The Long-Form Content Paradox: Why Slow Wins in an AI Era

Cars speeding down the highway, dinner made in seconds in the microwave, internet with lightning-fast gigabit-plus speeds—all examples of innovations that make our lives faster.

In the world of marketing and content creation, one popular term is “friction.” Friction is the idea that anything that slows the customer down, introduces resistance, or forces them to make extra effort is a barrier to sales.

Now, artificial intelligence (AI) has empowered businesses to work faster than ever before, saving professionals an average of 40-60 minutes a day with a “frictionless” experience.

This cult of speed has led many content marketers and businesses to believe that shorter is better.

But if long form is the tortoise and short form is the hare, which is truly the answer? I believe that well-balanced content marketing offers a twist on this old fable: both.

Users need quick, short-form content for rapid answers and deep, educational content to help with decision-making before converting.

In this blog, I’ll take a deep dive into the concept of introducing friction into the consumer experience with long-form content and review how to create long-term content that drives AI referrals.

The Two Pillars of Value: Why Long-Form Content Wins

A popular myth in the world of content creation tries to tell us that we’re all like fish.

Fish?

One often quoted statistic says that human attention spans are down to 8 seconds, like those of a goldfish. There’s only one problem—true crime fans can listen to hours of podcasts and families often binge an entire mini-series in one sitting.

If the long-form content is gripping and the information relevant, attention spans rise dramatically.

There are two pillars that explain how long-form content interacts with search engines, captures attention, and builds trust with your audience.

1. Search & AI Overviews: Why Google Prioritizes Depth

Google produces rapid-fire results for users with its recent AI Overviews feature—quick answers to questions when users do a search.

Yet, behind-the-scenes, 82.5% of AI Overview citations point to “deep pages” with URLs located two or more clicks from the home page.

In other words, Google has the best of both worlds in the classic conundrum of long-form versus short-form content. Why? Google invests in creating a global library of content and serving it up to users who need a speedy reply.

Gone are the days of Google relying only on keywords—the algorithm now measures the value of content by semantic depth. Semantic depth refers to a deep, long-form content page that covers the core topic at the center of a question, plus related subjects and subtopics.

My goal isn’t to write fluff that fills over 2,000 words—it’s to cover a subject with comprehensive content, so that the user doesn’t have to visit multiple pages or websites to find in-depth answers.

2. Using Friction to Build Trust in Long-Form Content Marketing

Introducing friction into your content is a powerful method to build trust.

How? Relational versus transactional speed. AI is a convenient tool and short videos on social media are brief snippets of entertainment—not long-term branding that determines a purchase decision. They offer a quick and easy transaction without building a relationship.

In the book “Valuable Friction” by marketing expert Robert Rose, he explains the concept of the “Pause Point.” In an era of infinite scrolling, the goal of long-form content is to make users pause—the moment where the reader stops skimming, starts thinking, and builds a trust relationship with your brand.

For example, a long-form piece of content could include a “stop and audit” box that invites the reader to open their last three emails and evaluate their communication style based on the tips from the article. When someone stops to download a free guide, it’s your cue to invest in them as a highly engaged customer and follow up with them.

How to Create High-Performing Long-Form Content

The goal of long-form content is to translate the topic you’re offering your audience into educational material—it allows you to persuade rather than sell.

There are several key steps to creating excellent long-form content that stands out from the crowd online.

Want help creating comprehensive content that balances in-depth learning and draws customers to your brand?

Step 1: Choosing Topics That Require Depth

Rather than answering a single question, the goal of your content should be to build out a series of answers AI can’t easily replace.

For example, answering the question “What is a 401k?” is a great subtopic for a piece of content, but not the main content. Why? Because an AI can provide an accurate definition in a paragraph.

A deep question is “What is Retirement Planning?” It’s an opportunity to connect many topics together.

It goes beyond AI information to human insight—your unique philosophy can shape how the pieces fit together, explaining the relationship between a 401k, a Roth IRA, tax limits, and employer matches.

Step 2: Visual Structuring for Skimmers and Deep Divers

Everyone active online has read a piece of long-form content that felt like a “wall of text” at one time or another. It can be intimidating to create long-form content while keeping it fresh and avoiding information overload.

The key point is that readers don’t mind length, they care about density.

When you narrow it down, there are essentially two types of readers online at different points in the searching process: the skimmer versus the diver.

For example, two mothers might Google “baby rash” looking for completely different types of answers:

• The Skimmer: A mom holding a crying baby with a rash at 2AM. She needs a bulleted list of symptoms and wants to know if she should call the pediatrician.
• The Deep Diver: An expectant mom prepping for the birth of her baby might search the same question, but wants to go into detail to learn about different types of rashes to prep for motherhood.

Your article should help them both through an easy-to-understand structure. The skimmer needs clear H2 headings, bullet points, block quotes, and bold summaries, reducing bad friction so that they can find an answer instantly.

The skimmer is also an opportunity to let your visual content creation shine. Don’t just use stock photos as a decoration—tap into creativity.

A visual metaphor like a compass for strategy or a data visualization, can explain complex concepts in an instant. It provides the skimmer with a quick answer and offers the deep diver a framework to study and retain.

The deep diver needs a clear structure to review the article and take notes. But I also don’t want them to speed through the piece.

“Pause points” like a contrarian take, a personal story, or a box that asks the reader to answer a question and reflect on the content, can slow them down and engage them with your expertise.

The goal is to be fast enough to capture attention, but slow enough to keep it.

Step 3: The Topics Cluster Strategy

The topic cluster approach to online content uses a “hub and spoke” model. The long-form piece serves as the central hub that covers a broad topic comprehensively, while smaller specific pieces of content act as the spokes.

For example, a piece of long-form content focused like “The First-Time Home Buyer’s Handbook” would have spokes like “What is a debt-income-ratio?” and “Closing costs explained for buyers.”

There are several main tips to consider when building a hub and spoke content strategy:

• Group keywords by category: Use keyword clustering to organize related terms. Research keywords for your topic and then build sections or sub-articles to complement your primary content.
• Link short answers to deep content: Short content like social posts or quick-answer blog posts should target the specific, long-tail questions with a brief, introductory answer. Then, you can link back to the long-form for the deep dive users.
• Avoid cannibalization: It’s key to make sure that multiple pages don’t compete for top ranking for the same keyword. Instead, create unique pages for each subtopic and link back to the main guide.

Key Takeaways

• Redefine positive “friction” as a trust-building tool. In a speed-obsessed world, friction stops the scroll and moves users from transactions to relationships.
• Don’t buy into the “goldfish” myth. Readers don’t reject length; they reject information overload.
• Create comprehensive, long-form content to target “semantic depth” for AI visibility. 
• Design long-form content for skimmers and divers with visual hooks for quick answers and deep insights for engaged readers. 
• Compete on your unique insight, not simply staying facts. AI has a library of facts—you have your unique voice, philosophy, and experience. 
• Build SEO with hub and spoke topic clusters. Link central long-form guides to shorter articles to build expertise with search engines.