July 8, 2026 · Harvey
The Des Moines Small Business Visibility Report 2026
The short version: We scanned 411 Des Moines-metro small businesses across 12 local industries — reviews, ratings, and websites, straight off their Google listings. The finding: they’re well-liked but hard to find. The median business has a 4.8-star rating and just 90 reviews — and 59% sit below 150 reviews, the point where AI search engines (ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews) start naming businesses by name. One in six has no website at all. Quality isn’t the gap here. Visibility is.
How we did this
This is an aggregate scan, not a census. In July 2026 we pulled the top ~30–40 Google Maps results for each of 12 local industries across the Des Moines metro, deduplicated to 411 businesses, and read the public listing data every searcher sees: review count, star rating, and whether a website is attached. No private data, no guesswork — just the picture Google (and increasingly AI) paints of these businesses today. This is Edition #1 of a quarterly index — we’ll re-run the same scan each quarter to track which way the metro is moving.
By the numbers
- 411 businesses scanned across 12 local industries
- 59% sit under 150 reviews — below the AI-citation line
- 48% have fewer than 80 reviews; 24% have fewer than 20
- 17% — roughly 1 in 6 — have no website on their Google listing
- 4.8★ median rating, but only 90 median reviews
- 41% have crossed 150 reviews and are eligible to be named in AI search
The visibility gap, quantified
Rating isn’t the problem — Des Moines businesses are rated well. The gap is review volume, and it maps directly onto whether AI search will surface you.
| Review count | Share of businesses | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| Under 20 | 24% | Effectively invisible in local search |
| Under 80 | 48% | Below the “trusted local” bar most searchers scan for |
| Under 150 | 59% | Below the line where ChatGPT / Perplexity / AI Overviews name you |
| 150 or more | 41% | Eligible to be cited by name in AI answers |
Where it’s worst: by industry
The metro-wide 59% hides big swings. Some industries are almost entirely below the line; others (restaurants) have pulled far ahead. Sorted by the share sitting under 150 reviews.
| Industry | Businesses | Median reviews | Under 150 reviews | No website |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gyms & fitness studios | 35 | 31 | 89% | 11% |
| Salons & spas | 39 | 56 | 82% | 36% |
| Non-emergency medical transport | 13 | 59 | 77% | 23% |
| Chiropractors | 37 | 67 | 73% | 16% |
| Cleaning services | 32 | 50 | 69% | 19% |
| Dentists | 32 | 72 | 62% | 22% |
| Auto repair | 33 | 74 | 61% | 24% |
| HVAC contractors | 36 | 69 | 61% | 28% |
| Pet grooming | 36 | 80 | 56% | 8% |
| Coffee shops | 40 | 204 | 42% | 18% |
| Med spas | 38 | 293 | 39% | 8% |
| Restaurants | 40 | 652 | 15% | 0% |
Restaurants are the outlier — the median restaurant has 652 reviews and every one had a website. They’ve been playing the reviews game the longest. Everyone else is still on the field.
Why 150 reviews is the line that matters
It’s not an arbitrary number. When someone asks ChatGPT, Perplexity, or Google’s AI Overview for “a good chiropractor near me,” the model overwhelmingly names businesses that have crossed roughly 150 reviews — enough of a signal for the model to trust it as a real, established answer. Below that floor, you can have a perfect 5.0 rating and still never get mentioned. As more local searches start (or end) inside an AI assistant, that line quietly decides who gets recommended and who doesn’t.
59% of Des Moines-metro businesses are on the wrong side of it — and most of their owners have no idea the line exists.
The website gap
Reviews decide whether AI names you; a website decides whether it (or a customer) can learn anything about you. 17% of the businesses we scanned had no website at all — just a Google listing. Salons & spas (36%) and HVAC contractors (28%) were the most exposed. For an AI assistant trying to answer “does this place do X,” no website often means no confident answer — and no mention.
What it means if you own one of these businesses
- Find out which side of the 150 line you’re on. If you’re under it, that’s the single highest-leverage number to move this year.
- Build a review-velocity habit, not a one-time push. A steady monthly flow of fresh reviews beats a big burst that then goes quiet — recency counts.
- If you don’t have a website, that’s the fastest fix. Even a simple, fast, schema-marked site gives Google and AI something to cite.
- Watch the AI answers, not just the Google Map. Ask ChatGPT and Perplexity for your category in your town. If you’re not named, you now know why — and what to do about it.
The businesses that close this gap over the next year will quietly take share from the ones that don’t. It’s not about being better. It’s about being findable at the moment someone’s ready to buy.
Methodology: 411 Des Moines-metro businesses across 12 local industries (restaurants, coffee, salons/spas, med spas, chiropractors, HVAC, pet grooming, gyms, auto repair, dentists, cleaning, non-emergency medical transport), scanned via Google Maps in July 2026 and deduplicated. Figures reflect public Google listing data (review count, rating, website presence) at time of scan. A metro snapshot, not a full census. Edition #1 of a quarterly index — next refresh Q4 2026.