GLIDE Wins Best Local Campaign (SEO) at the 2026 US Search Awards

GLIDE won Best Local Campaign (SEO) at the 2026 US Search Awards for our work with Austex Fence & Deck! Our campaign, “Intent Over Volume: 825% Lead Growth in the AI Search Era,” stood out in a category of eight finalists. The judges called it “a standout campaign that prioritized intent and business impact over traffic volume.”

What we were up against

Austex’s organic traffic was less than optimal, which usually triggers a reactive pivot toward more content, more links, more volume. We didn’t pivot. The read was that AI summaries are absorbing the casual researchers, so the people who still click through are closer to buying than they have ever been, and the experience waiting for them has to be worth that intent.

The person on the other end is a homeowner shopping for a fence after a move, an HOA notice, or a property line problem. What the homeowner wants is a price range before they commit to a call and will not finish a form that feels broken.

What we changed

Two pillars. The first was the path to the quote. We audited the whole site for internal linking opportunities and added contextual links to the fence cost estimator, then updated blog templates with inline “Get a Quote” CTA blocks to catch mid-article intent. We ran a GA4 funnel analysis on the estimator itself, step by step, mobile against desktop, found the drop-off points, rebuilt the map drawing step, overhauled the mobile experience to fix scroll and navigation problems, and made desktop changes informed by a competitive analysis. The form went through three rounds.

The second pillar was making sure Austex showed up accurately everywhere a local buyer looks, including AI platforms. A citation audit catalogued more than 55 active listings and turned up real contamination: duplicates, wrong phone numbers, a stray profile from an unrelated business, and listings placing Austex in cities where they have never operated. We corrected 31 listings, removed 22, and cleaned up 24 more. We also asked ChatGPT who builds fences in Austin, found the directories it pulls from, and worked those specific sources so anything citing them would carry the right information.

For a homeowner the difference is simple. Someone who has been quietly dreading what a fence costs can now get a real price range in a couple of minutes instead of handing over their details and waiting on a call to find out whether the project is even in reach.

The results

Against a March 2024 to February 2025 baseline, instant quote form submissions from organic search went from 64 to 592 over March 2025 through February 2026. The target was 128, so that is more than 4.5x the goal, and it happened while organic traffic declined. Sessions on the fence cost estimator went from 298 to 1,939. Clicks on instant quote CTAs inside blog posts rose from 225 to 289 from organic search.

What to take from it

If your own reports show traffic falling, look at what the remaining visitors are doing before you go chase volume. The ones still arriving are usually further along than the ones you lost. Find the single moment where those people have to stop and wait on you, whether that is a quote, a price, a stock check or a call back, and fix that moment first.

Holding that position took more than data. It took a client who trusted the diagnosis and stayed the course through months when the traffic graph trended down. Thank you to the Austex team, and to the team here who spent a year working on the unglamorous parts.

About the US Search Awards

The US Search Awards recognize the best search marketing work in North America across SEO, PPC, content and AI search, spanning 51 categories in 2026. They are judged by working industry practitioners who sign a code of conduct and are not allowed to enter the awards themselves. Entries go through a two step review, and reaching the shortlist means an entry cleared that judging round.