles should also contain practical tips that ensure readers can do something immediately with the information and derive concrete benefits from it.
Lists and resources
These articles are often complemented by useful lists that summarize important information briefly and clearly. You can also link to useful resources, but they should also be timeless.
Images and videos
Last but not least, both Google and especially readers appreciate additional images and videos that complement the text. But you should also make sure that you contain timeless information.
You should ask yourself the following questions to create good timeless articles:
What would you like to read in an article in your subject area?
What is currently missing and what would make your life much easier?
What article would you have liked to have read 2 or 3 years ago, when you were starting out and had to figure everything out for yourself?
What would an article that answered all your questions about XY look like?
If you write an article that offers the answers to these questions and will still be relevant in a few years, then there’s a good chance that you’ll enjoy it for a long time and that the article will generate long-term traffic, backlinks, and income.
Are timeless blog articles worth it?
While news articles are the icing on the cake of a blog or website, timeless articles are the foundation for long-term success.
I can only recommend to all website operators and bloggers that they don’t neglect this foundation and write timeless articles regularly.
You can’t guarantee it, but with the tips mentioned you have a good chance. It will pay off over time.
Affiliates, bloggers, and website operators often deal with partner programs, affiliate links, conversion rate optimization, layout, and much more. This is also important, but the content of a website is just as important.