BLACK ANCHOR DESIGN BLOG

Every few weeks a contractor asks me some version of the same question. If Google is answering everything with AI now, is it worth writing anything for our website?

I had my own opinion. This fall I got some data to go with it. GoodFirms surveyed 192 content and marketing professionals for its Content Engagement Metrics 2026 study, and Black Anchor Design took part as one of the official research partners. The results came out the opposite of what most people in my industry expected.

The traffic panic is real, but it isn't the whole story

The bad news first. When Google shows an AI summary, fewer people click through to a website. The GoodFirms report cites Pew Research data showing clicks on a traditional result dropped from 15% of visits to 8% when an AI summary appeared.

Even so, 66.3% of the marketers surveyed said their organic traffic grew over the past year. About 61% said leads and conversions from content went up too.

The businesses getting hurt worst are publishers, the sites whose whole product is general information. A contractor's website isn't that. You're not trying to explain what a retaining wall is to the internet. You're trying to show a general contractor, a city project manager, or a developer that you've built the thing they need built.

Blogs still pull the most engagement

73.9% of respondents said blogs and articles drive their strongest engagement. Case studies came in second at 47.8%.

That lines up with what I see. For a commercial trade or civil contractor, a write-up of a finished job does a lot of selling. It shows scope, conditions, schedule, and how you handled the problem nobody planned for. A GC vetting subs can't get that from a capabilities list.

Publishing more doesn't help much

This one should save some of you money. Teams that pumped out more content reported traffic growth 73.5% of the time. Teams that published fewer, better pieces reported it 73.3% of the time. That's basically a tie.

The fewer-but-better group actually did a little better on engagement and leads. I wouldn't hire someone to crank out four thin blog posts a month for your company. One solid project story a month beats that.

First-hand experience is what AI can't copy

65.2% of marketers said AI search tools like Google AI Overviews, ChatGPT and Perplexity became more important for getting their content seen. The top tactic for showing up there was expert-led, first-hand content, at 58.7%.

One line in the report stuck with me. Miguel Cairo of Miami SEO Nerdz said his test is whether a company in another state could publish the same page. If it could, the page probably doesn't show enough real local knowledge.

I think that's the right test for Texas contractors. A post about working through TxDOT requirements, building on Fort Worth's expansive clay, or keeping a utility job moving through a wet North Texas spring can't be faked by a firm in Ohio or by a chatbot. Search tools are looking for that kind of specific, checkable experience.

Judge content by leads, not page views

Most marketers track traffic (81.5%). But when asked what actually proves content worked, 38% picked leads and form submissions, and another 22.8% picked conversions or revenue. Only 26.1% said they could connect content to business results really well.

For a contractor, the questions are simple. Did a bid invitation come in? Did someone call about a job? Did a prospect mention a project page in the first meeting? If your website can't tell you that, fix the tracking before you write another word.

What I'd do with this if I ran a construction company

1. Write up your best three finished projects as case studies, with photos, scope, location and the hardest part of the job.
2. Answer the questions your estimators and PMs hear every week. Those are the searches your buyers are typing.
3. Put your own people in the content. A superintendent's take on phasing a school renovation beats anything generic.
4. Make every post easy to act on, with a clear way to request a bid or set up a call.
5. Track calls and form fills back to the page they came from.

You don't need a content factory. You need a handful of pages that prove you know your work, and a website built to turn that proof into leads. If you're weighing a DIY builder against hiring it out, I wrote about that in Custom-Built vs. DIY Website Builders for Commercial Contractors.

If your site isn't doing that yet, book a free 30-minute Zoom and we'll look at where it's falling short.

Source: GoodFirms, Content Engagement Metrics 2026: What 192 Marketers Reveal, October 2026.