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Three rows in the table below stand out at once. Law offices come in at 3.72 times the density of a typical county, physician offices at 2.79 times and insurance agencies at 2.08 times. Accounting firms and real estate agents follow, at 1.90 and 1.79 times. Those are the trades a state capital, a university medical center and a corporate base generate in numbers, because clients, patients and agencies cluster around the institutions that rely on them.
The practical effect is that anyone in those trades is competing in crowded search results, and marketing for law firms in Pulaski County, Arkansas, has to start from that fact. A law office in Little Rock is not alone with Little Rock searchers. It is among 437 employer locations of its kind in the county, and nine in ten of those have fewer than ten staff. The searcher sees a long list of small firms and chooses on reviews, clarity and speed.
At the other end, the trades with room are the ones that serve homes: residential remodelers at 0.71 times a typical county, general auto repair at 0.76 times and landscaping at 0.89 times. A thin trade does not mean an easy one, but it does mean fewer rivals fighting over the same phrase. A trade count across Pulaski County AR is useful exactly because it tells you which kind of fight you are in before you spend anything.
The full count
| Trade | Employer locations, 2022 | Per 10,000 residents | Against the typical county | Under 10 staff, of every 100 | Locations with 20+ staff | 2022 count against 2017 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Residential remodelers | 90 | 2.2 | 0.7 times | 86 of 100 | 0 | -4.3 percent |
| Roofing contractors | 41 | 1 | 1.2 times | 68 of 100 | 7 | +57.7 percent |
| Electrical contractors | 87 | 2.2 | 0.9 times | 67 of 100 | 16 | +3.6 percent |
| Plumbing, heating and air-conditioning contractors | 130 | 3.2 | 1 times | 69 of 100 | 22 | +0.8 percent |
| Insurance agencies and brokerages | 301 | 7.5 | 2.1 times | 90 of 100 | 10 | -3.8 percent |
| Real estate agents and brokers | 199 | 5 | 1.8 times | 96 of 100 | 0 | +21.3 percent |
| Law offices | 437 | 10.9 | 3.7 times | 90 of 100 | 21 | +1.2 percent |
| Accounting and CPA firms | 104 | 2.6 | 1.9 times | 84 of 100 | 7 | -18.1 percent |
| Janitorial services | 75 | 1.9 | 1.1 times | 61 of 100 | 23 | -13.8 percent |
| Landscaping services | 119 | 3 | 0.9 times | 82 of 100 | 7 | -6.3 percent |
| Physicians offices | 460 | 11.5 | 2.8 times | 72 of 100 | 70 | -4.2 percent |
| Dentists | 173 | 4.3 | 1.5 times | 71 of 100 | 4 | -12.2 percent |
| Full-service restaurants | 357 | 8.9 | 1.3 times | 38 of 100 | 146 | -1.4 percent |
| General automotive repair | 79 | 2 | 0.8 times | 85 of 100 | 3 | 0 percent |
| Beauty salons | 106 | 2.6 | 1.4 times | 87 of 100 | 0 | -9.4 percent |
Census County Business Patterns, 2022 against 2017. Typical county means the median county with 20,000 or more residents.
Three groups of trades
These run from about twice the typical density to nearly four times it, and mostly sell to people who will compare. The work is earning trust fast: reviews, clear page copy, a Google profile that matches, and a page for each service. Paid search often matters here because the organic results are busy.
Close to the typical density, or somewhat above it. Roofing is 1.21 times, plumbing and heating 1.01 times and electrical 0.94 times. A strong page per service and per city, and a steady flow of reviews, tends to separate the businesses people remember.
Below the typical density, so the search results are less contested. The first businesses to give each city its own page and a clear call to action have an easier start than a lawyer or insurance agent can expect.
What changed since 2017
The change column tells a more specific story than the density does. Roofing contractors rose from 26 employer locations to 41, a 57.7 percent increase and by far the fastest growth in the table. Real estate agents and brokers rose from 164 to 199, up 21.3 percent. Electrical contractors added a little, plumbing and heating stayed almost level, and law offices rose by about one percent.
Several trades went the other way. Accounting firms fell from 127 to 104, down 18.1 percent. Janitorial services fell 13.8 percent, dentists 12.2 percent and beauty salons 9.4 percent. Those are counts of employer locations, so they do not say why: a merger, a shift to remote work or a business moving across the county line could each produce a drop.
For marketing, the lesson is to read direction against density. A growing, already crowded trade such as real estate is getting harder to stand out in. A shrinking trade such as accounting may have fewer rivals each year but also a shrinking base of customers per firm, so the businesses that remain can gain by being easy to find.
Size changes the pitch
Restaurants have 146 locations with twenty or more staff, the most of any trade here, and only 38 of every 100 restaurant locations have fewer than ten people. Physician offices come next with 70 large locations. These are institutions of a sort, with managers, booking systems and sometimes marketing staff of their own. A campaign for them tends to be about volume and brand.
Real estate is the opposite, with 96 of every 100 locations under ten staff and none with twenty or more. Law offices and insurance agencies are close to that pattern, at 90 of every 100. For those trades, the owner is often the marketer, the receptionist and the closer, so any plan has to be simple enough to run without a department.
Plumbing and heating (22 large locations), janitorial services (23) and electrical contractors (16) sit in between. They have a few larger firms alongside a long line of small ones, which means the biggest names often take the broad searches while smaller firms can win on city pages and specific services.
New homes
| Year | New homes authorized by permit |
|---|---|
| 2021 | 1,928 |
| 2022 | 1,475 |
| 2023 | 1,404 |
| 2024 | 1,009 |
| 2025 | 1,702 |
Census Building Permits Survey, new privately owned housing units authorized by permit.
Reading the permit line
The permit line falls from 1,928 in 2021 to 1,475 in 2022 and 1,404 in 2023, dips to 1,009 in 2024 and rises to 1,702 in 2025. We do not forecast from five points, but a few reasonable readings are available. Remodelers, roofers, electricians and landscapers depend more on existing homes than on new ones, so their work is steadier. Builders’ suppliers and trades tied to new construction can feel the swing more.
Population grew only 0.2 percent from 2020 to 2023, so new households are not arriving in a surge. Work for the existing homeowner is therefore a steadier base for a home trade than a wave of new buyers.
Putting it to work
Look at density, size and the change since 2017. Together they say whether you are in a crowd, a thin field or a shrinking one, and whether the businesses around you are small or large.
In a crowded trade, paid search can reach customers faster while search engine optimization builds. In a thin trade, organic pages and Maps listings are often enough to start.
Use the coverage map to decide which cities get their own page, then write each around the way people in that city search for your trade.
After ninety days, look at which pages and channels produced inquiries. The lead generation page describes how we count them by origin.
Questions about the numbers
It adds nothing separately. We use these counts inside every plan to decide where to start. RankGuarantee™ landing pages are $495 a month, Organic Growth runs $1,495 for Silver, $2,495 for Gold and $3,495 for Platinum, and paid ads start at $895 with ad spend separate. No setup fee and no contract.
The county holds the state capital, a large medical district and the head offices of several organizations. Those institutions draw clients and patients from across the state, which supports more professional firms than local residents alone would. The data shows the result; it does not explain each office.
Both. Employer locations rose from 26 to 41, which means more rivals for the same search, but it is still a small trade at 1.21 times the typical density. A roofer who builds city pages and collects reviews early can still stand out. One who waits will find the field busier each year.
The count of employer locations fell from 127 to 104, but it cannot show why. Consolidation, remote work and moves out of the county could all explain it. For an accountant, fewer rivals can be an advantage if prospects can find you easily, especially during tax season, so we would start with clear service pages.
It tells you the competition is mostly individuals and small teams rather than large firms, so reviews, local knowledge and a clear page for each city matter more than size. Agents with a distinct neighborhood focus have more room to rank than those who write generally about Central Arkansas.
Yes. Borrow the closest row to see how crowded and how large similar businesses are, and ask for a quick read of your own trade. We can look at the counts for other categories and tell you how they compare, or say plainly that we do not have enough to judge.
Five years is too short to call a trend. It shows that construction approvals swing, and that a trade tied to new homes should expect uneven months. A trade that serves existing homes feels it less. Plan marketing so that slower periods are covered by repeat customers and referrals.
The trade counts are from the Census County Business Patterns for 2022, compared with 2017, and the permits run through 2025. They are survey snapshots, not live data, so use them for direction. For an up-to-date view of competitors, we check the search results directly when we build your plan.
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Get in Touch
Tell us your trade and the cities you serve, and we will read where it sits in the counts and what that suggests for a first move. Call 610-825-4363 or email hello@getphound.com.