SEO and paid search for Houston businesses across a metro of 7.9 million

A metro that added three quarters of a million people in five years

The city of Houston had 2,397,315 residents on 1 July 2025 (Census Bureau, city and town estimates). The metro area, which the Census Bureau calls Houston, Pasadena and The Woodlands, had 7,904,627. In April 2020 the same area had 7,150,227 (Census Bureau, metro area estimates).

That is a gain of about 754,000 people, by our subtraction of the two Census figures. Each new household needs a dentist, an air conditioning service and a pediatrician, and has no habits yet. Few markets hand a newer business that kind of opening.

On the supply side, the metro had 162,055 employer establishments in 2023, of which 89,099 had fewer than five employees (County Business Patterns). Our post on US business counts by market explains how to read an establishment count.

Inside the Loop, outside the Beltway, and the towns people type

Houstonians place themselves by the ring roads. “Inside the Loop” means within Interstate 610, and it covers the Heights, Montrose, Midtown, River Oaks and the Medical Center. People there search by neighborhood.

Further out, the town name takes over. Katy and Cypress sit to the west, Sugar Land and Missouri City to the southwest, Pearland and League City to the south. The Woodlands, Spring and Conroe are north, and Pasadena and Baytown are east. These are large places in their own right, in Harris County and the counties around it.

Distance is the catch. A drive from Conroe to League City can take well over an hour, so a service business has to decide which side of town it is on. We map that with you first, then build local SEO around the towns you can reach the same day.

Competitor counts by trade in the Houston metro

The figures are from the metropolitan area file of County Business Patterns: 2023 and count only locations with paid staff.

Two rows explain Houston. Oil and gas extraction has 363 locations here, against 44 in the Los Angeles metro and 7 in the New York metro. Hospitals employ 135,440 people across 120 locations. Energy and medicine pay well, and they pull in engineers, suppliers and clinics that all need to be found.

Look also at the plumbing and air conditioning row. Houston has 1,909 such firms with 25,783 staff, which works out to about 13 employees each on our division. Chicago’s figure on the same sum is about 10. You are up against larger, better-funded operators here, and our HVAC page is written with that in mind.

What drives the cost of a lead in Houston

Jobs first. The Houston area had 267,300 construction jobs in July 2026, up 5.2 percent on a year earlier (BLS, Houston Area Economic Summary). It had another 73,400 in mining and logging, the BLS group that holds oil and gas. Building at that pace means new roofs, new systems and new warranties, and a lot of firms advertising to win them.

Wages second. The same summary puts the average weekly wage at $1,853 in the first quarter of 2026, against $1,654 for the country. Customers can pay, so competitors bid.

What holds the cost down is space. The metro is spread across many towns, and newer suburbs have fewer established firms with years of reviews. In our judgment a business that claims a growing suburb early pays less per call than one that arrives after the map results have settled. You can test your own figures in the Google Ads ROI calculator.

Texas rules that matter for your ads and your data

Trade licenses. Texas has no single contractor license for every trade, so the rule depends on what you do. Contractors who install, repair or maintain air conditioning, refrigeration or heating systems must have a license from the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation (TDLR). Plumbing is licensed by a separate body, the Texas State Board of Plumbing Examiners. Put the license you hold where a customer can see it.

Privacy. The Texas Data Privacy and Security Act took effect on 1 July 2024. Small businesses, as the federal Small Business Administration defines them, are generally exempt, though a small business must get consent before selling sensitive data (Texas Attorney General). Precise location data counts as sensitive, which matters if you run location-based ads. Ask your lawyer where you stand. We only flag what your tools collect.

How we work with a Houston business

We work with Houston businesses remotely. The team is at our US office in Los Angeles, and Mavix has no Houston office, no staff in Texas and no named Houston clients. We publish no Houston results because we have none to show.

A first project runs like this. Week one is access and a baseline: what you rank for, which towns your calls come from, and what your ad account has been paying for. Then a written plan, with the suburbs and services in order of priority. Calls are in Central time, two hours ahead of us, so mornings suit both sides.

Search work is set out on the SEO page and paid work on the Google Ads page. You get a quote after the free review, and the Google Ads pricing page explains how paid work is charged.

Before you hire any agency in Houston, ask these

• Ask which side of town they would start with and why. “All of Houston” is a budget problem, since the metro is very wide.
• Ask how they would treat new-build suburbs differently from older neighborhoods.
• Ask whether they have checked your trade license and how it will appear in ads.
• Ask what happens to your budget in the months when your phones are quiet.
• Ask to keep ownership of every account and every page they build for you.
• Ask where the people doing the work are based, and get a straight answer.

Phoenix has a similar heat-driven calendar and a different set of rules. The Phoenix page covers it, and all cities are on the locations page.