Illinois has 12.69 million residents and sits 6th among the 51 US states (with the District of Columbia) by population. Here is what the public data says about the households, the business base and what that means for advertising locally.
The state contains 8 metro areas, from Chicago-Naperville-Elgin, IL-IN (9.37 million people) down to the smallest listed at the end of this page.
The median household in Illinois earns $83,390 a year, 3 percent above the national figure (the US median is $80,734). The typical owner-occupied home is valued at $263,300, 21 percent below the national figure. Together they say a good deal about the ticket sizes a local business can expect.
Age and education shape how people search and who answers the phone. Education: 37.8% with a bachelor's or higher, 2 points above the US share. Median age 39, about the same as the national median. Of 6,652,134 people in the labor force, 5.8% are unemployed, about the same as the US share. Owners occupy 67.1% of homes, 2 points above the US share.
How does that compare with its largest metro? Income in Illinois is 8 percent lower than the Chicago metro figure, the median home value is 18 percent lower than the Chicago metro figure, and business density is 4 percent thinner than the Chicago metro figure; the full numbers are on the Chicago-Naperville-Elgin, IL-IN page.
County Business Patterns counts 322,415 employer establishments in Illinois. That works out to 25.4 businesses per 1,000 residents, in line with the national figure (the national rate is 25 per 1,000). The home-services trades that most often advertise locally number 15,242 establishments, a 4.7% share, about the same as the US share.
| Trade | Establishments | Per 100,000 residents | vs US mix |
|---|---|---|---|
| General freight trucking | 12,299 | 96.9 | 2.72× |
| General automotive repair | 3,891 | 30.7 | 1.19× |
| Landscaping services | 5,034 | 39.7 | 1.11× |
| Dentists | 5,781 | 45.5 | 1.11× |
| Legal services | 7,405 | 58.3 | 1.06× |
| Roofing contractors | 1,026 | 8.1 | 1.04× |
| Beauty salons | 3,346 | 26.4 | 1.03× |
| Highway, street and bridge construction | 359 | 2.8 | 1.01× |
| Child day care services | 3,138 | 24.7 | 0.99× |
| Other specialty trade contractors (paving, asphalt, fencing) | 1,620 | 12.8 | 0.98× |
| Restaurants and other eating places | 23,334 | 183.8 | 0.98× |
| Plumbing, heating and air-conditioning contractors | 4,070 | 32.1 | 0.95× |
| Personal care services (all) | 5,825 | 45.9 | 0.94× |
| Grocery and convenience retailers | 3,492 | 27.5 | 0.91× |
| Concrete foundation and structure contractors | 803 | 6.3 | 0.89× |
| Physicians' offices | 7,503 | 59.1 | 0.89× |
| Automobile dealers | 1,590 | 12.5 | 0.88× |
| Electrical contractors | 2,689 | 21.2 | 0.84× |
| Self-storage facilities | 572 | 4.5 | 0.80× |
| Lessors of real estate (all) | 3,777 | 29.8 | 0.72× |
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.
Illinois is dense with general freight trucking and general automotive repair compared with the US pattern. The sharpest example is general freight trucking: 12,299 establishments, 2.7 times the share seen nationally. By contrast real estate lessors, self-storage operators and electrical contractors are comparatively scarce in Illinois. Real estate lessors show the largest gap, 3,777 locations, about 72% of what the national mix would give. In line with the country: plumbing and HVAC contractors, roofing contractors and concrete contractors.
Restaurants (23,334), general freight trucking (12,299) and physicians' offices (7,503) are the biggest categories by establishment count. Scaled to residents, restaurants run 183.8 per 100,000, more than general freight trucking or physicians' offices. The group picture: trucking, storage, real estate and road construction above the national pattern at 1.6 times, medical and dental practices below it at about the same as.
In the crowded trades (general freight trucking and general automotive repair) the map pack decides more calls than the ads do. Business Profile completeness, review volume and review recency become the separating factors, and paid search has to be tight rather than broad. The thin categories, real estate lessors, self-storage operators and electrical contractors, are the cheapest place to build a name: fewer bidders, cheaper clicks, and searchers with fewer options. An older-than-average market (median age about the same as the national median) responds to search results, review counts and a phone number that is answered; it is less swayed by feed advertising.
Services for a business advertising in Illinois, picked from the full list.
Streaming TV placements aimed at households in Illinois.
Review generation and monitoring across Google and the other places people check.
Google search ads for the exact services and towns, tracked to the phone call.
Keeping the Business Profile complete, current and answered so it earns the map placement.
Site structure, pages and citations that earn organic placement in Illinois.
Design and build of a site that turns local traffic into leads.
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.