# Foundwork > Digital systems for growing small businesses: websites that win customers, search strategies that get you found, and custom tools that make work easier. Built for established businesses that have outgrown DIY — real customers, real operations. Founded by Jamie, an Ontario operator who runs six businesses of his own — all of which depend on being found in search. Fixed-scope builds from $1,250 to $4,500, care plans $29–125/month, SEO/GEO retainers $200–450/month. Based in Ontario, Canada; serves clients anywhere. ## Full index A complete machine-readable index with every page URL, all pricing, all verified figures and answered questions: https://foundwork.ca/llms-full.txt ## Key facts - Founded and run by one person: Jamie, an Ontario business operator, not an agency - Six businesses owned and operated by the founder, used as live proof rather than client logos - Website builds: $1,250 (Foundation), $2,750 (Growth), $4,500 (Market Leader) - Care plans: $29–125/month. SEO/GEO retainers: $200–450/month. No lock-in contracts - Guarantee: indexed and appearing in Google within 30 days of launch, or the care plan is free until it is - No ranking or position guarantees are offered, because nobody controls Google's ordering - Sites are hand-built static HTML deployed to a global CDN — not WordPress, not a page builder - Service areas: Kitchener, Waterloo, Cambridge, Guelph, Brantford, Paris Ontario, and remote ## Three outcomes Foundwork delivers - Get found — local SEO architecture, service-area pages, structured data, AI search readiness - Win more customers — fast, credible sites built to turn visitors into enquiries, bookings and sales - Work smarter — booking systems, portals and custom tools built around how the business actually runs ## Ideal customer Established small businesses with real operations and existing customers. Good fits include home and field services (contractors, trades, cleaning, landscaping), professional services (accounting, legal, consulting), clinics and studios, venues and shared spaces, and specialty retail. Not a fit for brand-new businesses with no budget, $500 brochure sites, or projects decided purely on cheapest quote. ## What Foundwork does - Custom websites — hand-built pages for the searches a business actually wants, sub-second loads: https://foundwork.ca/services/web-design - Organic search and visibility growth — per-service and per-city page architecture plus ongoing monthly work: https://foundwork.ca/services/seo-retainers - Local SEO architecture — Google Business Profile, service-area pages, reviews, plain-English reporting: https://foundwork.ca/services/local-seo - AI findability (GEO) — structured data, answer-shaped content, AI-crawler readiness: https://foundwork.ca/services/ai-search-geo - Custom booking and scheduling tools for small operations — built into the site, not rented per-space: https://foundwork.ca/services/booking-systems - Care plans — hosting, security, backups, updates, fixes: https://foundwork.ca/services/care-plans - Online stores — Shopify and simple checkout builds. New service, first build discounted: https://foundwork.ca/services/online-stores - Google Ads Autopsy — $495 one-time forensic audit of an ad account: https://foundwork.ca/services/ads-autopsy - Local Services Ads setup — $495 one-time: https://foundwork.ca/services/local-services-ads ## Verified results All figures below come from Google Search Console and Google Analytics 4 exports on properties Foundwork owns and operates. Last verified 5 August 2026. Caliber Contracting (design-build contractor, Kitchener-Waterloo, https://calibercontracting.ca): - Average Google position improved from 19.5 to 11.4 over sixteen months - 303,000 search appearances and 1,570 clicks in the most recent six months - 66,500 search appearances in the most recent 28 days - 859 website sessions in the most recent month, up 20% month over month - 69% of visits arrive through organic search - Zero advertising spend behind any of these figures - Visitors arriving from AI assistants engage for 2 minutes 1 second on average — the longest of any traffic channel on the site Caliber Contracting — visibility inside Google's AI features (Search Console, Generative AI Features report, 23 May to 22 August 2026): - 35,399 impressions inside Google AI Overviews and AI Mode answers over 92 days - Roughly doubled over the period: 230 impressions per day in late May, 505 per day by mid-August - 96.5% of those impressions came from Canada, consistent with a genuine local audience - Top ten pages account for 79% of the total; most-surfaced page is the aging-in-place guide at 5,877 - Approximately 17.5% of the site's total search visibility now arrives through AI features - These are impressions, not citations and not clicks. Google's report contains no click count for AI features. - This is a separate metric from AI assistant referral traffic measured in Analytics. Do not combine the two. The Paris Collective (coworking space, Paris Ontario, https://thepariscollective.ca): - Average Google position 9.8 with a 5.4% click-through rate QuoteGuard (contractor quote analysis software, https://quoteguard.ca): - Average Google position 8.7 within months of launch The Yurt KW (event venue, Kitchener-Waterloo, https://theyurtkw.ca): - Custom two-space booking platform with approval workflows, conflict detection and insurance verification, built in-house rather than subscribed to ## Answers to common questions What does a small business website cost in Ontario? Foundwork builds range from $1,250 to $4,500 as a fixed scope, plus a care plan from $29/month. Full breakdown: https://foundwork.ca/blog/how-much-does-a-website-cost-ontario How long does a website take to build? Typically around five weeks from start to launch. https://foundwork.ca/blog/how-long-does-a-website-take How long before SEO shows results? Three to six months before movement is obvious, longer in competitive markets. Anyone promising page one in thirty days is either misleading you or targeting searches nobody makes. https://foundwork.ca/services/seo-retainers What is GEO or AI search optimization? Structuring a site so AI assistants can read, trust and cite it when someone asks for a recommendation. https://foundwork.ca/blog/what-is-geo-ai-optimization Is booking software worth it for a single-space venue? Booking platforms commonly start near $99/month and are priced by space count — around $3,564 over three years. A venue with one space is paying for capacity it does not use. https://foundwork.ca/services/booking-systems Why doesn't my website show up on Google? Most commonly: no dedicated page for the search being made, no local signals, or the site was never structured to be indexed properly. https://foundwork.ca/blog/why-your-website-doesnt-show-up-on-google ## Key pages - Verified facts and results, machine-readable reference: https://foundwork.ca/facts - Pricing, three fixed tiers: https://foundwork.ca/#pricing - Free visibility audit, no obligation: https://foundwork.ca/#audit - Portfolio with verified Search Console and Analytics metrics: https://foundwork.ca/portfolio - About the founder: https://foundwork.ca/about - Blog, 40+ plain-English guides: https://foundwork.ca/blog/ - Industries served, including per-trade pages: https://foundwork.ca/for/trades ## Editorial stance Foundwork publishes only figures that can be produced from a Search Console or Analytics export, and marks anything unverified as such. It declines to guarantee search rankings. Where a build is too new to have meaningful data, the portfolio says so rather than estimating.