For a hot minute, long-form content was the apple of digital marketing’s eye. Marketers from across the world were writing post after post, desperately scrambling for the No. 1 spot in Google’s heart.
Then, at some point during the pandemic, TikTok happened, our attention spans shortened and, almost in reverse proportion, short-form video began to rise. The digital dance between long form and short form has upgraded marketers’ relationship with content to “it’s complicated.” But as we’ll shortly see, there’s value in playing the long game — which is what SEO has always been about, anyway.
This guide explores the role long-form content plays, how it’s changing and how AI tools will help you prepare for what’s next.
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What Is Long-Form Content?
Long-form content is comprehensive, in-depth media — written, audio or video — that delves into a topic to provide consumers with valuable information. On the brand side, businesses use this content creation to build awareness and authority as well as nurture trust and loyalty among audiences. The rest of the article will address solely written content, though note that when we get to the practical steps, the advice applies to audio and video content as well.
Production methods for long-form content have changed drastically over time. Many years ago, the SEO game was all about keyword density and backlinks. Then, the algorithm changed. Those who focused only on keywords and cheap backlinks were seen as “gaming the system” and soon dropped in the search results. Brands progressively focused on meeting algorithmic requirements by injecting deeper human value and addressing search intent and topical coverage.
Now we have AI, another curveball, which introduces two new problems:
- An influx of generic AI-generated content requires marketers to work more strategically (note, not necessarily harder) to stand out on Google.
- AI overviews (AIO) are taking over search engines, meaning the SEO practices we’ve known for the past five years are already superseded by new AI search and generative engine optimization (GEO) requirements.
To throw another spanner in the works, there’s the rise of short-form content as competition for your audience’s attention. HubSpot noted that short-form video was the most-leveraged content format in 2025, and it generated the highest ROI. Which bears the question: Do we still actually need long-form content?
Is Long-Form Content Still Valuable?
Yes, it’s still valuable. Google processes over 5 trillion searches each year and, even in the search-everywhere era, still commands over 90% of the global market, demonstrating that the search bar remains the internet’s front door. Despite short-form content being the top-performing format for 2025, HubSpot also found that SEO was still the top-performing channel by ROI. Phew.
Longer content — blogs, eBooks, white papers — that actively contribute to your SEO strategy still deliver:
- Verifiable authority: You provide comprehensive and original value through in-depth information and solutions.
- Algorithmic resilience: Comprehensive coverage helps you rank for complex and even conversational long-tail queries.
- Brand ecosystem: Long-form pieces nurture loyalty and establish you as a thought leader.
- AI training data: Well-structured content is more likely to be cited in AIO and GEO snippets.
But that doesn’t mean that AI isn’t shaking things up. As search changes, so does the content strategy. Emerging GEO trends require creating long-form content that’s AI-scannable and SEO-friendly to capture generative search queries across platforms like Gemini, ChatGPT and Google’s AIOs.
Fortunately, thanks also to AI content creation tools, longer content is getting easier to create, albeit more nuanced. So, the message is clear: Marketers should not cull their SEO efforts. They should adapt their strategies to meet GEO requirements and they should integrate AI into their content creation workflows to make the switch a hell of a lot easier. That’s what we’ll address in the rest of this article.
(Before we go there, note that social media engagement provides well-documented off-page support for SEO marketing goals. It’s worth considering whether an omnichannel approach, potentially including shorter content, could substantiate your content marketing strategy.)
How To Use AI To Create Long-Form Content
Everyone knows that you can go to your AI writing tool of choice, tell it you want an article and it’ll bang one out for you. While Google doesn’t reprimand brands for posting AI-generated content, it does reprimand them for sharing terrible content, which is primarily what raw AI material is.
Here are some tips for creating the kind of AI-generated long-form blog posts that Google wants to rank:
- Long article = small prompts: Rather than generating 1000 words with a single prompt, generate the content section-by-section, providing context and goals for each. That gives depth and keeps your outputs closer to target.
- Provide examples and constraints: Giving the AI related posts to go off — for structure, clear headings, delivery tone and style or audience targeting — will help it produce more desirable results. You can also improve your guardrails by providing specific examples of what not to do.
- Use AI to support research: Back up claims with research, but get the AI to do the hard yards. I usually ask for recent, relevant, authoritative, ungated and direct links that don’t come from competitors’ websites.
- Always do a final human pass: AI is a copywriting tool that has limitations, so never unleash AI-only copy into the wild. Check your facts and sources. Revise the tone and add your brand voice. Don’t be afraid to regenerate sections with further clarification. Always follow a hybrid process.
- Integrate E-E-A-T: Google is looking for E-E-A-T (experience, expertise, authority and trust) which comes from humans, not AI. Inject them into your writing for a better chance of ranking.
- Use AI for visuals: Images, charts and graphs make long-form writing far more visually engaging, and it’s easier than ever to whip them up with Gen AI. Take advantage of it!
- Run a final check: It’s possible to miss nuggets of wisdom when you’re partially outsourcing your content creation process. Run your human-revised article through AI to check its key takeaways, structural logic and any potential knowledge gaps to ensure your blog post is comprehensive.
Once you’re finished, you can also use AI platforms in multiple different ways to generate metas, image captions, social posts and, funnily enough, short-form video scripts, all based on your article. Just remember: Always. Refine. Before. Posting.
How To Structure Long-Form Content With AI
AIO and GEO are irrefutably shaping up what goes into our SEO. The structure of your content outputs, or the technical architecture of your articles, will fail to rank if you don’t deliver verifiable topical authority, bringing us to the final item on the agenda. The previous section explains how to create your article with AI. This section is about ensuring what you produce strategically aligns with current market expectations.
As a bare minimum, make sure every piece of content aligns with your broader strategy. That means optimizing for information density and topical authority rather than mere keywords and word count. When you thatch each long-form piece with specific, original insights across your area of expertise, standard articles become authoritative data sources that both LLMs and human readers can trust.
Front-load value. As the attention economy propels audience engagement to the upper echelons of SEO priorities, readers need to know fast whether your content will address their intent. This also means you should make your content highly scannable, providing clear headings with the direct-answer depth, bullets, tables and graphs that AI models prioritize for overviews. Offering section previews and summaries, alongside a clear conclusion or key takeaways section, never went amiss.
Finally, and weirdly enough (and great news for writers), have an opinion. Maintain your narrative. Google is, and always has been, about valuable content generated by humans for humans. Google doesn’t penalize AI-generated content, but it does penalize a lack of human insight, which you’ll come across with AI. So, use your blogs as a platform to actually say something.
Build Steady SEO Success With Long-Form Content
It’s clear that AIO, GEO and the surge of short-form content are redefining how we think about SEO. With TikTok and Instagram Reels dominating the attention economy, it’s easy to feel like the blog post is fighting for air. But make no mistake — long-form content still holds its weight.
The “complicated” relationship we have with content isn’t a sign to jump ship; it’s a signal to evolve. Rather than letting the influx of generic AI material dilute your brand, leverage AI platforms to scale your outputs and meet the nuanced requirements of generative search.
The game has changed, but the goal remains the same: provide undeniable value. Adapt your strategy, embrace the tools at your fingertips and never outsource your soul to the machine — keep your human expertise front and center.
