This week we shipped a system that builds a full website for any trade in any Coastal Bend town. Eleven websites are live right now, each with real photos, local pricing, and hundreds of answers to questions people ask before they call. We also made payments simpler for pros, added answers from local experts, and fixed how job listings look. It's been a week of finishing things.
roofers, hearing-aid shops, and electricians are easier to find in your town.
By The Shop · Dispatch from Alice
We built one system that creates a full website for any trade in any Coastal Bend town. Roofing. Hearing aids. Auto body. Electrical work. Each website gets its own address, real photos, and local pricing.
A hearing-aid shop in Calallen can claim their website and start getting calls. An electrician in Corpus Christi sees their jobs listed, their rates quoted, and their FAQs answering the questions people actually ask. No more generic national websites that don't know your town exists.
When someone searches for roof repair costs or hearing-aid prices, they want answers before they pick up the phone. We filled in the gaps. Guides covering the whole trade with answers tied to specific services.
We published pages for every town. Corpus Christi, Calallen, Alice, Beeville, and all the smaller towns. Each page shows which pros work there, what they charge, and what people ask about most.
We started collecting answers from the pros who work here every day. An HVAC tech explains what size unit your house needs. An electrician walks through the cost of upgrading a panel. These are the real conversations happening in driveways and living rooms.
We built a full outdoor-lighting website for the Coastal Bend. Not just the DIY version. Not just the roofline install. We covered what actually matters here: salt spray eating through fixtures, permanent LED trim that survives year-round, holiday lighting that doesn't fry in August heat, and the ranch installations where you're running wire a quarter-mile.
We fixed how job titles show up on the job board. No more titles getting chopped off. No more labels cluttering the headline. A plumbing job looks like a plumbing job. A roofing position looks clean and clear.
You can enter a few numbers and see what a water-heater replacement, septic service, or EV charger installation might cost in your town. No guessing. No calling three shops to figure out if you're in the ballpark.
We rebuilt how listings rank. Website visits don't matter. Real phone calls do. If a plumber in Corpus Christi gets ten calls a week and another gets two, the busier shop ranks higher. That's honest.
We could have built a roofing website, then an HVAC website, then a plumbing website, each from the ground up. Eleven separate projects. Eleven times the work. Eleven times the bugs.
We like this one because it comes straight from the FTC and covers all three threats in plain language, from spotting phishing emails to backing up files and what to do right after an attack hits. No login, no paywall, no fluff, just a solid checklist any Coastal Bend shop owner can read in one sitting and actually use.
We found a full free course, 59 step-by-step lessons with videos, written by certified QuickBooks ProAdvisors, that walks you through setup, invoicing, expenses, bank reconciliation, and reporting from scratch. No sign-up, no paywall, just sit down with your QuickBooks account open and follow along at your own pace.
We like this one because it tells you to run a quick walk test first so you know whether your problem is weak coverage or a bad hop between nodes, and that keeps you from buying gear you do not need. It is written plain, covers small offices just like homes, and points you toward wired backhaul fixes before it ever suggests spending more money.
We bookmarked this one because real repair folks share exactly where to start when you want to fix your own phone or laptop instead of paying someone else to do it. Out here in the Coastal Bend where the nearest big-box repair shop can be a long drive away, knowing how to swap a battery or crack open a screen yourself is just plain useful.
This is the free, no-sales-pitch playbook straight from the federal agency whose whole job is keeping businesses safe from ransomware, phishing, and hackers. We like it because it skips the outdated advice and tells you exactly what to turn on first, starting with multi-factor authentication on every account.
We like this one because it skips the jargon and walks you straight through what the 3-2-1 rule actually means for a small shop, including real tool picks and a cost example you can steal right now. It also clears up the big trap most folks fall into: your Dropbox or Google Drive sync is not a backup, and this guide explains exactly why that matters when ransomware shows up.
