Flagship Study | Q3 2026
Florida Local
Search Index
We measure how AI assistants (ChatGPT, Gemini, Grok, and Claude) actually recommend local businesses across Florida, recorded word for word, not estimated. Backed by the deepest local search benchmark on the Space Coast: Google Business Profile, reviews, ratings, and schema across 12 industries.
Read how we collect and analyze this data |
Full ranked list + 87 more cities in the complete dataset.
Does AI Recommend You?
See if ChatGPT, Gemini, Grok, and Claude name your business. Free, emailed in minutes.
Each question asked 5 times per engine. Answers recorded word for word.
Client Reviews
Index-Backed Marketing, Reviewed by Owners
“Nathan and his team brought together my website within days.”
“An amazing company and to see what they did in the amount of time completely blew me away.”
“Nathan and his team brought together my website within days.”
“An amazing company and to see what they did in the amount of time completely blew me away.”
“Nathan and his team brought together my website within days.”
“An amazing company and to see what they did in the amount of time completely blew me away.”
“Nate helped me figure out why my site was slow and gave me some easy SEO fixes that actually worked.”
“Nate helped me identify what was holding my website back and created a clear, step-by-step plan to fix it.”
“Nate helped me figure out why my site was slow and gave me some easy SEO fixes that actually worked.”
“Nate helped me identify what was holding my website back and created a clear, step-by-step plan to fix it.”
“Nate helped me figure out why my site was slow and gave me some easy SEO fixes that actually worked.”
“Nate helped me identify what was holding my website back and created a clear, step-by-step plan to fix it.”
Fresh Off the Instrument
Latest Reports
The State of Plumbing Search in Florida (2026)
How AI picks Florida plumbers, measured in 16 cities: three engines agreed on a top plumber in zero cities; the review leader appeared 21% of the time.
ReadThe State of Roofing Search in Florida (2026)
How AI assistants pick Florida roofers across 16 cities: who ChatGPT, Gemini, Grok, and Claude recommend, how rarely they agree, and why review leaders lose.
ReadHow AI Assistants Recommend Florida Roofers (Q2 2026)
We asked ChatGPT, Gemini, Grok, and Claude for the best roofers in Titusville, Melbourne, and Orlando, 40 times each. Who they named, how often they agreed.
ReadThe Short Version
Key Takeaways
Highest Opportunity
In the Q3 2026 measurement, cities like Opa Locka, Key West, and Titusville show the strongest market opportunity scores, led by general contractors, roofers, and electricians, where competition is thinnest relative to demand.
Schema Is Now Table Stakes
Among top-ranked Florida businesses measured across 91 cities in Q3 2026, 73.8% already use schema markup. Across the broader market it is far rarer (18.6% in our Q1 2026 Brevard deep audit). It is the baseline to compete for AI Overviews and ChatGPT citations.
GBP Completion Wins
Top-ranking businesses average 85%+ Google Business Profile completion. The bottom quartile sits below 50%.
Recruiting Pages Perform
Dedicated careers and “jobs in [city]” pages (as seen in the Praetorian case study) can rank on page 1 within two months when paired with clean local SEO.
Three Tiers of Data
Statewide data (91 cities) is measured from the Google Places API and site crawls. Tier 1 Brevard deep audits (97 businesses) add manual verification. Tier 3 records what AI assistants actually recommend locally.
Biggest Gap = Biggest Opportunity
The cities with the highest opportunity scores almost always have the lowest average schema adoption and GBP completion among competitors.
Statewide · Q3 2026
Top Florida Cities by Opportunity
Opportunity score 0-100 · Schema measured on each market's top-ranked sites
Full ranked data for all 91 cities, plus methodology, is in the downloadable report below. Statewide market data measured from the Google Places API, last refreshed July 2026. Schema column shows the measured adoption rate among each market's top-ranked business websites in its top-opportunity industry.
By Industry
Biggest Schema Gaps
| Industry | Schema (Top-Ranked Sites) | Avg Opportunity Score | Insight |
|---|---|---|---|
| General Contractors | 66% | 77 | Large generalist category with fragmented competition. Even the top-ranked sites leave the biggest schema gap of the big trades. |
| Landscaping | 68% | 71 | Extremely seasonal and hyper-local. A third of the top-ranked sites still skip schema, and the rest of the market lags far behind them. |
| Plumbing | 78% | 51 | High emergency and “near me” volume. The gap between top performers and everyone else is massive. |
| Roofing | 79% | 61 | Storm-driven demand spikes. The winners have adopted schema; most of the rest still treat their site as a brochure. |
| HVAC | 85% | 33 | The most locked-up trade we measure: heavy competition and near-universal schema among the sites that rank. |
Schema adoption remains one of the largest, most fixable gaps across Florida service businesses. Per-trade adoption figures are measured Q3 2026 values: for each city and industry we fetch the top 3 ranked business websites and detect structured data, so these percentages describe the winners, not the whole market. The broad-market baseline is 18.6% adoption across the 97-business Brevard deep audit (Q1 2026). To see where one business stands against these benchmarks, run the free local SEO audit; it checks schema, profile completion, and speed in about a minute.
Upside Index
Where the Gaps Are Largest
We calculate an upside score for each trade from the Q3 2026 measured data: average market opportunity multiplied by the invisibility gap (100 minus measured schema adoption among top-ranked sites). Higher means a bigger reward for the contractors who fix the basics first.
| Trade | Opportunity | Schema (Top-Ranked Sites) | Upside Index | Why It Matters |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| General Contractors | 77 | 66% | 26 | Broad, fragmented category with the highest measured opportunity. The ones who publish real project proof and service-area schema win the long jobs. |
| Landscaping | 71 | 68% | 23 | Hyper-local and seasonal. A third of even the top-ranked sites skip schema, and most competitors are invisible in AI answers and map results. |
| Electricians | 67 | 71% | 19 | Steady demand, low competition in many mid-size markets. Technical buyers who search “near me” reward fast, clear sites. |
| Roofing | 61 | 79% | 13 | Storm spikes create demand. The ranking roofers have mostly adopted schema; the gap between them and everyone else keeps widening. |
| Plumbers | 51 | 78% | 11 | Emergency and “near me” volume is brutal. The gap between top performers and the pack is visible in every Florida city we looked at. |
| HVAC | 33 | 85% | 5 | The most contested trade we measure. Companies with clean service-area pages, review velocity, and schema own the shoulder months. |
Example (Q3 2026 measured): in Titusville, electricians show 83 opportunity with schema on only 1 of the 3 top-ranked sites. In Key West, roofers sit at 82 opportunity with 33% top-ranked schema. These are not edge cases. They are the pattern.
The Playbook
What to Do With This Data
The biggest gaps are also the fastest wins. This is the exact short list we give our own clients in the highest-upside trades.
Landscaping & Lawn Care
Top-two upside- Add full service-area schema for every city you actually serve (Titusville, Palm Bay, Melbourne).
- Post one before/after job photo plus a 2-sentence story to GBP every Monday.
- Build one “lawn care in [your city] after a hurricane” guide this month.
Roofing
Storm demand, low schema- Claim and fully complete your GBP in every county you pull permits from.
- Get 5 new reviews in the next 30 days (use the direct review link in every invoice email).
- Publish one case study with before/after plus permit timeline for a recent storm repair.
Electrical & Plumbing
Emergency, near-me volume- Make sure every service page has clear “available today in [city]” language plus schema.
- Set up call tracking plus Google Analytics events for “booked from Google” this week.
- Respond to every review, good and bad, within 24 hours for 60 days straight.
General Contractors & HVAC
Broad, fragmented- Pick your top 3 cities and build one dedicated landing page per city with real project photos and pricing ranges.
- Run a 30-day review-velocity sprint. Ask every customer the same day the job is done.
- Audit your site for schema on every service and location combination (most GCs have zero).
The contractors who treat these fundamentals as a weekly system, not a one-time project, are the ones the Florida Local Search Index shows pulling away in 2026. See what that system looks like trade by trade in our plumber SEO and marketing guide, or check where your own business stands in two minutes with the free local SEO audit tool.
Cite This Research
How to Cite
L3ad Solutions. (2026). Florida Local Search Index, Q3 2026. https://l3adsolutions.com/research/florida-local-search-indexL3ad Solutions. (2026). Florida Local Search Index (Q3 2026). https://l3adsolutions.com/research/florida-local-search-indexThe Study
Executive Summary
The Florida Local Search Index is a public, measured dataset on how Florida local businesses perform in local search. It covers 91 Florida cities and 67 counties across 12 industries with data measured from the Google Places API (listing counts, review distributions, ratings, structured-data adoption), plus an AI visibility instrument that records what ChatGPT, Gemini, Grok, and Claude actually recommend for local searches. No comparable state-level benchmark exists from national SEO platforms, which publish national survey statistics rather than measured Florida market data.
The statewide layer is anchored by a quarterly deep audit of Brevard County: we manually audit Google Business Profiles, websites, review profiles, and technical SEO factors for 97 businesses across 12 industries, collecting 47 data points per listing. Those measurements are what our market pages are built on, from SEO in Brevard County andMelbourne SEO and marketing on the Space Coast toOrlando SEO in Central Florida.
Our Q1 2026 deep audit of 97 Brevard County businesses reveals significant optimization gaps that represent real revenue left on the table. The average audited business uses only 69% of available GBP features.Schema markup adoption sits at 18.6% across those 97 businesses. About 72% respond to at least some Google reviews. These are not minor oversights. Each gap directly reduces visibility in Google Maps and local search.
The data also shows a clear performance divide. The top 10% of businesses (those ranking consistently in the map pack) score 85% or higher on GBP completion, maintain 150+ reviews, respond to 80%+ of reviews, and score 60+ on mobile speed. The bottom 25% average below 50% on GBP completion.
This report breaks down findings by GBP completion, schema adoption, mobile speed, review health, industry benchmarks, and city-level performance. Each section includes the specific numbers so you can see exactly where your business stands relative to the local market.
Brevard Deep Audit · Q1 2026
Key Findings
Google Business Profile Completion
Most businesses set up their Google Business Profile and never return. Only 14% post weekly updates, and fewer than a quarter use all available category slots. The businesses ranking in the top 3 of the map pack average 88% profile completion, well above the 69% market average.
GBP Completion by Feature
Schema Markup Adoption
Schema markup helps search engines and AI systems understand your business. Despite being free to implement, 81.4% of the 97 Space Coast businesses in our Q1 2026 deep audit have no LocalBusiness schema at all. In that same sample, businesses with schema appeared in AI Overviews at roughly three times the rate of those without.
Schema Adoption by Platform
Mobile Page Speed & Core Web Vitals
Most local searches happen on a phone, so speed matters. The average Space Coast business website in our Q1 2026 audit scores 47 on Google's mobile speed test (out of 100). Only 31% pass Core Web Vitals. 18% don't even have a mobile-responsive website. In our dataset, the businesses with sites loading under 3 seconds consistently out-earn slower competitors on calls.
Speed Distribution
Review Health
Reviews are the most visible trust signal in local search. The median business has 55 reviews with a 4.5 average. About 72% respond to reviews at least some of the time. Businesses in the map pack top 3 average 185 reviews and respond to 92% of them. Businesses with fewer than 10 reviews appeared in map pack results only 4% of the time.
Review Velocity Benchmarks
12 Industries Measured
Industry Benchmarks
Performance varies significantly by industry. Restaurants lead in review volume, while HVAC and dentists show the strongest schema markup adoption. Here are the numbers for each industry in our sample.
| Industry | Sample | GBP % | Avg Reviews | Avg Rating | Schema % | Mobile Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Restaurants | 9 | 80% | 821 | 4.3 | 22% | 39 |
| HVAC | 8 | 78% | 197 | 4.6 | 38% | 47 |
| Auto Repair | 8 | 72% | 162 | 4.5 | 25% | 45 |
| Roofers | 8 | 70% | 101 | 4.5 | 25% | 43 |
| Plumbers | 8 | 71% | 95 | 4.5 | 13% | 44 |
| Dentists | 8 | 76% | 92 | 4.5 | 38% | 49 |
| Real Estate | 8 | 68% | 69 | 4.5 | 38% | 43 |
| Electricians | 8 | 65% | 65 | 4.6 | 25% | 39 |
| Salons & Spas | 8 | 64% | 63 | 4.5 | 13% | 38 |
| Landscaping | 8 | 57% | 43 | 4.5 | 13% | 30 |
| Law Firms | 8 | 71% | 40 | 4.7 | 50% | 50 |
| Contractors | 8 | 60% | 39 | 4.5 | 13% | 35 |
GBP % = average Google Business Profile completion score. Schema % = percentage with any structured data markup. Mobile Score = Google PageSpeed Insights mobile score (0-100). Sample = number of businesses audited in category.
Space Coast, City by City
City-Level Performance
Melbourne
28 businesses audited
Titusville
18 businesses audited
Cocoa Beach
12 businesses audited
Palm Bay
16 businesses audited
Merritt Island
10 businesses audited
Cocoa
8 businesses audited
City-Level Observations
Melbourne leads in schema adoption at 22%, likely driven by a larger concentration of law firms and professional services that invest more in digital marketing. Melbourne also has the largest sample in our study (28 businesses) and the highest mobile speed scores.
Cocoa Beach benefits from tourism, showing the highest average review counts (142) and GBP completion (74%) across the region. Seasonal visitors leave more reviews, creating a natural advantage. However, many restaurant GBPs go dormant outside of peak season.
Palm Bay has the most room for growth with the lowest GBP completion (63%) and schema adoption (12%). This also means the barrier to standing out is lower. A Palm Bay business that fully optimizes its online presence faces less competition than one in Melbourne.
Titusville shows strong service industry presence with plumbing businesses leading in GBP utilization. The proximity to Kennedy Space Center drives demand for home services among aerospace workers who relocate to the area.
Top 3 vs Rest
Map Pack Analysis
What Map Pack Businesses Do Differently
We tracked which businesses consistently appeared in Google Maps top 3 results across 120 high-intent local search queries. The performance gap between map pack businesses and everyone else is significant across every metric.
The data suggests that map pack placement correlates most strongly with three factors: review velocity (new reviews per month), GBP posting frequency, and mobile page speed. Businesses that score well on all three appear in the map pack at 4.7x the rate of those scoring poorly on even one.
Tier 3 · Measured, Not Guessed
AI Search Readiness
AI assistants now shape local discovery, so we measure them directly. Our Tier 3 instrument records what ChatGPT, Gemini, Grok, and Claude actually recommend for local searches: we ask each the same questions repeatedly and capture the answers word for word. The first measured run (Florida roofing, Q2 2026) found that AI visibility is not one number. The recommended business changes depending on which assistant you ask. See the full breakdown in our Florida roofing AI visibility report. The second industry edition (Florida plumbing, Q3 2026) found the alignment getting worse: the engines named the same top plumber in zero of 16 cities. Read The State of Plumbing Search in Florida (2026).
What AI-recommended businesses tend to have
Space Coast Top 10
Competitive Opportunity Score
We created a Competitive Opportunity Score (COS) for each industry and city combination. A high COS means the gap between top performers and the average is large, meaning it takes less effort to stand out. Here are the top 10 highest-opportunity combinations on the Space Coast.
COS is calculated from the gap between top-3 map pack averages and the market median across all measured factors (GBP, reviews, speed, schema). Score range: 0-100. Higher = more opportunity. Methodology details available at /research/methodology.
Tier 2 · Statewide
Florida Statewide Market Intelligence
Beyond our deep Brevard County audit, we collect market-level intelligence across 91 Florida cities and 67 counties using live search analysis of Google Maps, business directories, and local search results.
Top Opportunity Cities in Florida
Market Opportunity Score (0-100) measures how much room exists for a business to stand out in local search. High scores indicate lower competition and higher search demand.
| # | City | Score | Top Industry |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Opa Locka | 70 | contractors |
| 2 | Key West | 69 | roofers |
| 3 | Fellsmere | 64 | contractors |
| 4 | Crescent City | 61 | law firms |
| 5 | Greenacres | 61 | landscaping |
| 6 | Homestead | 61 | contractors |
| 7 | Titusville | 60 | electricians |
| 8 | Cape Canaveral | 60 | contractors |
| 9 | Port St. John | 60 | contractors |
| 10 | Niceville | 60 | law firms |
| 11 | Green Cove Springs | 60 | real estate |
| 12 | Cutler Bay | 60 | contractors |
| 13 | Lynn Haven | 58 | landscaping |
| 14 | Plant City | 58 | law firms |
| 15 | Mount Dora | 57 | contractors |
Industry Opportunity Across Florida
Average Market Opportunity Score by industry across all 91 cities. Industries with higher scores have more room for businesses to improve their local search presence.
Keep Going
Put These Numbers to Work
SEO Services for Small Businesses
Practical strategies to improve the metrics measured in this index.
AreaBrevard County SEO
Our regional SEO strategy for Brevard County businesses, built city by city.
ServiceLocal SEO Services
Professional help to improve your rankings based on these benchmarks.
GlossaryWhat Is Local SEO?
Learn the fundamentals behind the metrics in this report.
ReportAI Perception Report
How AI tools like ChatGPT and Perplexity perceive Space Coast businesses.