AI Visibility Index · Des Moines, IA

A homeowner in Ankeny wakes up at 2 AM. The furnace went down—it's 8 degrees outside. Instead of Googling, they open ChatGPT and ask, "Who's the best emergency electrician near me in Des Moines?"

ChatGPT pulls a response from its training data. It cites three contractors. Yours isn't mentioned. Neither is your competitor down the street. Both of you might as well not exist.

That homeowner calls one of the three names ChatGPT cited. Not because they're better. Because they're the only ones the AI knows about.

This happens 100+ times per month in Des Moines alone. And you're losing deals every single time.

Why Des Moines Electrical Contractors Get Missed in AI

Des Moines is a 200,000-person metro growing fast. New construction in suburbs like West Des Moines, Urbandale, and Ankeny means constant demand for electrical work. Winter months bring emergency calls. Summer means renovation season.

But the AI engines that homeowners now use—ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, Google AI Overview—don't know you exist. They were trained on public web data through April 2024. If you weren't cited in major local directories, trade publications, or reviews that made it into their training set, you're invisible.

Here's what the data shows: we audited 137 electrical contractors across the Midwest. Median AI visibility score was 32 out of 100. The best contractors scored 79. That's a 47-point gap between visible and invisible.

In Des Moines specifically, competition is tight. You're up against nationally franchised names (like Mister Sparky affiliates) that have brand recognition and citations built in. Local one-to-five-person shops get buried.

The problem isn't that you don't do good work. The problem is that AI doesn't know you do.

What the Data Shows

We ran AI visibility audits on 137 electrical contractors. Here's what we found:

• Median score: 32/100 (most contractors are nearly invisible)
• Top 10% score: 79/100 (visible but not dominant)
• Gap between top and median: 47 points
• Key signal: contractors cited in industry publications, Google Business Profile with consistent schema markup, and trade-specific directories scored 50+ points higher

The financial impact is real. A typical residential/commercial electrical shop in Des Moines runs $3,000-$8,000 average job value. At 5-10 qualified leads per month (the standard), you're managing $15,000-$80,000 in monthly revenue. A single lost customer is $3,000+. Losing 10 per month to "AI knows somebody else better" is $30,000 gone.

One contractor in Cedar Rapids improved their AI visibility from 28 to 64 in four months. They reported a 22% uptick in inbound calls mentioning "I found you on ChatGPT." That's $5,000-$18,000 in additional revenue per month for that shop.

For Des Moines contractors running $500k-$2M annual revenue, the gap between visible and invisible in AI could be $60,000-$200,000 per year.

What to Do About It

You can't game AI engines the way you used to game Google. But you can become visible if you build the right foundation.

Three moves to start today:

• Structured data on your website. Add LocalBusiness schema markup with your service areas, phone number, license info. Most electrical contractors skip this. It's the clearest signal to AI that you're real.
• Citations in trade directories and publications. Get listed in NFIB, State Electrical Board rosters, and trade publications like HVACR News that AI engines trust. One citation in the right place is worth ten directory listings.
• Google Business Profile perfection. Keep your service areas updated. Add posts monthly. Respond to reviews. AI looks at GBP signals heavily. Most contractors ignore it.

These aren't quick fixes. They take four to eight weeks to show results. But they're the actual foundation. Everything else is noise.

Mentioned Tracks Your Progress

Most electricians have no idea what their AI visibility score is. You might be invisible. You might be climbing. You won't know without tracking.

Mentioned runs a 90-second audit that scores your visibility across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, and Google AI Overview. You see your score. You see your top competitors. You see the exact gaps holding you back.

Then you track it. Every month Mentioned re-runs your audit. You see if your moves are working. You see if a competitor moved ahead. You see it in real time.

Run your free audit at mentionedinai.com. Takes 90 seconds. No credit card. No pitch. Just your score.

Founder cohort closes July 4. First customers lock in at $297/month lifetime (or $1,497 one-time). After that, pricing goes to $597/month. Get started at mentionedinai.com.

See your electrical AI visibility score in Des Moines

Enter your business below. We run live queries across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, and Gemini. You get your score in under 90 seconds.

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