Industry data & search study
Home services search demand compared with business counts, ten US trades (2026)
How many businesses share each trade, how small most of them are, and how many people search for the trade each month. Census Bureau counts for 2022 and 2023, Google Ads search volumes read on November 10, 2026, and our own reading of what the two sets of numbers say together.
Written by Hamza Rivera. Last reviewed
Hamza works in SEO and GEO/AEO. He writes the Passieon guides and checklists and does the SEO work for the businesses Passieon serves.
Short answer: The US Census Bureau counted about 683,000 employer establishments across ten home and local service trades in 2023, and in every trade at least 54% had fewer than five employees. Google Ads data read on Nov 10, 2026 puts monthly US searches for each trade's main near me phrase from about 27,000 to about 872,000. Divided by establishments, pest control and moving have the most searches per business, and the figure is a rough guide, not a forecast.
1. How many businesses, and how fast the count is moving
The US Census Bureau's County Business Patterns counts establishments that had paid employees in the week of March 12. We took the national files for 2022 and 2023 (census.gov/programs-surveys/cbp.html, read Nov 10, 2026), kept the all-legal-forms rows, and pulled ten six-digit NAICS codes that match trades our clients and prospects ask about.
| Trade (NAICS code) | Establishments, 2023 | Change from 2022 | Employees, 2023 | Under 5 employees |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Electrical contractors (238210) | 83,342 | +1.8% | 1,015,983 | 59% |
| Plumbing, heating and air-conditioning contractors (238220) | 111,207 | +1.5% | 1,214,761 | 58% |
| Roofing contractors (238160) | 25,519 | +4.0% | 215,242 | 65% |
| Residential remodelers (236118) | 135,337 | +1.5% | 480,272 | 81% |
| New single-family home builders (236115) | 60,635 | +1.8% | 236,076 | 78% |
| Landscaping services (561730) | 117,969 | +0.7% | 802,899 | 71% |
| Painting and wall covering contractors (238320) | 38,280 | +0.8% | 208,201 | 75% |
| Exterminating and pest control services (561710) | 16,535 | +2.8% | 139,150 | 57% |
| General automotive repair (811111) | 84,859 | +0.9% | 403,389 | 66% |
| Used household and office goods moving (484210) | 9,436 | -3.7% | 102,745 | 54% |
Source: US Census Bureau, County Business Patterns, national files for 2022 and 2023 (read Nov 10, 2026). Change and share columns are our arithmetic on those files. Establishments with no paid employees, such as many one-person firms, are not counted.
2. Monthly searches for each trade
For each trade we took one phrase a local customer would type, the trade name plus "near me", and pulled its United States monthly search volume from Google Ads Keyword Planner through DataForSEO (read Nov 10, 2026). We then divided that figure by the number of establishments in the matching Census code.
| Trade | Phrase measured | Monthly US searches | Searches per establishment |
|---|---|---|---|
| Electrical contractors | electrician near me | 368,000 | 4.4 |
| Plumbing, heating and air-conditioning contractors | plumber near me + hvac repair near me | 872,500 | 7.8 |
| Roofing contractors | roofer near me | 165,000 | 6.5 |
| Residential remodelers | remodeling contractor near me | 27,100 | 0.2 |
| New single-family home builders | home builder near me | 40,500 | 0.7 |
| Landscaping services | landscaping near me | 90,500 | 0.8 |
| Painting and wall covering contractors | painter near me | 74,000 | 1.9 |
| Exterminating and pest control services | pest control near me | 165,000 | 10.0 |
| General automotive repair | auto repair near me | 450,000 | 5.3 |
| Used household and office goods moving | movers near me | 301,000 | 31.9 |
Source: Google Ads Keyword Planner, United States, average monthly searches, pulled through DataForSEO on Nov 10, 2026. The plumbing and HVAC row adds two phrases because the Census code covers both trades. The last column is our division.
3. What we make of this
Our reading, not a Census or Google finding
- Most of these businesses are small. In every trade at least 54% of establishments have fewer than five employees, and in remodeling it is 81%. A firm at that size usually cannot staff a content team, so a few well-built pages and a complete Google Business Profile can stand next to much larger rivals.
- Pest control, plumbing and HVAC, roofing and moving have the most searches per business. With this one phrase, pest control comes to about 10 searches per establishment per month and moving to about 32, against 4.4 for electricians. Where the ratio is high, a firm that shows up for the phrase has more people to reach per competitor. We would not read it as easy, because the same phrases also draw national lead-generation sites.
- Remodelers and builders look quiet only because of the phrase we measured. Customers in those trades search for the project. If you work in them, the pages that matter are the ones named after the work you do, which is why our SEO for remodelers page starts from project searches and not from the trade name.
- The count is growing slowly. Nine of the ten trades gained establishments between 2022 and 2023, by between 0.7% and 4.0%. Roofing grew the most. Moving lost 3.7%. We have one year of change here, so we would not call it a trend.
If you run one of these trades and want the same read on your own city, the pages below cover how we work with each: SEO for electricians, SEO for plumbers, SEO for HVAC contractors, SEO for roofers and SEO for remodelers.
4. Method and limits
- Establishment, employment and size-class counts come from the Census Bureau's national County Business Patterns files for 2022 and 2023, all legal forms, read Nov 10, 2026. We did not adjust them.
- A NAICS code is an industry label, not a list of the businesses a customer would consider. Plumbing, heating and air-conditioning share one code. Moving is the household and office goods code and does not include every kind of mover. Janitorial and general cleaning are left out because that code is mostly commercial cleaning while the searches are mostly residential.
- Search volumes are one phrase per trade, from Google Ads Keyword Planner via DataForSEO on Nov 10, 2026. They are rounded averages, and Keyword Planner groups close variants.
- Searches per establishment mixes two sources that were not designed to be compared. We show it so the trades can be set side by side, and we do not offer it as a forecast of leads.
- Employer counts leave out owner-operators with no payroll. In trades with many sole operators, the true number of competitors is higher than the table shows.
Questions on home services search demand
How many home service businesses are there in the United States?
According to the US Census Bureau County Business Patterns national file for 2023 (census.gov/programs-surveys/cbp.html, read Nov 10, 2026), the ten trade codes in this study held about 683,000 establishments with paid employees. The largest were residential remodelers (135,337), landscaping services (117,969) and plumbing, heating and air-conditioning contractors (111,207). The count covers establishments with at least one paid employee, so owner-operators with no payroll are not in it.
Which trades grew the most between 2022 and 2023?
In the Census Bureau County Business Patterns national files for 2022 and 2023 (read Nov 10, 2026), roofing contractors grew the most in this study, from 24,532 to 25,519 establishments (+4.0%). Pest control grew 2.8%. Household moving was the only trade here to shrink, from 9,803 to 9,436 establishments (-3.7%). One year is a short window, so treat these as a snapshot.
How many searches does a typical home service business have available?
Google Ads Keyword Planner data for the United States (pulled through DataForSEO, read Nov 10, 2026) shows monthly searches for the main "near me" phrase of each trade. Divided by the number of employer establishments, that gives from about 0.2 searches per business per month for "remodeling contractor near me" to about 32 for "movers near me". The ratio is a rough guide to how concentrated demand is, not a forecast of calls or jobs for any one business.
Why is the ratio so low for remodelers and builders?
People shopping for a remodel or a new build tend to search for the project ("kitchen remodel cost", "bathroom remodeler", "custom home builder") rather than for the trade name with "near me". A single phrase understates that demand, and the study counts only one phrase per trade. We kept it that way so every trade is measured the same way, and we say so beside the numbers.
Are the search volumes exact?
No. Google Ads Keyword Planner reports average monthly searches over the last twelve months, rounded, and the figure covers the exact phrase and close variants as Google groups them. We pulled the figures on Nov 10, 2026. Treat them as an order-of-magnitude guide.
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