Inside a Zome AI report: a walkthrough

The free AI report scans a home service business's real online presence, scores it out of 100 and lists what to fix, in order. This walkthrough goes through every section of one report so you know what each part means before you run your own. The business in it is an example: a made-up plumbing company in a made-up city, with made-up numbers. The checks, the scoring rules and the way the report is laid out are real.

What you're looking at

The example business

Imagine a two-truck plumbing company. We'll call it Example Plumbing Co., based in a city we'll call Springfield. The owner runs the report with four pieces of information:

• Business name: Example Plumbing Co., picked from the Google search suggestions that appear as you type
• Website: their homepage address
• City: Springfield
• Trade: Plumbing

There is also an optional box for average job value. The owner enters $400, which is their rough average ticket. That number is only used for one section, which we'll get to.

What the report actually checks

In about a minute, the report does three things at once:

• It scans the homepage. It loads the homepage, checks whether the plain http address forwards to the secure one, and looks for a robots.txt file and a sitemap. It does not follow links or crawl other pages.
• It asks Google PageSpeed Insights to test the homepage on a simulated phone, for speed, search basics and accessibility.
• It looks up the business on Google. It finds the Google Business Profile, then runs a search for the trade in the city (here, "plumber in Springfield") and looks at the top 20 results.

Every number in the report comes from one of those measurements or from what the owner typed in. When something can't be measured, the check is marked as skipped, left out of the score and explained in the notes at the bottom. Nothing is guessed.

How the report is laid out

A finished report has these parts:

1. A score card with the total score and three category scores
2. A written summary with the top three fixes
3. "Who's beating you on Google": the businesses ranking above you
4. "What this could be costing you": only if you entered a job value
5. The list of issues, sorted by impact
6. "What's already working": the checks you passed
7. "About this report": notes on what was and wasn't checked

We'll go through them in a slightly different order, starting with the score and the checks behind it, because everything else builds on those.

The score card

Alongside the main report is a card with the business name, its Google address and rating, and a big gauge showing the total score. For Example Plumbing Co.:

Below the categories, a small box shows 6th: "Your position in the Google results we checked for your trade and area."

How the numbers are worked out

Each category is made of individual checks, and each check is worth a set number of points. The category score is the points earned divided by the points possible, scaled to the category's maximum. The total adds the categories together.

Grades use the same thresholds everywhere, on the total and on each category's percentage:

Search results earned 23 of 40 points, which is 57.5%, so it's Fair. Reviews & listings earned 14 of 20, which is 70%, so it's Good.

What happens when something can't be checked

In this example, every check ran, so all 100 points were measured. In real reports that isn't always true. If Google PageSpeed can't test a site, for example, the speed check is skipped and removed from both the points earned and the points possible, so the category is scored only on what could be measured. If a whole category has no data, such as when no Google profile is found, the category shows "Not checked" and the total is rescaled to 100 from the categories that do have data. A note at the bottom always says when this happened.

Search results (40 points)

This category asks: when someone searches for a plumber in Springfield, does Google have what it needs to show Example Plumbing Co., and does the business actually show up? It has 11 checks. Nine read the homepage and PageSpeed's search score; the last two come from Google.

What each result means for this business

Your page title doesn't tell Google enough. The homepage title is "Home | Example Plumbing Co.", 27 characters. The title check gives a point each for having a title, a sensible length (20 to 65 characters), mentioning the trade and naming the city. It mentions plumbing but not Springfield, so it scores 3 of 4. The suggested fix is a title along the lines of "Plumber in Springfield | Example Plumbing Co.".

No search description. There's no meta description, so Google picks text from the page to show under the title. The fix is one or two sentences, 70 to 170 characters, saying what you do, where and why to call.

Your main headline doesn't say what you do. The homepage has one H1, "Welcome to Our Website". Having exactly one is good; not mentioning plumbing costs a point.

No local business details for Google. The homepage has no structured data (schema) telling Google this is a plumbing business with a specific address and phone number. Full marks need local business JSON-LD, such as the Plumber type, that includes both address and telephone.

Your homepage doesn't mention Springfield. The page says "Proudly serving the surrounding area" but never names the city. Service-area wording earns 2 of 3; naming the city earns full marks.

Your services could be clearer. The homepage mentions several services customers search for, like drain cleaning, water heaters and leaks, but links to only one service page. Full marks need at least four service terms and at least two links to service pages.

Google is allowed to list your site. No "noindex" tag and nothing in robots.txt blocking Google. This is a pass, and it matters: when this check fails, it can hide the whole site.

No sitemap found. There's a robots.txt file but no sitemap at the usual addresses. Worth 1 of 2.

Some search basics are missing. PageSpeed gave the homepage 83 out of 100 for search basics, which lands in the 70 to 89 band.

You're on Google Maps. The profile was found and is marked as open. Full marks.

You're #6 on Google, outside the top 3. In the "plumber in Springfield" search, Example Plumbing Co. came up 6th of 20. Positions 1 to 3 earn all 8 points; 4 to 10 earn 4.

Website experience (40 points)

This category asks: once a customer lands on the homepage, especially on a phone, can they trust the business and get in touch easily? It has 10 checks.

What each result means for this business

No tap-to-call phone number. The phone number is in the header, but as plain text, not a tap-to-call link. On a phone, a customer has to copy it by hand. The report says it saw a number but that it isn't tappable. The fix is to make it a tap-to-call link in the header of every page. This is a five-minute job for most web designers.

Quote button, but no form on the homepage. There's a "Get a Quote" button that goes to another page. Because the report only scans the homepage, it can't confirm there's a working form behind the button, so this is a warning rather than a pass. A short form on the homepage, or a "book online" link to a booking page, would earn full marks.

Very slow on phones. PageSpeed gave the homepage 46 out of 100 for mobile performance, and the main content took 6.2 seconds to appear on a test phone. Google's published "good" threshold for that measurement, Largest Contentful Paint, is 2.5 seconds. Scores from 25 to 49 earn 2 of 8 points. The usual fixes are compressing and resizing photos, removing unused plugins and asking the host about caching.

Few trust signals. The page says "licensed" and "insured", which counts as two kinds of trust signal. There are no reviews or testimonials on the page, no guarantee wording and no mention of how long the business has been going. Three or more kinds earns full marks.

Link previews are incomplete. The page sets a preview title for when someone texts or posts the link, but no preview image.

What passed: the site is on https and the plain address forwards to it; it's set up for phone screens; the server responded quickly; the HTML is a reasonable size; and 11 of 12 images have descriptions (alt text).

Reviews & listings (20 points)

This category looks only at the Google Business Profile: the rating, the number of reviews compared with competitors, hours, photos and the website link. It has 5 checks.

What each result means for this business

Strong 4.7-star rating. Anything at 4.5 or above earns full marks.

Far fewer reviews than the competition. Example Plumbing Co. has 38 Google reviews. The review check doesn't compare you with an industry number. It compares you with the median review count of the top five other businesses in the same ranking search. Here, those five have 212, 140, 98, 112 and 87 reviews, so the median is 112. At or above the median earns 5 points; at least half of it earns 3; below half earns 1. At 38, Example Plumbing Co. is below half of 112, so it earns 1.

This is often the most useful number in the report, because it tells you what "enough reviews" looks like in your own market, today. The fix is a steady routine, not a one-time push: ask for a review at the end of every job, by text, with your direct review link.

Your hours are on Google. Regular hours are listed.

Only a few photos on Google. The profile has 4 photos. Ten or more earns full marks. Google's data only reports up to 10, so 10 means "10 or more". The fix is photos of the team, the vans and finished jobs.

Your Google profile links to your website. The profile's website matches the site that was scanned.

If the profile can't be found

If the report can't find a Google Business Profile for the business, the Google Business Profile check fails, the ranking check fails if the ranking search ran, and the other five Google checks are skipped. The whole Reviews & listings category would then show "Not checked". In that case, the first fix is obvious: claim or create the profile. When you run your own report, picking your business from the search suggestions as you type helps the report find the right profile.

Who's beating you on Google

This section shows the businesses ranking for your trade in your city, based on a Google search for "plumber in Springfield". It lists the top five, plus your own business if you rank lower.

In a real report, you see the actual public names, ratings and review counts of the businesses Google returned. We've used placeholders here because this is an example.

How to read it

• Rating alone doesn't decide the order. Example Plumbing Co. has a better rating than three of the businesses above it. Google weighs many things, including how relevant a business looks for the search, how close it is and how well known it is, which Google calls prominence. Review count and activity are part of that picture.
• Look at the gap, not just the position. The businesses in positions 1 to 5 all have more than twice as many reviews as Example Plumbing Co. That points to reviews as a place to focus, alongside the website fixes.
• It's one search, from one place. The ranking comes from a Google Places search for "plumber in Springfield". That is close to what a customer sees on Google Maps, but not identical, because what each person sees depends on where they are, their device and exactly what they typed. The notes at the bottom of every report say so.

If you aren't in the top 20 at all, the report says that too, and the ranking check scores zero. If you don't enter a city, or Google returns no businesses for the search, the ranking check is skipped instead.

What this could be costing you

This section only appears if you enter an average job value. It is deliberately simple and conservative, and it uses no market statistics.

How the estimate works

The report looks for five problems that can directly stop a customer from getting in touch:

• no tap-to-call phone number
• no quote form or online booking
• a site that isn't set up for phones
• a very slow mobile site
• a "Not secure" browser warning

Only failed checks count. Warnings don't. The assumption is that each of these problems costs you one job a month, and the formula is:

Estimated monthly value = your average job value × number of failed contact problems

The example

Example Plumbing Co. failed two of the five: no tap-to-call link and a very slow mobile site. Its quote button was a warning, not a fail, so it doesn't count. With the owner's $400 average job value:

$400 × 2 = about $800 a month

The report shows it with this kind of wording: "Rough estimate, not a prediction: if each of the 2 contact problems we found (no tap-to-call phone number and a very slow mobile site) costs you just one $400 job a month, that's about $800 a month. Your real number could be lower or higher."

Treat it as a way to put the fixes in perspective, not as a forecast. If no contact problems fail, the report says so and doesn't estimate anything. If you leave the job value blank, it lists the problems and invites you to add a value next time.

The summary and the order of fixes

At the top of the main column is a written summary: a headline, two or three short paragraphs and a "Fix these first" list with the top three fixes.

Where the summary comes from

The summary is usually written by AI from the structured findings only: the scores, the top issues and their fixes, the passing checks, the Google rating and ranking, the top three competitors' public details and the notes. It is told to use only those findings and never to invent numbers, rankings, reviews or competitor names. Every number in the AI's answer is checked against the findings, and if anything doesn't match, or the AI isn't available, a rules-based summary is used instead.

For Example Plumbing Co., the rules-based version would read like this:

• Headline: "Example Plumbing Co. has a start online, but 16 issues are likely costing you calls."
• Paragraph 1: You scored 61 out of 100 (Fair). Your strongest area is reviews & listings (14/20) and your weakest is search results (23/40).
• Paragraph 2: The most important thing to fix is that the site is very slow on phones, with the details from that check, followed by a note that 15 other things are listed below in order of importance.
• Paragraph 3: When we searched Google for "plumber in Springfield", you came up #6. The top result, Plumber A, has 4.8 stars from 212 reviews.

How the issues are ordered

The issues list shows every failed or warning check, 16 in this example, grouped by category. The order of importance is set by two rules: first by impact (high, then medium, then low), then by points lost. For Example Plumbing Co., that gives:

The "Fix these first" list takes the fixes for the top three: speed up the mobile site, add a tap-to-call link in the header, and work on what moves the ranking (recent reviews, complete profile details, and a website that names the town and services).

Reading it like an owner

The order is a starting point. You know things the report doesn't, such as which fixes your web designer can do this week. In this example, several issues are quick website edits: the tap-to-call link, a search description, local business schema, a clearer headline and a sitemap. If those five were fixed and nothing else changed, the scoring rules would move Example Plumbing Co. from 61 to 74, from Fair to Good. That's the arithmetic of the score, not a promise of more calls. The slower work, collecting reviews steadily and adding photos, is what closes the gap with the businesses above it.

What the report doesn't cover, and what to do next

Limits worth knowing

• Homepage only. The report scans the homepage, robots.txt and a sitemap. It doesn't check your service pages, location pages or blog. A strong service page elsewhere on your site won't show up in the score.
• One search, one moment. The ranking and the competitor list come from a single Google search at the time you ran the report. Run it again in a few weeks and some positions may change.
• Only public information. The report doesn't log into your Google profile, your website or any other account. It can't see your calls, your leads or your bookings.
• Sites that block automated checks. If your site blocks automated visitors, the report says so plainly instead of making up results.
• Nothing is stored. Reports are built on the spot and not saved. The report ID is a random reference, not a record in a database.

Use it as a checklist

The simplest way to use a report is to work through the issues from the top, fix what you can, then run it again to confirm the checks now pass. For the search and Google profile fixes, our plumber's SEO guide and the home service SEO bible go deeper, and the Google Business Profile checklist covers every profile setting.

Run your own

Your report will look different: different checks will pass and fail, and the competitor list will show the real businesses in your area. You can run the free Zome AI report on your own business. It takes about a minute, and you don't need to create an account to see the results.