The short answer
In 20 Arkansas towns, the contractors in Google's top 3 map results have a median of 30 reviews. The businesses at positions 4 to 20 have 17, and everyone below that has 8. Reviews are the clearest line between the map pack and the rest.
The bar is not the same everywhere. An HVAC company needs about 324 reviews to sit where the top 3 sit; an electrician needs about 24. The top 3 in Rogers have a median of 89 reviews; in Pine Bluff, 11. And the door is open more often than owners think: 26% of top-3 spots are held by a business with fewer than 10 reviews.
What we did
On the night of October 14, 2026 we read Google's map results for 16 contractor searches ("plumber", "roofing contractor", "hvac contractor", "electrician" and twelve more) in each of 20 Arkansas towns: Little Rock, North Little Rock, Conway, Benton, Bryant, Cabot, Jacksonville, Sherwood, Maumelle, Fayetteville, Springdale, Rogers, Bentonville, Fort Smith, Jonesboro, Hot Springs, Pine Bluff, Texarkana, Searcy and Russellville. That is 320 searches and the first 100 listings in each, 10,101 businesses in all, read through a commercial data provider (DataForSEO) with each listing's position, review count, rating, website, claimed status and primary category.
It is one read on one night. Map positions move with where the searcher stands, the time of day and what changed on the listings that week, so treat the numbers as a photograph, not a rule. A median is the middle value: half the businesses are above it and half below. A business that shows up for more than one search or town is counted once per search in the tables below.
Reviews separate the top 3 from everyone else. Ratings do not.
| Map position | Listings | Median reviews | Have a website | Median rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Top 3 (the map pack) | 943 | 30 | 79% | 4.9 |
| Positions 4 to 10 | 2,210 | 20 | 74% | 4.9 |
| Positions 11 to 20 | 3,035 | 14 | 70% | 4.9 |
| Position 21 and lower | 16,745 | 8 | 66% | 4.9 |
The rating column is the same from top to bottom: 4.9. Across all 10,101 listings, 46% carry a perfect 5.0. A high rating is the price of entry, not the thing that puts a business in the top 3. The review count is, and so is having a website: 79% of the top 3 have one, against 66% of the businesses at position 21 and lower.
The bar by trade
Median review count of the top 3, next to the median for positions 4 to 20, across all 20 towns.
| Search | Top 3, median reviews | Positions 4 to 20 |
|---|---|---|
| HVAC contractor | 324 | 50 |
| Plumber | 141 | 36 |
| Garage door repair | 106 | 46 |
| Roofing contractor | 77 | 32 |
| Pest control | 43 | 48 |
| Gutter installation | 41 | 43 |
| Fence contractor | 35 | 15 |
| Landscaping company | 28 | 20 |
| Foundation repair | 26 | 10 |
| Electrician | 24 | 8 |
| Painting contractor | 22 | 10 |
| Pressure washing | 22 | 16 |
| Tree service | 20 | 17 |
| Remodeling contractor | 17 | 11 |
| Concrete contractor | 8 | 4 |
| Handyman | 4 | 5 |
HVAC and plumbing are review contests: the top 3 have 324 and 141 reviews, several times what the businesses just below them have. Roofing is the same shape at 77. In the trades near the bottom of the table (concrete, handyman, remodeling) the whole field has few reviews, which means a business that collects them steadily can move faster there than anywhere else.
The bar by town
| Town | Top 3, median reviews | Positions 4 to 20 |
|---|---|---|
| Rogers | 89 | 25 |
| Sherwood | 86 | 22 |
| Bryant | 57 | 19 |
| Bentonville | 54 | 41 |
| North Little Rock | 37 | 30 |
| Fayetteville | 37 | 22 |
| Fort Smith | 36 | 18 |
| Hot Springs | 33 | 16 |
| Little Rock | 31 | 28 |
| Texarkana | 31 | 10 |
| Jacksonville | 30 | 20 |
| Springdale | 30 | 20 |
| Cabot | 28 | 11 |
| Benton | 26 | 15 |
| Conway | 22 | 12 |
| Jonesboro | 21 | 9 |
| Maumelle | 20 | 13 |
| Russellville | 20 | 13 |
| Searcy | 16 | 9 |
| Pine Bluff | 11 | 4 |
Northwest Arkansas and the Little Rock suburbs set the highest bar. The same contractor would need about 8 times the reviews in Rogers that it needs in Pine Bluff to sit with the top 3. If you work several towns, the one with the lowest bar is where the next reviews pay off first.
The door is open more often than it looks
- 26% of top-3 spots are held by a business with fewer than 10 reviews. Distance from the searcher and the primary category still carry a lot of weight. A new business with the right category, a complete profile and a handful of reviews can hold a top-3 spot in its own part of town.
- 27% of the top 20 have no website at all (38% of all 10,101 listings). A business with a site that answers the search is competing against companies that gave Google nothing to read.
- 19% of the top 3 are listed in a different town than the one searched. Service-area businesses do rank one town over, but mostly when they are close to the line and well reviewed; the rest of the time the map favors a business that is actually in the town.
- Category names are not the whole story. For "remodeling contractor" and "foundation repair", fewer than 15% of the top-3 listings carry those words in their primary category; Google is matching on the services listed, the reviews and the website. For roofing, pest control and garage doors it is the opposite: nearly every top-3 listing carries the trade as its primary category.
What to do with this
- Find your bar. Your trade's row in the first table, then your town's. That is the review count to plan for, and the gap between you and it is the size of the job.
- Ask for a review on every finished job, the same day. The top-3 numbers above were built one job at a time; nobody gets 300 reviews with a sign on the counter. Google's rules are the limit: no paying for reviews, no asking only the happy customers, no gating. (Our Google Business Profile checklist has the settings and the habits.)
- Fix the website if you have none, and make it answer the search if you do. A page for each service and each town you want to win, with your phone number at the top.
- Set the primary category and the service area deliberately. In the trades where the category decides (roofing, pest control, garage doors, electricians) the wrong primary category is a locked door. Where it does not (remodeling, foundation repair), the services list and the website do the work.
What we think happens when the gap closes
This is a projection, not a promise. BrightLocal's study of 45,264 Google Business Profiles (September 2017 to December 2018) put the median listing at about 1,260 views a month, with about 5% of views turning into a call, a website click or a direction request; plumbing and HVAC listings averaged 14 calls, 20 website clicks and 3 direction requests a month, roofing and construction 4, 18 and 2 (the study). A listing that moves from outside the top 20 into the top 3 is moving from almost no views to that kind of volume. How fast that happens depends on the bar in your town and your trade, your review pace and how complete the listing and the site are. Nobody can promise a position on Google, and we don't.
Your own numbers
The free report shows where your business sits for your trade in the towns you work, who is above you, how many reviews they have and the three fixes that move it. Ask for yours here, or call (501) 476-1138.