A market of 5.86 million residents, ranked 21st among the 51 states (with the District of Columbia) in the country. This page lays out the income and housing picture and a trade-by-trade look at the competition.
Statewide numbers first; the 7 metro pages linked below carry the same breakdown for each market. The biggest of them, Denver-Aurora-Centennial, CO, holds 3 million residents.
The typical owner-occupied home is valued at $539,400, 62 percent above the national figure. Household income runs $95,470 here, which is 18 percent above the national figure.
Three quick reads on the people of Colorado. Age first: the median is 37.7, 1.2 years below the national median. 45.7% of adults finished a four-year degree or more (10 points above the US share). A labor force of 3,235,476 carries an unemployment rate of 4.6%, about the same as the US share. Owner-occupied housing 66.2%, 1 points above the US share, which is the figure home-service advertisers should watch.
Compared with Denver-Aurora-Centennial, CO: income is 10 percent lower than the Denver metro figure, home values are 11 percent lower than the Denver metro figure, and business density is about the same as the Denver metro figure.
182,486 businesses with employees operate in Colorado. Set against the population that is 31.1 per 1,000 residents, 24 percent above the national figure, against 25 nationally. The home-services slice is 9,871 establishments, 5.4% of the base, about the same as the US share.
| Business type | Establishments | Per 100k residents | Share ratio |
|---|---|---|---|
| Roofing contractors | 920 | 15.7 | 1.65× |
| Electrical contractors | 2,231 | 38.1 | 1.23× |
| Concrete foundation and structure contractors | 624 | 10.6 | 1.22× |
| Self-storage facilities | 489 | 8.3 | 1.21× |
| Other specialty trade contractors (paving, asphalt, fencing) | 1,030 | 17.6 | 1.10× |
| Beauty salons | 2,029 | 34.6 | 1.10× |
| Personal care services (all) | 3,854 | 65.7 | 1.10× |
| Plumbing, heating and air-conditioning contractors | 2,620 | 44.7 | 1.08× |
| Highway, street and bridge construction | 218 | 3.7 | 1.08× |
| Dentists | 2,957 | 50.4 | 1.00× |
| Landscaping services | 2,446 | 41.7 | 0.95× |
| Legal services | 3,720 | 63.5 | 0.94× |
| General automotive repair | 1,593 | 27.2 | 0.86× |
| Restaurants and other eating places | 11,631 | 198.4 | 0.86× |
| Lessors of real estate (all) | 2,453 | 41.8 | 0.82× |
| Physicians' offices | 3,359 | 57.3 | 0.71× |
| Child day care services | 1,239 | 21.1 | 0.69× |
| Automobile dealers | 688 | 11.7 | 0.67× |
| General freight trucking | 1,391 | 23.7 | 0.54× |
| Grocery and convenience retailers | 1,082 | 18.5 | 0.50× |
The last column divides the local share of establishments by the national share (1.00 = the same mix as the US).
Colorado is dense with roofing contractors, electrical contractors, concrete contractors and self-storage operators compared with the US pattern. Roofing contractors are the widest gap, 920 of them, 1.6 times the national share. By contrast grocery stores, general freight trucking, automobile dealers and child day care services are comparatively scarce in Colorado. Grocery stores are the thinnest at 1,082, about half of the national share. Neither crowded nor thin: plumbing and HVAC contractors, specialty trade contractors and landscaping services.
Three categories dominate by count: restaurants at 11,631, personal care services at 3,854 and legal services at 3,720. On a per-capita basis restaurants come first at 198.4 per 100,000, ahead of personal care services and legal services. Taken as groups, the strongest relative to the US mix are the home-services trades (about the same as the national share) and the weakest are trucking, storage, real estate and road construction (about 74% of).
Advertisers in roofing contractors, electrical contractors and concrete 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. For grocery stores, general freight trucking and automobile dealers the picture is the opposite. Fewer competing profiles means a complete listing, a fast site and a modest search budget can take a disproportionate share of the searches that exist. Younger residents (median age 1.2 years below the national median) split their attention between search, social feeds and AI assistants, so the presence has to be in all three. Household income 18 percent above the national figure supports higher ticket sizes, which is why premium positioning and financing offers tend to work in this market.
A short list of services chosen for this market; the full range is on the services page.
An answering service that books and qualifies rather than sending callers to voicemail.
Google Guaranteed placements above the ads for the home-service and legal categories that qualify.
Search advertising that pays for intent, not impressions.
Management of the Google listing that decides the map pack.
Pages that answer the specific services-plus-place searches people in Colorado use, built to be found.
A site built to convert a local search into a phone call or a form.
We will look at your Business Profile, your site and your current ads, then say plainly what to fix first.
Data: US Census Bureau ACS 2024 5-year estimates and County Business Patterns 2023.