Houston Spanish-Language Digital Presence Study 2026

Key findings

• 31 of 241 audited websites (12.9%) have a dedicated Spanish version or are built primarily in Spanish. 186 (77.2%) are in English only.
• Law firms lead; restaurants and contractors trail. 36.2% of law firm websites offer a real Spanish experience, compared with 2.3% in construction and home services and 0% in restaurants and hospitality.
• Spanish versions are often incomplete where it counts. Of the 26 dedicated Spanish versions, only 11 (42.3%) have a contact form in Spanish, and 10 (38.5%) are not linked to their English version with hreflang.
• "Se habla español" is not a Spanish website. 7 businesses say they speak Spanish but publish no Spanish content; 17 more rely only on a translation widget with no Spanish URL search engines can index.
• WhatsApp is almost absent: only 4 homepages (1.7%) link to it.
• Website health is a hidden problem. 18 websites listed on BBB were unreachable and 4 domains had expired, were parked for sale or redirected to unrelated sites, including one gambling site.

Results by sector

Share of audited websites with a real Spanish-language experience (dedicated Spanish version or Spanish-primary website). Translation widgets alone are not counted.

• Legal: 17 of 47 audited websites (36.2%); mean readiness index 30.3.
• Professional services (accounting, insurance, real estate, tax): 7 of 43 (16.3%); index 13.3.
• Healthcare: 5 of 40 (12.5%); index 9.8.
• Automotive: 1 of 32 (3.1%); index 3.1.
• Construction and home services: 1 of 44 (2.3%); index 1.7.
• Restaurants and hospitality: 0 of 35 (0%); index 0.

Local and independent businesses only (209 websites, excluding national brands and franchises) show the same result: 12.9%.

How good are the Spanish versions that exist?

The 26 dedicated Spanish versions are usually well built for reading, but weaker at the moment of conversion and in the signals search engines use to match languages.

• Spanish page indexable: 26 of 26 (100%).
• Navigation mostly in Spanish: 23 (88.5%).
• Phone or WhatsApp visible on the Spanish page: 22 (84.6%).
• Independent Spanish URL (subdirectory or subdomain): 21 (80.8%).
• Spanish page declares lang="es": 21 (80.8%).
• English and Spanish versions linked with hreflang: 16 (61.5%).
• Schema markup declares the Spanish language: 14 (53.8%).
• Contact form in Spanish: 11 (42.3%). Nine Spanish pages show a form that is mostly in English and six have no form.

The Spanish Digital Readiness Index

The average website in the sample scores 10.7 out of 100; the median is 0. Only 19 websites (7.9%) score 70 or more, 11 of them law firms. The index combines four measured components: Spanish coverage (25 points), technical implementation (20), conversion readiness (20) and search visibility signals (20). A fifth component, profile consistency (15), was not measured in this edition, so scores are calculated from 85 points and scaled to 100.

What this means for Houston businesses

For most businesses in the sample, the opportunity is not a full rebuild. It is a set of specific steps: a Spanish version of the pages that generate leads, a contact form and buttons in Spanish, a visible WhatsApp option, correct hreflang and language declarations so search engines can show the Spanish pages, and a website that is still online at the address customers find on directories.

Methodology

Sample. 300 businesses, 50 per sector, from public Better Business Bureau listings for Houston, TX, retrieved October 2, 2026, in BBB "Best Match" order across category searches. Included: listing city Houston, active listing, category matching the sector, own website on the BBB profile. Excluded: BBB-hosted mini-sites, social media pages and duplicate domains.

Audit. Each website was requested with a standard desktop browser identity, redirects were followed and the HTML was analyzed. When a Spanish URL was found (hreflang, language switcher, /es/ path, es. subdomain or lang=es parameter), that page was analyzed too. 241 websites were audited; 37 blocked automated requests or returned errors, 18 were unreachable and 4 had lost their domain. These 59 are excluded from percentages.

Limitations. JavaScript was not executed, so content added by scripts may be under-counted. Language share is estimated from common words. Google rankings for Spanish searches and Google Business Profiles were not measured. BBB listings over-represent accredited businesses, and the results describe this sample, not every Houston business. No business was contacted and individual businesses are not named in this report.

Scope. This is a descriptive study of an initial sample of 300 BBB Houston listings, of which 241 accessible websites were audited; 59 were excluded from the denominator because they were blocked, down or had an invalid domain. It is not a statistically representative estimate for all Houston businesses. See the full methodology appendix and the aggregated data by sector (CSV).

Use this research

Journalists and researchers may cite these findings with attribution to Projects & Marketing and a link to this page. For the aggregated tables or interviews in English or Spanish, contact us. Related: Hispanic market research, SEO in Houston and bilingual SEO for the U.S. and Latin America.