Inside the Reseller Opportunity Index
Every county page here rests on three calculations: a score from 0 to 100, a ranking of seven client types and a comparison of fee tiers against the local pool of small buyers. This page spells out each one, including what is left out, so an agency can test the reasoning against its own territory.
Question asked
What the Score Tries to Answer
An agency deciding where to resell SEO needs to know how many businesses it could plausibly approach, whether they are the sort that buys local SEO, whether there is enough geography for landing pages to matter and whether the money is there. The Local Reseller Opportunity Index (LROI) packs those questions into one comparable number. It describes supply: businesses, towns and incomes. It cannot say how many owners want SEO.
Inputs
Six Ingredients and What Each Counts
| Ingredient | Weight | What is counted | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Small employers | 25% | Employer locations with fewer than 10 staff, all fifteen categories, per 1,000 residents | County Business Patterns 2022; population estimates 2023 |
| Buyer categories | 20% | Locations in nine categories (remodelers, roofers, electricians, plumbing and HVAC, law, dental, physicians, real estate, auto repair) per 10,000 residents | County Business Patterns 2022 |
| Towns | 15% | Named places with 2,500 or more residents, in-county part only | Place population estimates |
| Household income | 15% | Median household income | Small Area Income and Poverty Estimates |
| Growth | 15% | Change in employer locations from 2017 to 2022, all categories | County Business Patterns |
| Crowding | 10% | Average of the nine buyer categories' density percentiles | County Business Patterns 2022 |
Each ingredient becomes a percentile among U.S. counties with 20,000 or more residents before it is weighted.
Scaling
Percentiles, Gaps and Special Markets
A percentile is the portion of ranked counties (1,822 of them) that fall below a given county on one measure. Averaging the weighted percentiles gives the LROI, and counties are then ranked among all of them and among the 400 markets on this site.
Some markets lack an ingredient. Connecticut's income and growth come from 2021 files, so its income percentile is dropped. City-type markets (independent cities, the five New York boroughs, Washington, DC) have no meaningful town count, so that ingredient is dropped too. Whatever remains is scaled to total 100%.
Why crowding counts
A Packed Field Is Both Good and Bad News
Crowding earns a small weight, not a large one, because it cuts two ways. Dense categories give an agency easy conversations: owners can see their rivals. They also mean more agencies chasing the same owners. At 10% the term nudges counties with tight buyer categories upward without letting it decide the score.
Client types
How Seven Groups Are Formed and Ordered
| Group | Made from | How it is ranked |
|---|---|---|
| Home services | Remodelers, roofers, electricians, plumbing and HVAC | All seven groups are ranked by the natural log of their locations with fewer than 10 staff, plus 1.2 times the natural log of their density against the median county (capped between 0.3x and 3x) |
| Law offices | Law offices | Same formula |
| Dental and medical practices | Dentists and physicians | Same formula |
| Real estate offices | Agents and brokers | Same formula |
| Auto repair shops | General auto repair | Same formula |
| Insurance and accounting firms | Insurance agencies and accounting firms | Same formula |
| Landscaping and cleaning firms | Landscapers and janitorial services | Same formula |
The order measures supply of small locations. It does not know which groups buy SEO most often in your market.
Fee tiers
Sizing a Roster Against the Local Pool
The fee table on each county page uses the program's published terms: $1,250 startup and $300 a month per client, with 10% off both fees at 10 clients and 20% off at 20. The share column divides each roster size into the county's count of locations with fewer than 10 staff in the nine buyer categories, so "1 in 300" means the roster would equal about one of every 300 such locations. It shows scale, not likelihood of winning clients.
Other figures
Look-Alikes, Permits and Town Pages
Look-alikes are the six markets among our 400 nearest to a county on population, income, LROI, small employers per 1,000 residents, growth, towns and buyer-category density. Permits are housing units authorized by building permit (Building Permits Survey), shown per 10,000 residents for 2025 with a same-months comparison for 2026. Town page illustrations multiply the count of places above 2,500 residents by six services; that is arithmetic, not a plan for any client.
Limits
What These Numbers Cannot Tell You
- No demand data. We do not know how many owners in a county want SEO, what they would pay or which agencies already serve them.
- No client results. Nothing here comes from a GetPhound client account, and nothing here predicts rankings, leads or timing.
- Employer locations only. Businesses without staff are missing, so the real prospect pool is larger.
- Your contacts first. A warm introduction beats any county ranking.
- Lag. Business counts are 2022 and population 2023; every county page shows its years. Spotted a mistake? Email hello@getphound.com.
Sources
Public Census Files
Population Estimates (Vintage 2023), County Business Patterns (2022 and 2017), Small Area Income and Poverty Estimates (2023), the Building Permits Survey and the 2023 Gazetteer.
Talk to us
Want to Walk Through Your Territory?
Tell us which counties your clients are in and we will go through the same numbers with you. Request pricing at getphound.com/white-label, call 610-825-4363 or email hello@getphound.com.