A few weeks ago, I sat down with the Best of Seguin 2025 magazine and started Googling every business in it. All 250+ of them.
These are the businesses that Seguin voted as the best. The ones with loyal customers, great reputations, and years — sometimes decades — of hard work behind them.
What I found was alarming.
The Numbers Don't Lie
Out of 250+ award-winning businesses, a significant number have serious problems with their online presence. I'm not talking about minor design issues or outdated color schemes. I'm talking about fundamental problems that are actively costing them customers every single day.
Here's what I found:
Businesses that are literally invisible to Google
Several award-winning businesses have a noindex tag on their website. If you're not technical, here's what that means: it's a line of code that tells Google, "Don't show this website in search results." It's the digital equivalent of winning "Best Restaurant in Seguin" and then boarding up your front door.
These businesses are paying for websites that are actively hiding them from customers. Someone — a web developer, a DIY website builder, or an accidental settings change — flipped a switch that makes them invisible to the largest search engine on earth. And they probably have no idea.
Dead websites during the busiest season
I found businesses whose websites simply don't load. Not slow — dead. One of them is a tax preparation service. Their website was down in January. Think about that. The single busiest time of year for a tax business, and their website is returning an error page.
Every person who Googled them, clicked the link, and got a dead page went somewhere else. That's not a hypothetical. That's revenue walking out the door.
Decades of reputation, zero web presence
I found a business that's been operating for over 40 years with no website at all. Four decades of building a reputation, serving the community, earning trust — and when a new resident moves to Seguin and Googles what they do, this business doesn't exist.
Seguin added 7,000+ new residents last year. Those people don't know your reputation. They don't know you've been here since the '80s. They know what Google tells them. And if Google can't find you, you don't exist to them.
Broken pages on the things that matter most
A restaurant that won "Best of Seguin" has a broken menu page. The single most important page on any restaurant website — the thing every customer wants to see before they decide where to eat — and it doesn't work.
I found a contractor with 50+ employees whose services page is essentially empty. They've built a real business with a real team, but their website looks like they started it and never finished. When someone's looking for a contractor and comparing options online, this company looks less established than a one-person operation with a better website.
Why This Keeps Happening
None of these businesses are doing this on purpose. They're busy running their businesses — which is exactly what they should be doing. The problem is that most of them fall into one of three categories:
They built a website years ago and forgot about it. The site was fine in 2018. But it hasn't been updated, the hosting expired, the SSL certificate lapsed, or the platform they built it on stopped being supported. Nobody noticed because nobody was checking.
They hired someone cheap and got what they paid for. A nephew, a friend's kid, someone on Fiverr. The site went up, it looked okay, but it was never built with search engines or mobile users in mind. And when something broke, there was nobody to call.
They don't think they need a website. Their business is word-of-mouth. They've always gotten by without one. And that was true — when Seguin was smaller and everyone knew everyone. But with 7,000 new residents a year, word-of-mouth doesn't reach the people who just moved here from San Antonio, Austin, or Houston.
What Good Looks Like
I'm not saying every business needs a $20,000 website. But every business needs the basics to be right:
- Your website loads. That's the bare minimum. If it doesn't load, fix it today.
- Google can find you. No noindex tags. No broken links. Your business name, what you do, and where you're located should be clearly stated.
- Your key pages work. Your menu page, your services page, your contact page — whatever the most important page is for your business, it needs to work perfectly on a phone.
- Your Google Business Profile is claimed and accurate. Hours, phone number, photos, reviews. This is free, and it's often the first thing customers see.
- Your site works on mobile. Over 60% of local searches happen on phones. If your site is unusable on a phone, you're losing the majority of your potential customers.
This Isn't a Sales Pitch
I'm not writing this to scare anyone into hiring me. I'm writing this because I live here. I shop at these businesses. I eat at these restaurants. I want them to succeed.
But I also know what happens when a city grows as fast as Seguin is growing. The businesses that show up online win the new customers. The ones that don't get left behind — not because they're worse, but because nobody can find them.
If you're a business owner in Seguin and you're not sure where your website stands, I'll tell you. No charge. I'll spend 15 minutes looking at your site, your Google listing, and your competitors, and I'll show you exactly what's working and what's not. Book a time that works for you, or just fill out the form and I'll be in touch.
Because the best businesses in Seguin deserve to be found.
