10 Apr Evergreen vs. Trending Topics in HealthTech: What’s the Right Balance?
In the fast-paced world of healthtech, it’s easy to get swept up in the latest news about regulations, innovations, or healthcare crises. Leveraging trending news can certainly capture readers’ attention and drive a surge in traffic, but short-term traffic spikes don’t necessarily translate into long-term content marketing success.
For a healthcare technology audience immersed in constant news and advancements, relying entirely on evergreen topics isn’t the ultimate solution, but identifying a balance between what is trending vs evergreen can be an effective strategy. Keep these tips in mind when crafting your healthcare technology content.
What is evergreen content?
Evergreen content is appealing and engaging to your audience both now and in the future. This type of content covers foundational industry information, best practices for solving problems, and tips to improve operations. The value of evergreen content endures, regardless of the news cycle.
An evergreen topic provides value for the long run. It doesn’t depend on what’s happening in the news; it depends on what matters to the prospects reading your content based on their work in the healthtech field.
While evergreen content might not produce the traffic spikes that trending, news-driven topics can create in the moment, an evergreen piece that is optimized well for search can pay dividends for years to come. Search engines favor fresh content, but they value in-depth explanations and expert insights even more.
Your prospects also value an in-depth explanation of a concept that matters in their professional lives. They want your perspective on long-term, pressing questions and they’ll trust you more if you share content that shows real subject-matter expertise.
The big caveat here is that to truly show expertise and authority on an evergreen topic, your content needs to the highest quality. And that takes a lot of work. Keywords for significant industry terms – especially in the healthtech space – are often highly competitive, so your content has to include a very strategic approach to keyword optimization. The reward for a successful optimization strategy: engagement grows, search engines will rate your content as being more authoritative and will rank it higher, and your site gets more traffic.
Choosing topics for evergreen content
When you are choosing topics for evergreen content, pay close attention to the target keywords your company wants to own. Remember to revisit your piece regularly to optimize and refresh it as search engines reward fresh content and keyword rankings change constantly.
Beyond keyword choice, make sure to choose your topic based on personas you’ve developed and what you know about your audience’s pain points. Ideally, your content should answer a question or solve a problem for your readers, and ideally move prospects further down the sales funnel.
Look for ways to link subjects together and further build on those key terms you want to own. This works whether it’s with evergreen content or a quick-hit trending topic on a similar or related subject.
What is trending content?
Trending content is relevant right now. It focuses on a topic that creates a lot of conversation and coverage in the moment, but it generally becomes irrelevant quickly, over a period of months or even weeks.
When your company creates content related to a trending topic, doing so often creates spikes in readership. Spikes can feel like a big success in the moment, but those users are largely the fly-by-night type. They arrived for that piece related to today’s news. Their visit to your site doesn’t necessarily mean that you have built a relationship or any trust with them.
Trending topics aren’t useless, however. They show readers you are paying attention to what the industry is talking about. Your regular audience feels confident they’ve made the right choice putting their trust in you because you have the answers they need regarding new developments. Also, keep in mind that while many of those fly-by-night users who come for a trending topic may never come back, a few good ones may stay and read more when they realize you really know what you’re talking about if you market to them properly.
How this applies to healthtech
In healthtech, you have to include some trending topics in your content mix because the industry changes so quickly. Regardless of the percentage of trending topics you plan for, you shouldn’t always leave them to grow stale once the trend you covered is replaced by the next hot topic.
You can update content on trending topics, especially subjects that seem to be ever-changing or are in the news cycle frequently.
You can also create a completely new-but-related piece of content to update your audience. Make sure you link back to that original piece for SEO value and to further solidify your subject expertise.
What’s the right balance between evergreen and trending content?
If your product or service is directly related to and used by clinical staff in addressing a trending issue, you should focus more on what’s developing daily and being covered in the news. This means you need a defined and quick approval process internally. You don’t ever want to be the last to talk about a subject where your type of product or service can be a solution. Show that you are cognizant of the impact a crisis may have on frontline caregivers and healthcare organizations.
Also consider that the more sensitive or urgent a situation is, the more you should be focused on educating, not selling. Goodwill can evaporate quickly by focusing on revenue when education and assistance are what’s called for.
If your company’s products and/or services are less involved in the healthcare frontlines, you can focus more on educating and establishing thought leadership with evergreen topics. The occasional nod to emergent subjects, though, is important to show that you are paying attention to what’s happening in the larger landscape.
A good balance of trending and evergreen topics makes for a well-rounded content marketing effort. Plus, it shows your audience that you understand who they are and what they care about. Establishing a smart balance of trending vs. evergreen topics is also further proof that you are a thought leader in your space.
The actual balance of the two areas depends on many factors, but you do need both in the healthtech space. Contact us to learn more.
