We asked DJ Wetzel what content actually works for local businesses today, given how much of it goes nowhere. He narrowed it to three types — and was clear about what to stop wasting time on. Here’s the conversation, distilled.
“You should be putting out content” is advice every local business owner has heard a hundred times, and DJ is the first to admit it’s almost useless as stated. Content isn’t one thing. Most of what gets published — the “10 Tips” lists, the keyword-stuffed filler — does nothing at all, which is why so many owners tried blogging, saw no results, and reasonably concluded it was a waste. It wasn’t the idea that failed, DJ says. It was the type. Here are the three kinds he says actually work now, and how to tell them from the kind that doesn’t.
Type 1: Genuine expertise-based content
This is content that could only come from someone who does the work. Not “5 signs you need a plumber,” but an honest walk through a problem your customers actually face — what causes it, how you think about it, the trade-offs, what usually goes wrong.
An accountant writing plainly about the mistakes local contractors make with quarterly taxes. A home inspector explaining what he looks for in the crawl spaces of houses built in a certain era around here. This is the good stuff, because it demonstrates knowledge no outsider could fake — and both customers and AI systems feel the difference immediately.
The catch, DJ is quick to point out, is that it has to come from the expert. Either you write it, or someone captures it from you. It cannot be invented by a writer who’s never done the job — that expertise gap is exactly what quietly kills so much local content marketing.
As DJ put it:
“I can spot content written by someone who’s never done the work in about two sentences. So can your customers, and so can the AI now. There’s no faking the crawl space.”
— DJ Wetzel, M.Ed., White Oak Digital
Type 2: Honest case studies
Not vague “success stories” full of adjectives, but specific accounts of real work: here was the problem, here’s what we actually did, here’s how it turned out. The messier and more specific, the better.
“A homeowner near Mauldin called us after two companies told them they needed a full roof replacement. We got up there, found the leak was isolated to a flashing failure around the chimney, fixed it for a fraction of the quote, and it’s held through two winters since.” That’s a case study. It’s concrete, honest, and it quietly tells a future customer exactly what kind of business you are.
Specific problem, specific solution, specific outcome. DJ’s rule: skip the adjectives; keep the facts.
As DJ put it:
“Nobody trusts a ‘success story.’ They trust the messy specifics — the address near Mauldin, the chimney flashing, the two winters it’s held. Detail is credibility.”
— DJ Wetzel, M.Ed., White Oak Digital
Type 3: Geographically-specific content
This is the one most businesses skip, and it’s pure advantage. Content that’s rooted in here — that mentions Greenville, the Upstate, specific neighborhoods, local landmarks, the particular conditions of this region.
The red clay that shifts foundations. What our summer storms do to certain roofing materials. The quirks of older homes in specific parts of town. Insurance considerations specific to this area. When you write about the actual place you serve, DJ argues, you become impossible to confuse with a national company or a business three states away — and you become the obvious answer when someone asks an AI for help “near Greenville.”
As DJ put it:
“I serve the Upstate, not the whole country, and that’s the advantage. Write about the red clay and the summer storms here, and no national brand can touch you when someone asks the AI who to call near Greenville.”
— DJ Wetzel, M.Ed., White Oak Digital
Why all three win
Each of these types works in both the old search world and the new one, for the same reason: they’re specific, credible, and clearly human. Traditional search rewards them because real people find them useful. And the AI systems — ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Google AI Overviews — reward them because specificity and demonstrated expertise are exactly the signals that make a business safe to recommend by name. Generic content gives a machine nothing to hold onto. These three give it plenty.
What generic looks like, for contrast
So you can spot the difference: generic content is the “10 Tips for Choosing a Roofer” listicle that could run anywhere. It’s the keyword-stuffed article written to please a search engine that no longer exists. It’s the unsigned, generic AI-generated blog post that actively hurts your visibility, with no voice and no point of view. It reads fine and means nothing, and the machines are getting good at telling. Producing more of it is worse than producing nothing — it makes you look like every other faceless option.
How to actually produce this
Here’s the honest part, and DJ doesn’t dress it up. You can produce all three yourself — you have the expertise, the real projects, and the local knowledge already; it’s all in your head. What you probably don’t have is the time or the habit to get it out consistently, week after week, on top of running the business. That’s where most owners stall, DJ says, and there’s no shame in it.
That’s exactly the gap the Local Content Engine is built to close — capturing your expertise, your real jobs, and your local knowledge through a simple monthly conversation, and turning it into content that sounds like you. But whether you do it yourself or hand it off, the framework holds: expertise, honest case studies, and local specificity. Build around those three, drop the generic, and you’ll be producing the small share of content that actually moves anything.
If you want to see how your current content stacks up against these three types, our free AI Visibility Snapshot will show you where you stand — no call required.
— Based on an interview with DJ Wetzel, M.Ed., founder of White Oak Digital.