SINCE LAST FRIDAY 1 page-one leader changed hands 11 new pages in the top 5 next edition: Fri Aug 14

THE SEARCH LEDGER · BOISE EDITION · SATURDAY, AUGUST 8, 2026

Who gets found in
Boise?

Every month, Boise types 678,340 searches looking for a local business, and advertisers pay $1.76M chasing them. Somebody gets found. Somebody doesn't. This is the weekly ledger of who, at what price, and what's still up for grabs — refreshed every Friday.

678,340
SEARCHES IN PLAY / MO
$1.76M
AD-EQUIV. VALUE / MO
1,276
BUSINESSES WATCHED
1865
KEYWORD FAMILIES TRACKED

Boise searches 1,724,900 times a month in total. The other 1,046,560 go to brands and places — the airport, the hospitals, the universities — which no local business can win. Those 483 brands are tracked separately.

47-point audit · free tier is always free · no credit card

The demand

Before anyone wins a customer, the customer has to ask. Here is what Boise asked Google for last month.

678,340

searches a month across the 635 keyword families where a local business can actually be chosen. That's roughly 23,000 people a day looking for something — or someone — in Boise, with nobody in mind yet.

Where the demand goes

Each square is 1% of monthly search volume.

Food & Dining 65% Other 10% Attractions 6% Shopping 4% Health & Wellness 4% Hotels & Lodging 4% Home Services 4% Real Estate 3%

THE IMBALANCE

Food & Dining is 65% of the demand but only 72% of the tracked listings. A food & dining business here gets 55 searches per tracked competitor. Real Estate gets about 55.

MONTHLY SEARCHES PER TRACKED LISTING · ~ = ESTIMATED LISTING COUNT
Food & Dining ~55
Attractions ~55
Shopping ~55
Health & Wellness ~55
Real Estate ~55

When the demand comes

Search interest by month, 0–100 per vertical. The pink outline marks each vertical's peak — the month the phones ring.

VERTICALJANFEBMARAPRMAYJUNJULAUGSEPOCTNOVDEC
Attractions4044727085889510089604852
Places & Neighborhoods6263867887100858580717063
Hotels & Lodging7874847891100898977776771
Entertainment7369667777100658483828378
Food & Dining7472838195948710083857575
Real Estate8178939610097838473756668
Shopping7365837496958710083838199
Legal8669786457787470100724860
Health & Wellness1009093908891959393958491
Home Services7478807072768774100795352
Travel & Transit8371988297100979695948181
Professional Services1007975483234479983625045
Education6767687072727010098796555
Personal Care6569868499100989772716570

Moving fast right now

Breakout searches, recent weeks.

flights from boise airport ▲ 274% BREAKOUT
boise music fest ▲ 228% BREAKOUT
cheesecake factory boise reservations ▲ 208% BREAKOUT
osterkamp dental boise ▲ 205% BREAKOUT
boise real estate agent ▲ 204% BREAKOUT

The money

Attention in this city has a spot price, and Google publishes it: the cost per ad click. Here's what a customer's attention trades for in Boise.

"BOISE ACCIDENT ATTORNEY" · COST OF ONE AD CLICK

$652.79

One click. Not a customer — a click. That's what a single visit from this search trades for in Boise right now.

Every keyword has a price tag

All 1795 tracked keywords by cost per click, log scale. Amber gets deeper as the click gets pricier.

$0.10 $1 $10 $100 $849
cities near boise idaho — $0.01
concrete lifting boise — $2.63
boise accident attorney — $652.79

The price board

Every tracked keyword, priced. These are live market rates — the same numbers we manage against daily as a Google Ads Partner.

#KEYWORDCOST PER CLICKCPCSEARCHES/MOAD VALUE/MOΔ FRI
1
boise accident attorney
LEGAL
$652.79 10 $6.5K
2
boise car accident lawyer
LEGAL
$544.40 50 $27.2K
3
heating and air conditioning boise idaho
HOME SERVICES
$342.93 10 $3.4K
4
personal injury boise
OTHER
$313.99 10 $3.1K
5
boise car accident attorney
LEGAL
$243.87 40 $9.8K
6
home window replacement boise
OTHER
$195.87 10 $2.0K
7
modern concrete boise
OTHER
$189.26 10 $1.9K
8
personal injury lawyer near me
LEGAL
$187.47 480 $90.0K
9
ac replacement boise
OTHER
$174.13 10 $1.7K
10
24 hour plumber boise
HOME SERVICES
$145.89 10 $1.5K
11
boise injury lawyer
LEGAL
$117.52 260 $30.6K
12
dog bite lawyer boise
LEGAL
$113.56 10 $1.1K
13
ac maintenance boise
OTHER
$112.29 10 $1.1K
14
jim's heating and cooling boise
HOME SERVICES
$104.60 20 $2.1K
15
pest control service boise
HOME SERVICES
$102.89 20 $2.1K
16
hvac service boise
HOME SERVICES
$101.04 110 $11.1K
17
boise heating and air
HOME SERVICES
$99.42 10 $994
18
hawaiian roofing boise
HOME SERVICES
$98.15 10 $982
19
western roofing boise
HOME SERVICES
$96.42 10 $964
20
hvac repair near me
HOME SERVICES
$87.93 170 $14.9K
21
junk pick up boise
OTHER
$86.19 10 $862
22
garage door service boise
HOME SERVICES
$82.91 50 $4.1K
23
dentist near me boise
HEALTH & WELLNESS
$80.77 20 $1.6K
24
bartlett roofing boise idaho
HOME SERVICES
$80.08 10 $801
25
dml hvac boise
HOME SERVICES
$79.41 10 $794
26
emergency plumber near me
HOME SERVICES
$79.10 260 $20.6K
27
exterior painting boise id
OTHER
$70.20 20 $1.4K
28
litster frost boise
OTHER
$65.25 480 $31.3K
29
mobile locksmith boise
HOME SERVICES
$64.52 10 $645
30
emergency plumber boise
HOME SERVICES
$63.09 40 $2.5K
31
bathfitters boise
OTHER
$62.49 10 $625
32
boise wasp control
OTHER
$58.51 70 $4.1K
33
air conditioning service boise
HOME SERVICES
$58.06 20 $1.2K
34
meridian plumbing boise
HOME SERVICES
$57.81 10 $578
35
modern roofing boise
HOME SERVICES
$56.54 10 $565
36
ac repair near me
HOME SERVICES
$56.42 590 $33.3K
37
bathroom remodeling contractors boise id
HOME SERVICES
$56.40 70 $3.9K
38
in nampa
OTHER
$55.82 110 $6.1K
39
cobb electric boise
OTHER
$55.46 10 $555
40
chameleon pest control boise
HOME SERVICES
$54.45 10 $545
41
rebath boise
OTHER
$54.09 90 $4.9K
42
hyde park plumbing boise
HOME SERVICES
$52.94 40 $2.1K
43
kd roofing boise
HOME SERVICES
$51.93 10 $519
44
plumber near me
HOME SERVICES
$51.85 1,900 $98.5K
45
pestcom boise
HOME SERVICES
$51.83 10 $518
46
roofing boise idaho
HOME SERVICES
$51.63 40 $2.1K
47
western hvac boise
HOME SERVICES
$51.19 10 $512
48
law firm boise idaho
LEGAL
$50.95 10 $510
49
quality heating boise
HOME SERVICES
$50.74 10 $507
50
plumbing service boise
HOME SERVICES
$50.49 10 $505

bar length = CPC, linear scale · amber deepens with price · ad value = searches × CPC · Δ FRI = change since last Friday's pull

Why would anyone pay $653 a click?

Half the people who click leave in seconds. The businesses bidding know that — and keep bidding. Here's the math that makes a $653 click rational, using legal industry benchmarks.

100 clicks bought−$65,279
15 become phone calls (15% call rate, benchmark)
3 become signed cases (20% close, benchmark)
Revenue from those 3 signed cases+$75,000 · 1× the spend

Call and close rates are vertical benchmarks, not promises. But the principle sets every price on the board: a click costs what the customer behind it is worth. Bounce rate is priced in.

ONE CUSTOMER FUNDS

How many clicks a single customer's revenue buys back, at that keyword's CPC. Customer values are industry benchmarks.

boise accident attorney
~$25,000 case fee (benchmark) · $652.79/click
38 clicks
24 hour plumber boise
~$9,500 job value (benchmark) · $145.89/click
65 clicks
dentist near me boise
~$3,200 patient value (benchmark) · $80.77/click
39 clicks
boise bike repair
~$1,800 customer value (benchmark) · $0.01/click
180,000 clicks

Same market, different economies. This is why "is $X a click expensive?" has no answer without knowing what a customer is worth to you.

What owning a vertical costs

Monthly ad-equivalent value of all clicks in each vertical — what you'd pay Google to buy the demand you could rank for.

Home Services $625,000/mo
Food & Dining $311,000/mo
Legal $227,000/mo
Health & Wellness $204,000/mo
Other $133,000/mo
Hotels & Lodging $82,000/mo

Ranking organically doesn't pay that bill — it makes it someone else's.

75/100
MARKET OPPORTUNITY SCORE

High demand and open gaps put Boise near the top of the markets we track. Translation: the door is open — and the rent on staying outside keeps going up.

The fight

A market this valuable doesn't sit unclaimed. Here's who holds Boise's front page, who's climbing, who's slipping — and where the seats are still empty.

80%

of Boise's tracked page-one results are already local — the out-of-town directories hold just 20%. The holdouts they still lead are listed below.

out-of-town directories · 20 local sites · 80

Two pulls of "restaurants near me"

Page-one position, last pull vs. this one: www.facebook.com moved ▼ 7 spots. The chart grows a column every Friday as the archive builds.

Aug 1 Aug 8 #1 #11 www.tripadvisor.com #1 www.yelp.com #2 www.opentable.com #3 ▲1 www.restaurant.com #4 ▲1 maps.google.com #5 ▲3 www.facebook.com #10 ▼7

This week's movers

Biggest changes between the Aug 1 and Aug 8 pulls.

▼ 12
Diablo & Sons Saloon
map rank for "restaurant"
#5 → #17
▲ 11
Cobblestone Car Wash
map rank for "car wash"
#20 → #9
▼ 7
www.facebook.com
restaurants near me
#3 → #10
▲ 5
siegfriedandjensen.com
personal injury lawyer near me
#9 → #4
NEW
www.wholefoodsmarket.com
grocery store near me · new to page one
— → #2
NEW
www.opentable.com
restaurants near me · new to page one
— → #3
▲ 28
Beacon Plumbing, Heating, Air-Conditioning, and Electrical, Inc
reviews
1,811 → 1,839
▲ 27
Wickstrom Plumbing Heating & Cooling
reviews
1,581 → 1,608
▼ 0.1★
Kens Small Engine Repair Ada county and Canyon county
rating
4.4★ → 4.3★
▲ 9
The Front Door Taphouse
2 queries — restaurant · pizza
2 up · 0 down

Movement = week-over-week snapshot diff · arrows and signed numbers, always

Most contested keywords

Who currently leads the top 6 fights worth having. Leader = top organic result; OPEN RACE = no map pack on the page.

restaurants near me
246,000 searches/mo
www.tripadvisor.com AGGREGATOR
pizza near me
22,200 searches/mo
www.idahopizzacompany.com LOCAL
grocery store near me
22,200 searches/mo
local.albertsons.com LOCAL
zoo boise
22,200 searches/mo
zooboise.org OPEN RACE
car wash near me
14,800 searches/mo
www.yelp.com AGGREGATOR
boise hotels
5,400 searches/mo
www.grovehotelboise.com OPEN RACE

OPEN SEATS

6 of the 21 keywords we track on page one show no map pack at all. An open seat is an invitation. Claim your business profile before someone else RSVPs.

What page one is made of

Share of 21 tracked keywords showing each SERP feature.

Map pack71%
People Also Ask71%
Ads above results0%
Featured snippet0%

The map pack appears on 71% of these searches — for most local queries, the map is page one.

Local vs. chain

Of 1276 tracked businesses, 97% are independents — this is a local-owner's market.

independent · 97 chain · 3

ANATOMY OF A #1

Beacon Plumbing, Heating, Air-Conditioning, and Electrical, Inc

Top-rated of 95 tracked Plumber

Rating5.0 ★ (cat. median 4.9)
Reviews1,839 (median 90)

None of this is magic. It's 20.4× the category's median review count. The playbook is public.

Ranking with no website

Of the 1,276 businesses we track in Boise's map results, 171 have no website at all — 13% of the field, showing up on reputation alone.

171

BUSINESSES RANKING WITHOUT A SITE

The most-reviewed of them has 1,319 reviews and a 4.2 rating. If they are beating you, it is not because of their website.

The city itself

Search demand doesn't come from nowhere. It comes from people, their paychecks, their rents, and their broadband. The economics underneath explain the market above.

F
COST-OF-DOING-BUSINESS GRADE

Composite of 1 operating-cost factors vs. national benchmarks — costs here run above the national average across the board.

The rest of the ledger

Everything else we track about living and working here — one line each, open what you need.

Weather [object Object] Current conditions at pull time

[object Object] Seasonal swings in the weather show up directly in the demand calendar back in Chapter 1.

Air quality AQI — Air quality at pull time

Air quality tracked from EPA monitors.

Colleges 18,361 students Boise State University, Eagle Gate College-Boise Campus, Boise Bible College

3 institutions and 18,361 enrolled students, led by Boise State University, Eagle Gate College-Boise Campus, Boise Bible College. A permanent annual influx of new residents who choose dentists, gyms, and mechanics from a Google search.

This week in town 106 events tracked Boise State Football vs. Memphis · Albertsons Stadium

106 tracked events, led by Boise State Football vs. Memphis at Albertsons Stadium. In the news: "Local startup secures major funding round - Boise" (Boise Local News). Event weekends measurably lift "restaurants near" and "parking" searches around the venues.

The names Boise searches for

The 483 brands, institutions and landmarks this metro looks up by name — 1,046,560 searches a month. No local business can win these. They are what the city is.

RANKED BY MONTHLY SEARCH VOLUME
1 boise state football
74K
2 boise airport
61K
3 bogus basin
41K
4 boise towne square
27K
5 zoo boise
22K
6 ann morrison park boise idaho
15K
7 morrison center
15K
8 zillow boise
12K
9 boise state university
12K
10 barbacoa boise
10K

Your move

678K
SEARCHES IN PLAY / MO
$653
PRICIEST CLICK
20%
PAGE ONE ALREADY LOCAL
6
MAP-PACK SEATS OPEN

4 numbers, one conclusion: the demand is real, the price of ignoring it compounds, and the leaderboard is not settled. The only question the ledger can't answer is whether you're on it.

STEP 1 · TWO MINUTES

See where you stand

Run the free 47-point audit against your site. Five issues free, all 47 after signup. No credit card.

Scan your site free

STEP 2 · IF YOU'RE ON THE MAP

Claim your seat

6 contested keywords have no map pack at all. If your business profile is unclaimed, you're forfeiting by default.

Claim your business

STEP 3 · EVERY FRIDAY

Read the next edition

The ledger reprints Friday 6am — movers, price changes, and open seats, in your inbox before your competitors read it.

RELATED MARKETS

Salt Lake City — 296 mi away → Reno — 338 mi away → Portland — 345 mi away → Closest lookalike market: Louisville → All markets →

Lookalike = the market our data says behaves most like this one, by search volume, ad prices, business density, and review depth — recomputed on every weekly pull.

New to this? Start with the blog — plain-English guides, no jargon →

GO DEEPER · THE LEDGER BY VERTICAL

FOOD & DINING 501K/mo HOTELS & LODGING 50K/mo HEALTH & WELLNESS 45K/mo ENTERTAINMENT 42K/mo HOME SERVICES 28K/mo LEGAL 4K/mo