Home to 699,820 people, Akron, OH is the 85th-largest of the 387 US metropolitan areas. People, homes, work, and the shape of the local business landscape, drawn from public data.
Income in Akron, OH: a median of $72,371 per household against $80,734 nationally, so 10 percent below the national figure. The typical owner-occupied home is valued at $213,000, 36 percent below the national figure. Together they say a good deal about the ticket sizes a local business can expect.
The household mix in brief. Unemployment 5.1%, about the same as the US share. Median age 41, 2.1 years above the national median. Ownership: 68.1% of households own their home, 3 points above the US share. 35.1% of adults over 25 hold a bachelor's degree or higher, about the same as the US share.
Compared with Ohio: income is about the same as the Ohio figure, home values are about the same as the Ohio figure, and business density is 8 percent denser than the Ohio figure.
Start with the count: 16,360 establishments with payroll. Set against the population that is 23.4 per 1,000 residents, 6 percent below the national figure, against 25 nationally. The table breaks out the categories that spend the most on local advertising; restaurants is the biggest of them at 1,268. Home-services trades account for 771 of them (4.7% of all establishments, about the same as the US share).
| Trade (NAICS) | Count | Per 100,000 | Index vs US |
|---|---|---|---|
| Self-storage facilities | 19 | 2.7 | 0.52× |
| Electrical contractors | 108 | 15.4 | 0.66× |
| Plumbing, heating and air-conditioning contractors | 159 | 22.7 | 0.73× |
| Lessors of real estate (all) | 197 | 28.2 | 0.74× |
| Physicians' offices | 341 | 48.7 | 0.80× |
| Legal services | 282 | 40.3 | 0.80× |
| Dentists | 237 | 33.9 | 0.89× |
| Grocery and convenience retailers | 178 | 25.4 | 0.91× |
| Other specialty trade contractors (paving, asphalt, fencing) | 85 | 12.1 | 1.02× |
| Restaurants and other eating places | 1,268 | 181.2 | 1.05× |
| General freight trucking | 241 | 34.4 | 1.05× |
| Personal care services (all) | 340 | 48.6 | 1.08× |
| Child day care services | 175 | 25 | 1.09× |
| General automotive repair | 190 | 27.1 | 1.14× |
| Beauty salons | 198 | 28.3 | 1.20× |
| Automobile dealers | 111 | 15.9 | 1.21× |
| Concrete foundation and structure contractors | 56 | 8 | 1.23× |
| Roofing contractors | 64 | 9.1 | 1.28× |
| Landscaping services | 299 | 42.7 | 1.30× |
| Highway, street and bridge construction | 24 | 3.4 | 1.33× |
Ratio above 1.00: the trade holds a bigger share of the local business base than it does nationally; below 1.00, a smaller one.
Relative to the national mix, road and paving contractors, landscaping services, roofing contractors and concrete contractors take up an outsized slice of the Akron, OH business base. Road and paving contractors stand out with 24 locations, 1.3 times what the national mix would predict. Thinner than the national mix are self-storage operators, electrical contractors, plumbing and HVAC contractors and real estate lessors. Self-storage operators are the clearest gap with 19 establishments, about half of the share they hold across the US. Close to the national mix: specialty trade contractors, general automotive repair and dentists.
Adjusted for population, restaurants are the thickest on the ground (181.2 per 100,000), with physicians' offices and personal care services next. Three categories dominate by count: restaurants at 1,268, physicians' offices at 341 and personal care services at 340. Grouped, automotive businesses hold 1.2 times the share they hold nationally, while legal services sit at about 80% of.
Advertisers in road and paving contractors, landscaping services and roofing contractors should assume high competition on Google Ads and put equal weight on the free real estate: an accurate Business Profile, steady new reviews, and pages that match the local searches word for word. Where the base is thin (self-storage operators, electrical contractors and plumbing and HVAC contractors), reach beats refinement: cover the service-plus-place searches across the whole area, because there are few competitors to split them with. With household income 10 percent below the national figure, price transparency and financing matter more in the ad copy, and a phone call is usually the conversion to optimize for. Residents here are older than the US median (2.1 years above the national median); they search, read reviews and call, which puts the weight on search, the listing and the phone.
The services that fit this market, given the numbers above. Each links to the full description.
Profile upkeep, posts, Q&A and photos on the listing customers see first.
Search optimization aimed at the local queries that produce calls.
Design and build of a site that turns local traffic into leads.
Content for the site, planned around what people search.
Display and retargeting across the sites people in Akron, OH read.
Campaigns on Google fenced to the service area and judged on booked work.
Akron, OH has 699,820 residents (US Census Bureau ACS 2024 5-year estimate), ranking 85th of 387 metropolitan areas.
The median household income in Akron, OH is $72,371 (ACS 2024 5-year), below the US median of $80,734.
The Census Bureau counts 16,360 employer establishments in Akron, OH (County Business Patterns 2023), or 23.4 businesses per 1,000 residents.
The median home value in Akron, OH is $213,000, and 68.1% of homes are owner-occupied (ACS 2024 5-year).
Measured against the US business mix (County Business Patterns 2023), road and paving contractors, landscaping services and roofing contractors have more establishments per resident than the US average; self-storage operators, electrical contractors and plumbing and HVAC contractors have fewer in Akron, OH.
A quick review of where you show up today, then a plan for where you should.
Data: US Census Bureau ACS 2024 5-year estimates and County Business Patterns 2023. Updated 2026-09-29.