Early indications are generative AI tends to surface long form in-depth content; visitors from AI results browse with purpose and are more likely to convert
Long form content still has a place in the generative AI era. People are still reading long-form content – and it matters more than ever, wrote Ashley Hall, vice president of Strategic Partnerships for Seedtag, which provides advertising services.
Her ideas were published in a contribution to AdMonsters:
“Publishers are the backbone of digital media. Without them, there’s no audience to reach, no environment to advertise in and no meaningful context to connect with.”
I’d add there are no generative AI summaries or even a search index without publishers. The whole ecosystem of digital marketing is dependent on publishers because publishing fosters an audience.
Thoughtful content surfaced in generative AI leads to “purposeful browsing.” Purposeful browsing is the path towards intent:
“Audience intent is everything. People who click into a 1,500-word article from an AI-assisted search aren’t doing it by accident—they’re seeking substance. That behavior signals mindset.”
That makes sense given Ahrefs, a competitive developer of SEO software, says web visitors referred by AI convert at 23x “the rate of traditional organic traffic.” So, while there’s a lot of concern about lower click through rates (CTR), those that do come through generative AI signal genuine interest.
Marketing and communications often fiercely debate ‘this versus that’ comparisons; paid media versus earned media for example.
Some similar debates are emerging as generative AI adoption grows. Search Engine Land for example, pointed out, despite the buzz around AI, old fashioned Google still fields 210x more search queries than ChatGPT.
The author of the aforementioned piece, Ashley Hall, argues it’s the combination not comparison that counts the most:
“The real opportunity isn’t in choosing between AI and human creativity, it’s in using them together.”
That’s true for most of these marketing communications debates. Brand marketing plus demand marketing beats brand versus demand.
(click image for higher resolution)
Data supporting the case for long form
There’s some data supporting this perspective too.
The trade publication MarketingProfs recently reported on an annual survey of bloggers, which is now in its 12th year and polled 800 of them this year, found fewer bloggers are publishing long form content. Yet fewer is not the same as few. More than six in 10 (63%) published pieces are 1,000 words or longer.
Those bloggers that do publish long posts, are also more likely to report “strong results.” I’ve written about this study many times over the years and this finding is the same. The correlation between long posts and strong results is always high.
The weakness in this survey finding is defining what “strong results” mean. It could mean anything from a high number of organic visitors to closed deals – and there’s a whole range of metrics in between.
So, how long should a blog post be?
A good answer is as long as it takes to adequately convey an idea to the target audience. A long post that’s repetitive simply for the sake of being long isn’t likely to move the needle. A post that’s 200 words of garbage is as effective as one with 2,000 words of garbage.
Yet the evidence suggests there are occasions that sometimes require depth to your work. It’s an opportunity too if fewer bloggers, as this survey suggests, are putting the work in to produce long form content of high quality.
(click image for higher resolution)
Frequency is also key to strong results
Length isn’t the only characteristic associated with strong results either. The same survey of bloggers found that frequency of publication also drives strong results.
Just under six in 10 (59%) of bloggers who publish weekly or more report strong results. The number tops 80% if the cohort that publishes “several per month” was included.
The more important theme here, which I believe the data tells us but not as explicitly, is consistency matters. A trustworthy and reliable blog publishes consistently.
I recommend choosing a publishing rhythm and sticking to it. It becomes a self-imposed but non-negotiable deadline that conditions, both a team to produce, and an audience to expect, fresh new takes on a predictable basis.
(click image for higher resolution)
Visibility in search and AI
Traditional search engines have long been purported to have an affinity for in-depth content. Many Googlers have said this on numerous occasions. And there have been numerous studies to back this assertion up.
Google seems to share the same perspective as generative AI changes behavior. For example, Search Engine Journal cites Liz Reid, vice president of Search at Google as saying:
“But what we see is people want content from that human perspective. They want that sense of like, what’s the unique thing you bring to it, okay? And actually what we see on what people click on, on AI Overviews, is content that is richer and deeper, okay?”
The emphasis added is mine. A few lines down she added:
“AI Overviews gives some content, and then we get to surface deeper, richer content, and we’ll look to continue to do that over time so that we really do get that creator content and not the AI generated.”
These days I take much of what Google says with a grain of salt. The company says a lot of things about search, and many of them are unclear or even deceptive. For example, there was a time when I heard Googlers say Google+ would be Google in the next five years.
That clearly didn’t happen. And Google completely abandoned the product later, along with all the wasted effort it’s users poured into building engagement there.
However, there is some independent analysis, which I’ve reviewed closely, that substantiates this claim too. It suggests blogs, along with PR outputs, performs well in generative AI.
It doesn’t take a leap of faith to understand why: PR and well-run blogs tend to present information in a manner that more closely represents the pragmatic presentation of editorial than does marketing. The inverted pyramid stye of press releases notwithstanding.
If we accept such findings as a premise, as having a high probability of being correct, then the next step is to reverse engineer what makes those programs successful. For blogs, I’m of the mind this post has done just that. I follow my own advice too: this post here is a little more than 1,000 words.
Subscribe by email for free:
Check out my weekly blog posts, weekly podcasts, or a monthly newsletter via Substack that rounds up interesting reading from the last 30 days (examples).
If you enjoyed this post, you might also like:
How many touches or interactions does it take to attract and close B2B prospects?
Image credit: Google Gemni and respective study
