"Seek and ye shall find." It's one of the oldest lines going, and your customers live by it. Every day they search Google Maps, ask ChatGPT, scroll Instagram and read reviews. The only question that matters is what they find when they get there.

FOUND is the framework I use to answer that question. Five letters, two points each, a score out of 10. It tells you whether someone looking for your trade in your area is likely to find you, trust you and get in touch, or whether somebody else gets the job.

I built it for my own business first. I run All Well Property Services in South East London, and I wanted a plain-English way to see why one local business gets the call and another, often just as good, doesn't. Now it's the lens I use on every business I look at, mine included. It's also the backbone of Who Gets the Job?, where I search the way a real customer does and work out who's winning and why.

This piece walks through each letter, shows you how to score yourself honestly, and gives you questions to ask and one fix for each. Grab a pen. By the end you'll have a number, and a short list of what to do about it.

The five letters at a glance

The letters run in the order a customer meets you. They find you, check your reputation, look at your website, then try to get hold of you. D sits underneath all four: what other people and machines say about you when you're not in the room.

Letter Stands for The question it answers Full marks looks like
F Findability When someone searches your trade and area, do you show up? Top three on the Google map and on page one of the results
O Online reputation Once they find you, do your reviews make them trust you? 20 or more reviews, rated 4.5 or higher, at least one in the last 90 days
U User experience When they click through, does your website do its job on a phone? Works well on a phone, loads quickly, says what you do and where in plain words
N Next-step conversion When they're ready, is it easy to reach you? Tap-to-call, plus WhatsApp or a contact form, with your number visible without scrolling on a phone
D Digital authority Do AI tools and directories know you exist? Named by at least two of ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity, and listed on two or more trusted directories

How the score works. Each letter scores 0, 1 or 2. Two points if you hit everything in that row. One if you hit some of it. Zero if you hit little or none. Add them up for a score out of 10.

Score What it means
9 to 10 You're the one getting the job. The work now is keeping it that way.
6 to 8 You're getting some of the work. Something specific is costing you the rest.
3 to 5 You're losing work you never see. Two of these five are fixable this week.
0 to 2 Right now someone else gets the job. Start with F and O.

A chain is only as strong as its weakest link, and FOUND works the same way. A five-star reputation is wasted if nobody finds you. Brilliant Google rankings are wasted if your phone number is buried. Your lowest letter is usually the one costing you the most work, so that's where to start.

F is for Findability

Findability asks the first question: when someone searches for your trade in your area, do you show up at all?

Two places matter. The map, where Google shows three businesses before anything else, built from your Google Business Profile. And the list underneath, where your website competes. Google says local results come down to relevance, distance and prominence. You can't move your premises, so relevance and prominence are the dials you can turn. I went deeper on this in Content Everywhere Optimisation.

Score yourself

  • 2 points: top three on the map and on page one of the normal results for "[your trade] [your area]"
  • 1 point: one of the two
  • 0 points: neither

To check, search on your phone in a private browser window, ideally standing in the area you want work from. Results change from one street to the next, so test the areas that matter, not just the one you're sitting in.

Ask yourself

  • Does my Google profile's main category name my actual trade?
  • Have I listed every area I want work from, on the profile and on my website?
  • If I search the job I most want more of, plus my best area, who shows up instead of me?

Fix this week: open your Google Business Profile and check the primary category. If it says "Contractor" or "Business service" instead of your trade, change it. It takes two minutes and changes what Google thinks you are.

O is for Online reputation

Being found gets you a look. Your reviews decide whether you get the call.

The thresholds aren't plucked from thin air. BrightLocal's 2026 survey of 1,002 US consumers found 47% won't use a business with fewer than 20 reviews, and 74% look for reviews written in the last three months. Nearly a third will only use a business rated 4.5 or higher, almost double the year before. Different country, same human nature. You're only as good as your last review.

Score yourself

  • 2 points: 20 or more reviews, rated 4.5 or higher, and at least one in the last 90 days
  • 1 point: two of those three
  • 0 points: one or none

Ask yourself

  • When did my last review come in? If I can't remember, that's the answer.
  • Do I ask every customer, every time, or only when I remember?
  • Have I replied to every review, including the awkward ones?

Fix this week: write down your last ten customers. Send each one the direct link to your Google review page with one line: "Would you mind saying what we did and where? It really helps." Then make it a habit and ask every customer on the day the job finishes. Ask everyone, not just the ones you think were happy: Google's rules don't allow you to pick only the customers likely to leave good reviews. Never pay or offer anything in return for a review.

U is for User experience

Your website has one job when someone lands on it: confirm, fast, that you do the thing they need in the place they need it.

Many customers will meet your site on a phone, often standing in a hallway looking at the problem. Fancy design matters far less than clarity. People say don't judge a book by its cover. Your customers will, within seconds.

Score yourself

  • 2 points: works properly on a phone, loads quickly, and says your services and areas in plain text on the page
  • 1 point: two of those three
  • 0 points: one or none

To check, open your site on your phone using mobile data, not Wi-Fi. Can you tell what you do and where within five seconds? Can you read it without pinching the screen? Did you find yourself waiting? If you want a number, Google's free PageSpeed Insights tool gives you a mobile score.

Ask yourself

  • Does my homepage say my trade and my main areas in words, not just in a logo or a photo?
  • Could a stranger see which services I offer without opening a menu?
  • When did I last look at my own website on my own phone?

Fix this week: rewrite the first line people see on your homepage so it says exactly what you do and where. "Emergency plumber covering Bromley, Beckenham and Orpington" beats "Quality you can trust" every time. Google and the AI tools read that line too, so it helps your F and D scores as well.

N is for Next-step conversion

N is where local businesses lose the most work without noticing, because by this point the customer has already picked you. They just can't get through.

Most owners think they have a leads problem. Most of them have a follow-up problem. The call you miss at 7pm doesn't leave a voicemail. It rings the next name on the list. Strike while the iron is hot, and a customer with water coming through the ceiling is the hottest iron there is.

Score yourself

  • 2 points: a tap-to-call link, plus WhatsApp or a contact form, plus your phone number visible without scrolling on a phone
  • 1 point: two of those three
  • 0 points: one or none

Exercise: mystery-shop yourself

  1. On your phone, find your business the way a customer would. Count the taps until you can ring yourself.
  2. Call your own number at 7pm on a weekday. Note what happens: a person, a voicemail, a text, or nothing.
  3. Fill in your own contact form. Time how long it takes for anyone to reply.
  4. If you offer WhatsApp, message yourself and time that too.

Write each answer down. If you wouldn't wait that long, neither will they.

Ask yourself

  • How many calls did I miss last month, and how many did I return within the hour? Do I actually know?
  • Is my phone number a tappable link, or just text on the page?
  • What does a customer get when I'm up a ladder?

Fix this week: set up a missed-call text-back. Anyone you can't answer gets an instant message: "Sorry I missed you, I'm on a job. What do you need and where are you? I'll call you back within the hour." Many business phone systems and apps can do this. It's a small system that saves work you'd otherwise never know you lost.

D is for Digital authority

D asks whether the wider internet knows you exist and agrees on who you are. That now includes the AI tools your customers ask for recommendations.

In the same US survey, BrightLocal found 45% of consumers use ChatGPT or similar tools for local business recommendations. Being on the map doesn't guarantee you get named. In its study of 200,000 local AI searches, Google Maps mentioned a tracked business in 66% of searches, while the AI tools managed 32 to 38%. AI builds its answer from what it reads about you everywhere: your website, your Google profile, directories, reviews and mentions. With AI, your reputation really does precede you.

Score yourself

  • 2 points: named by at least two of ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity when asked to "recommend a [your trade] in [your area]", and listed on two or more trusted directories such as Checkatrade, Yell, Trustpilot, Which? Trusted Traders or Bark
  • 1 point: one of the two
  • 0 points: neither

To check, ask each AI tool the question three times, because the answers change. Then ask each one, "What do you know about [your business name]?" and note what it gets wrong or leaves out.

Ask yourself

  • Are my business name, address, phone number and list of areas exactly the same everywhere they appear?
  • Which directories do customers in my trade actually use, and am I on them?
  • Has anyone outside my business written about me: local press, a supplier, a trade body?

Fix this week: pick the two directories that matter most in your trade. Claim or create your listings and copy your description word for word from your website, so every source tells the same story. Then claim your Bing Places listing too: OpenAI names Bing as one of the search providers behind ChatGPT's answers.

Score yourself in 20 minutes

You don't need any tools for this, just your phone and some honesty.

  1. Pick one search. Your main trade plus the area you most want work from, for example "plumber Beckenham". Write it down.
  2. Run it four ways. Google Maps, a normal Google search, ChatGPT and Gemini. Screenshot each one.
  3. Score F and D from what you see.
  4. Open your Google profile. Count your reviews, note your rating and the date of your last review. Score O.
  5. Open your website on your phone, on mobile data. Score U.
  6. Mystery-shop yourself. Score N.
  7. Add it up and circle your lowest letter. That's next month's job.

Then do something most owners never do: score the business that beat you in step two. You'll see exactly what they have that you don't, and it's rarely what you expected.

Letter Your score (0 to 2) What you found One fix
F Findability
O Online reputation
U User experience
N Next-step conversion
D Digital authority
Total out of 10

Put a reminder in your calendar to score yourself again in three months. What gets measured gets managed.

How I use FOUND

Every episode of Who Gets the Job? starts with one question: if I needed this service, in this area, right now, who gets the job? I search the way a real customer does, find who shows up most, and give them a FOUND Score. The rankings are the hook. The score explains why they're winning, and what the business that should be winning is missing.

I hold my own business to the same standard. When I run Could I Beat Them?, All Well gets the same test as everyone else, weak letters included. It would be a strange framework if I only used it on other people.

FOUND is also where every audit starts at SEO Pages. So you have two ways in:

  • Do it yourself with the 20-minute exercise above.
  • Or let me run it. The free FOUND Score audit does the searches for you and sends your score with the evidence behind each letter.

Or just comment your trade and area on Instagram, and I'll search yours next.

Seek and ye shall find. Your customers are already seeking. FOUND is how you make sure the business they find, trust and call is yours.

Sources