What Are The Major Pitfalls Of Local And Small Business SEO In Houston?

Before you go any further, I think you should know that my primary aim is to help local web businesses rank on page one of Google and at the same time help build your brand. I would like to advise you to read to the end of this article. Why? Because I pointed out the obstacles that local and small businesses are facing competing with bigger Houston Companies. I think I can help with that.

What Is Local SEO

Let me first define SEO before going further to the local variations. SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. Fortunately these days, people are more and more aware of the power of the internet as well as the terminologies thereof. I think it will be a good idea to read this Wikipedia definition of search engine optimization. When you are searching the internet for something. It can either be that you want to buy a product and searching for the best or just looking to get information about a product or service. What do you do? You go to Google.com and you type whatever you want into the search space and hit enter. The listed websites that you are confronted with are the results of search engine optimization. Google as well as other search engines want to serve you with the best results whenever you do a search.

What I just explained above is what general SEO (search engine optimization) in basic terms is. Now we have to see where that differs from Local SEO. Local SEO concerns local searches. When you do a search in Google with an addition of say “near me”, you just did a local search. Also, when you add the name of your city, location or a particular geographical location during your search, everything translates to local search engine optimization. If you included Houston Texas in your search, the search engines will never return results that are based in New York for instance.

Examples Of Local Searches

Let’s say you are having problems with the water system in your home. Who do you call? A plumber right? If you already have a resident plumber, that would be easy but what if you don’t have one? You go to Google and type “plumber near me”. Google will display all the plumbers that are within or as near to your geographical location as possible.

Here is a search I did on Google searching for “”plumber near me”.

Check this out. I live in Alief Houston but Google decided to display plumber websites that are located in Stafford. Why?

The answer is the following:

1. My location in Alief is at the very boundary with Stafford TX.
2. Google calculated my positions and the positions of plumbing companies and decided to show me the nearest ones.

Now pay attention to the following questions and answers or short Q&A.
Q: Did Google display all the plumbers in Alief and Stafford?
A: Nope! Because Google displays results in the search that have been optimized for local searches. If your website has not yet been optimized for local Google search or you don’t know, then give me a call.

This is why you need an expert like me to figure out how your business can thrive in your community.

How Easy Is It To Find Local Business SEO Expert In Houston TX?

Finding a good SEO expert for local or small businesses in Houston TX may not be as easy as you think. One would think that since Houston is the fourth largest city in the US, has a population of about 2,320,268 as per Wikipedia statistics of 2019, one can and would be able to easily find somebody, someone or an agency for that matter who will be capable of handling search engine optimization campaigns for small businesses. Unfortunately, this is not the case as I will explain in this blog post.

If you stay to the very end, you may have gathered enough information that might help you find the SEO expert that you need to help your business thrive. And by the way, let me refer you to a page where local search engine optimization is better explained. is explained better than me.

There are many pit falls that a lot of people overlook and as such fail to see the real underlying factor to their problems. Such is the situation in the search engine world. Little things under your very nose BUT YOU FAIL TO SEE THEM. Such was my impression about SEO for small and local businesses in Houston Texas when I relocated to Houston from Europe a couple of years ago.

If you need My SEO Services fill the form and I will get back to you ASAP. Just fill out the form here.

Pit Fall Number 1 For Small Business SEO: Houston Itself

The problem number one for small and local businesses in Houston Texas and the surrounding cities to find a good expert to do their local SEO is Houston itself. Houston with a population of over 2,300,000 inhabitants is a very enticing and lucrative venue for any business to thrive and the city, combined with the environs such as Sugar Land, Missouri City, Rosenberg, and Richmond etc make a very large market for everyone but…
There is something which I personally think is not right. I may be sorry for saying it later on but I will say it anyway.

The Oil And Gas As Well As The Multinational Companies In Houston Texas The United States Of America!

Intimidation From Big Name Companies

When I started working for a Houston digital marketing company (I would not give a name here because of the non disclosure agreement which I signed and I don’t want to be sued. Thanks for understanding that though), I was asked by one of the owners and my direct boss to conduct a keyword research to target companies in Houston Texas with a yearly budget of minimum $25M. This, combined with conversations at interviews I went to made me realize that the “little guys” were overlooked and almost all eyes were on the big money companies and corporations in Houston except for a few guys which, just like me offer SEO services to local and small businesses in Houston Texas and the suburbs.

There Are Very Good Search Engine Optimization Experts In Houston

Don’t get me wrong. There are extremely good SEO experts in Houston but almost all companies, agencies or persons that offer search engine optimization services have their eyes on the big oil and gas and the multinational companies in Houston. They do not care about the little guys. It’s the money. Maybe I am of a different mindset but I would rather love to help a struggling person to survive for free than charge a multinational company thousands of dollars for the same service. That is just who I am.

Pit Fall Number 2: Fear Of The Big Houston Search Engine Optimization Guys

Believe it or not, this was the first pit fall I noticed when I came to Houston from Serbia back in 2014. This psychology of Big-name players. A cousin of mine had and still has (thanks to me) a landscaping maintenance business in Richmond Texas. He was struggling with getting clients. My first response to his complaint was “Do you have a website?” He did but he said something which got my attention. “My website is not getting any visitors. The big spending guys have it all”. I asked for access to his website and went to work. I corrected and modified a couple of features on his website.

Local Keywords Are Essential

The next step was to define and select the keywords that have the potential to drive organic Google search to his website. Ha ha ha I am laughing now because my cousin talked about Yahoo. I had to explain to him that while I still respect Yahoo, Bing and duckduckgo, Google was at that time and still the largest and biggest search engines to which people go to for their searches. My Cousin was afraid of the big names that appear on his competition searches on Yahoo, Even though his fears were justified, I succeeded in encouraging him to invest a little in local SEO for his business. My services to him were and still free though. My father and his father were brothers for crying out loud. His website now has about 38 keywords ranking on page one of Google. Not much would you say?

Let’s Do The Maths

When you know that his website gets an average daily visit of about 300 locally and more than 50 “stray visits” from elsewhere then you can do the math. What I know is that he is so busy and overbooked. According to him, spring and summer are his peak periods.

Talking about peak periods. That is another aspect I take into consideration when I take on any SEO whether local global or what not. The seasons matter. There are certain things that are in trend in certain seasons. Christmas, Halloween, 4th of July, summer winter etc can be search engine optimization targeted. For instance, you wouldn’t try to promote a product designed for Christmas in March or April would you? Although you may sell but the probability is a lot smaller than when you advertise the product starting in Late November up to the very day of Christmas. I look into such aspects when I take on to do your local search engine optimization for you.

To A Questions About How To Vet For An SEO Expert In Houston

Houston is a saturated city when it comes to search engine optimization. The prospect of an individual to succeed in that field is hard but not unachievable.

Who Will Do SEO For My Local Business?

I will give it to you straight. I will. I will analyze your website, check for and research profitable keywords. I will then let you know my criteria or if you will, my terms.

Need Info? Check the Contact Us Page.