Yes, for some. A blog still pays if your customers research before they buy and you can wait months for results. It’s a poor bet if you need calls this month or won’t publish for a year. Google’s AI Overviews cut clicks, so write to be quoted as well as clicked.
If you started a blog in 2019, got 9 readers, and quietly stopped, you already know the bad part. Don’t worry, you’re in good company. Here’s the rest, with numbers.
What are AI Overviews doing to blog traffic?
They’re cutting clicks, though how much depends on who’s counting. In March 2025, Pew Research tracked 900 US adults across 68,879 Google searches. When an AI summary appeared, people clicked a regular result in 8% of visits. Without one, 15%. Clicks on links inside the summary happened in 1% of visits. About 18% of searches produced a summary.
Ahrefs compared 300,000 keywords and estimates a 58% lower click rate for the top-ranking page when an AI Overview shows, December 2023 against December 2025, on desktop. That figure is modeled, not measured, and Ahrefs sells SEO tools, so read it as the high end.
Google disagrees. In August 2025, Liz Reid, who runs Google Search, wrote that total organic click volume has been “relatively stable” year over year. She gave no figures.
Bloggers feel it either way. In Orbit Media’s survey of 1,042 marketers, only 13.9% said their blog delivers strong results. That’s an all-time low, six points under the old low. For 12 years the number sat between 20% and 30%.
Here at CPC, we aren’t afraid of a hot take, so here’s ours: broad “what is” posts lose the most, because the summary answers them before anyone clicks. Posts with your real prices, your town, and your opinion are harder to summarize away.
So is blogging dead, or just different?
Different. It’s not about the visit anymore, it’s about being the source.
Customers now ask AI tools who to hire. In BrightLocal’s 2026 survey, 45% of US consumers had used AI tools for local business recommendations, up from 6% a year earlier. And when BrightLocal studied nearly 2 million citations in local AI answers, business websites made up 42%, more than Google Business Profiles (28.5%) or Yelp (9.5%). A blog is the part of your site that answers questions in full sentences, which is the part those tools can quote.
Freshness counts too. Ahrefs analyzed 17 million AI citations and found cited pages averaged 1,064 days since publication, against 1,432 days for regular Google results. That’s 25.7% fresher. In our book, most small-business blogs should publish less and update more. Our article on getting recommended by ChatGPT covers the rest of the checklist.
When is a blog worth it, and when isn’t it?
It comes down to 2 things: how your customers decide, and how long you can wait.
| Your situation | Blog worth it? | What to do first |
|---|---|---|
| Customers ask “how much” and “how long” before they call | Yes | Write the cost answer with your real numbers, in the first 2 sentences. |
| You need calls this month | Not yet | Ads or local SEO get there sooner. |
| Your Google profile is half empty | Not yet | Finish the profile and ask for reviews. It’s free and faster. |
| Donors keep asking where the money goes | Yes, short | One honest page beats a polished annual letter. |
| A salon, bakery, or restaurant with photogenic work | Maybe | Photos on your Google profile and Instagram do more per hour. |
| Nobody will own it for 12 months | No | Skip it. A blog whose last post is from 2023 looks abandoned. |
What if you already have a blog nobody reads?
Don’t start over. Your old posts are worth more than you think. Open Google Search Console and sort your posts by impressions. Anything that shows up in search is worth rescuing. Rewrite the first 2 sentences so they answer the question outright, add today’s prices, and change the date because you really did update it.
Then look at the rest. Posts that nobody sees and that don’t help a customer decide can be folded into a stronger page or retired. 15 thin posts from 2020 do less for you than 3 good ones. This part is boring... and it’s usually the best hour you’ll spend on content this quarter.
What does a blog that earns its keep look like now?
Smaller and sharper. We think 2 useful articles a month beat 12 thin ones. The rest of the checklist is short:
- One question per article, answered in the first 2 sentences, with the detail after.
- Your real prices, your real towns, and at least one opinion a customer could disagree with.
- A byline and a visible “last updated” date, and real updates when prices change.
- A person who knows your business editing every draft, including anything AI helped with.
Length should follow the question. For reference, Orbit Media found the average post now runs 1,312 words, down from a peak of 1,427 in 2023. Don’t pad to hit a number.
How long until a blog pays off?
Months. We’d rather tell you that up front. The first article you publish probably won’t ring the phone. The 15th might, because by then there’s a library that answers most of what your customers wonder. That’s part of why our content work carries a 3-month minimum.
Judge it by calls and by what customers say when they book, not by pageviews. Once a month, ask ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google the 5 questions your customers would type, and write down who gets named. That’s your one thing to do this week: run that test once and see where you stand. Our SEO and AI search work runs that test monthly.
Not sure content is your next move?
Our free Five-Step Check-Up is 10 plain questions, about 3 minutes. It scores your business out of 100 and shows which of five steps is holding the rest back. No email, no login.
Rather hand it off? Our content marketing work writes the articles and a monthly newsletter from about half an hour of your time a month. Our default is 2 articles and 1 newsletter a month. It runs inside our published retainers: at $1,200 a month we run one channel properly, and content can be that channel. 3 months minimum, then month to month. Every article stays yours if you leave. See the full rate card.
What else do owners ask about blogging?
How often should a small business blog?
Less often than you’ve been told. Our default is 2 articles a month, and we’d rather drop to one great article than pad the schedule. Consistency wins here. A business that publishes twice a month for a year is in better shape than one that posts daily for 6 weeks and goes quiet.
Can I use ChatGPT to write my blog posts?
Unedited, no. It reads like everyone else’s, because it was built from everyone else’s. Don’t get us wrong, we use AI too. Let it handle research and rough outlines. The parts that make a post worth reading, your prices and your opinions, can only come from you, and a person who knows your business should edit every draft.
Do I need a blog if I already have a Google Business Profile?
Honestly, maybe not yet. Finish the profile and collect reviews first, because that’s the faster win. A blog helps once customers want detail a profile can’t hold, like what a job costs, how long it takes, and what to ask before hiring.
Should I update old posts or write new ones?
Both, but lean toward updating. Ahrefs found pages cited by AI assistants were about 25.7% fresher than regular search results. Change prices when they change, add new service areas, and update the visible date only when the page really changed.
How long should a blog post be?
As long as the question needs. Orbit Media found the average post runs 1,312 words in 2026. A clear answer to “how much does a new roof cost in Carmel?” can be shorter, as long as it opens with the number and then shows the work.
What does Carson Poore Consulting charge for content marketing?
It runs inside our published monthly retainers: $1,200, $2,400, or $4,800 a month. At $1,200 we run one channel properly, and content can be that channel. 3 months minimum, then month to month. We take 8 clients at a time.