When creating content for Houston SEO, it is helpful to anticipate what your audience from Houston will ask in the search engine for your product and or service serving Houston.
Overall Traffic Sources from Houston:
Organic Search: ~ 70%
Direct: ~ 18%
Other: ~ 8%
Social Media: ~ 4% *Typical Website Data from Houston
For most established businesses in Houston, the majority of web traffic comes from search results and direct visits from Houston. Social media is not a significant source from Houston.
To verify, research your competitors in Houston; if they lack a substantial social media presence throughout Houston and yet are ranking higher than you, social media is unlikely a factor in your rankings for Houston.
What's the CPC Trajectory in Houston?
Cost-Per-Click rates are skyrocketing throughout Houston:
Cost Per Click:
Paid Ads: (Increasing Costs)
Organic Search Results: (No Cost) *Typical Adword Data around Houston
The area of "Houston" requires a relatively high competitive bid for online ads. Since the Cost-Per-Click (CPC) for Paid Ads keep increasing in Houston, it remains more cost-effective to prioritize Organic SEO over Paid Ads for Houston.
To verify, use Google's Keyword Planner to research Houston as a keyword along with your product(s) or service(s).
Thus, Houston is a good example of when focusing on organic SEO is more affordable than paid online ads.
Why do Mobile visitors from Houston matter?
Website Visitors Worldwide Desktop vs. Mobile vs. Tablet
User Device:
Desktop
Mobile
Tablet
*Source: StatCounter GlobalStats
The majority of visitors from Houston use a mobile device to access websites.
Therefore, consider optimizing your website for mobile devices to accommodate your Houston visitors.
Make it mobile-friendly.
Mobile-friendly websites consist of web pages that are responsive to the Houston visitors' phone screen size.
Also, the source-code is normally reduced to only use what is necessary on smaller screens.
By reducing the website's source-code and file sizes, it improves the load times in Houston.
Thus, Mobile-friendly websites typically improve the Page Speed for your Houston visitors.
Why Page Speed Matters for Houston SEO?
When do Houston visitors quickly leave (Bounce)?
Page Load Time:
Probability of Bounce:
1s to 3s
+32%
1s to 5s
+90%
1s to 6s
+106%
1s to 10s
+123%
*Source: thinkwithGoogle
A faster Page Speed correlates to a lower bounce rate from Houston. A lower bounce rate is better for your Houston SEO over time.
To make your website Mobile-friendly, use Google's SEO tools starting with PageSpeed Insights.
Since Google is the predominantly used search engine in Houston, consider using Google's SEO tools such as PageSpeed Insights.
What is the Trajectory for Houston SEO?
Is your website Mobile-Friendly for 2025 and beyond?
Desktop vs Mobile vs Tablet
Web Traffic Market Share Worldwide:
2011
2014
2017
2020
2023
100%
75%
50%
25%
0%
6000
6000
6000
6000
6000
6000
6000
6000
6000
6000
6000
6000
6000
6000
6000
User Device:
Desktop
Mobile
Tablet
*Source: StatCounter GlobalStats
For each passing year, more users from Houston are using mobile devices for web browsing.
Is your website already Mobile-Friendly for your online visitors from Houston?
To check, use Google's PageSpeed Insights and see if your scores are 90 or above.
PageSpeed Scoring for your visitors from Houston
Interpreting the Scoring for Websites serving Houston
Above is a typical example of scoring for Google PageSpeed Insights. The scores are assigned in the following four categories:
1. Performance
2. Accessibility
3. Best Practices
4. SEO
For any scores less than 100, the tool will inform you of ways to improve your score.
For each category, Google recommends achieving a Mobile score of 90 - 100 to ensure a user-friendly / mobile-friendly experience for your Houston visitors.
To clarify, high or low scores do not necessarily reflect search engine rankings in Houston. Instead, the scores correlate to index ability and bounce rates, which could affect rankings.
Website Add-ons for Houston SEO
Self-Help tools to Promote Trust and Traffic
To improve bounce rates, certain seals or badges promote trust and can help your Houston visitors stay on your site:
If applicable, you should check if your company is eligible for these free seals or badges. If so, they are easy to add on your website(s).
Where's the Audience beyond Houston?
Identify your Geographic Keywords surrounding Houston
The keyword "Houston" is one of the top geographically targeted SEO keywords.
Due to this competition, Houston SEO can be challenging to achieve, depending on the targeted industry in Houston.
Therefore, consider expanding your reach beyond Houston as well.
For local SEO outside of Houston, identify and extract keywords from the region(s) that your business serves beyond Houston.
If your business serves multiple regions surrounding Houston, review the cities there that are most served neighboring Houston.
Nevertheless, you should still limit and prioritize geographic keywords around Houston to reduce the Bounce Rate.
SEO Vendors from Houston
How to choose the right SEO vendors from Houston?
The following should be factors in evaluating potential SEO vendors from Houston:
Ability to rank high on Google for own keywords (ex. Houston SEO)