SEO for Excavation and Septic

By Ashley Christian, Chief Executive Officer Published January 23, 2026 Updated March 4, 2026

How to optimize your website for the keywords that are most important for your particular busines

How Search Engines “Scout” Your Business

To win the organic (free) rankings on Google, you have to understand how the search engine scans your website. It’s a process of Crawling, Indexing, and Ranking.

The Digital Site Visit: Crawling & Indexing

Google uses digital bots to constantly scan the internet. Think of these bots like a site inspector. They visit your website to see what you’re about. Once they scan your site, they store that data in a massive filing cabinet called the Index.

When a landowner in your area searches for “pond builder near me,” Google doesn’t search the whole internet in real-time; it searches its Index for pages that have:

The right keywords (e.g., pond construction, site grading).
High-quality content (photos of your work, clear service descriptions).
Local relevance (evidence that you actually work in their specific town).

What Happens When a Customer Searches?

When a potential client types a query into Google, the algorithm goes to work to find the most relevant “crew” for the job. Google’s algorithm isn’t a secret, but it is complex. It looks at:The Search Query: Are they looking for “dirt for sale” or “septic system install”?
Location: If you’re an excavator in Texas, Google won’t show you to someone in Maine.
The Device: Is the customer on a job site using a phone, or at home on a desktop?

The Blueprint for Page One Success

Getting your company into the Organic Section (the free listings below the ads) comes down to two core factors:

On-Page Optimization (The Foundation): You must tell Google exactly what you do and where you do it. You do this by creating dedicated pages for every service you offer. Instead of one “Services” page, you need a road building page, a Land Clearing page, and a grading page—all optimized for [Your City] + [Service].
Authority & Transparency (The Reputation): Google won’t put you on page one just because you have a website. You have to prove you’re the most credible choice. This is done through backlinks (other local businesses or industry sites linking to yours), Citations (your name, address, and phone number listed consistently across the web), and Reviews.

The Golden Rule: The contractor with the most credible links, the best local citations, and the highest volume of 5-star reviews is going to win the top spot.

Don’t Start Digging Without a Plan

Before you start adding pages to your site, you need to know which keywords actually have enough search volume—meaning people are actually typing them in.

If you optimize for “Hydrostatic Earth Displacement” but everyone in your town is searching for “Trenching,” your phone won’t ring. We conduct detailed market research to find the optimal keywords that high-value customers use when they are ready to sign a contract.

In the next section, I’ll show you the exact methodology for selecting the most relevant keywords for your excavation business so you can drive the right traffic to your site.

How to Conduct Keyword Research

To determine what your customers are searching for when they need your services, there are a number of tools that can be used to conduct keyword research. Some are free of charge while others have a monthly cost associated with them. Some of the better keyword research tools include Ahrefs, Google Ads Keyword Planner and SEM Rush.

To use the Google Ads Keyword Planner, you first enter your most obvious keywords and your service area. Then, Google will give you a very rough estimate of the searches for that keyword in the target area and provide a suggestion of related keywords and their traffic.

You now have a list of the most commonly searched keywords in your area.

With this list, you can map out keywords to specific pages on your website and rest assured that you are basing your strategy on opportunity rather than a guesstimate.

To dominate the search results in the dirt world, you have to stop thinking like a general contractor and start thinking like your customers. They aren’t searching for “construction”—they are searching for specific solutions to their land and waste-water problems.

Below are the most commonly searched keywords for the Excavation, Septic, and Site Prep industries. At Groundbreaker Marketing, we’ve analyzed the data to show you exactly what terms drive the highest value calls.

Most Searched Excavation & Grading Keywords

When people need dirt moved, they use specific terms. If your website only says “Excavation,” you are missing out on thousands of searches for “Grading” or “Land Clearing.”

Keyword	Est. Monthly Searches (US)
Excavation contractors near me	165,000
Grading contractor	22,200
Land clearing services	40,500
Earthwork companies	9,900
Trenching services	8,100
Foundation digging	5,400
Driveway grading	6,600
Dirt work near me	12,100
Bulldozer services	4,400
Site preparation	3,600

**The Strategy:**To rank on page one, create dedicated pages or blog posts using these combinations:

[Your City] + Excavation Contractor
[Your City] + Land Clearing
[Your City] + Grading Services
[Your City] + Foundation Digging

Most Searched Septic & Sewer Keywords

Septic leads are some of the highest-converting in the industry because they are often “emergency” or “necessity” buys. You want to be the first one they see when the alarm goes off.

Keyword	Est. Monthly Searches (US)
Septic tank installation	60,500
Septic repair near me	49,500
Septic system design	14,800
Perc test contractors	9,900
Septic tank replacement	12,100
Leach field repair	8,100
Septic inspection	27,100
Sewer line repair	33,100
Septic pumping (if applicable)	110,000
Drain field installation	5,400

**The Strategy:**Use these “high-intent” combinations for your service pages:

[Your City] + Septic Tank Installation
[Your City] + Septic System Repair
[Your City] + Perc Test
[Your City] + Sewer Line Replacement

Most Searched Site Prep & Specialized Dirt Work

These keywords target builders, developers, and larger residential projects. These are the “big fish” jobs.

Keyword	Est. Monthly Searches (US)
Site prep contractors	18,100
Demolition services	40,500
Pond construction	12,100
Retention pond cleaning	3,600
Culvert installation	2,900
Forestry mulching	14,800
Commercial excavation	5,400
Bush hogging services	9,900

**The Strategy:**Build authority by targeting these specific project types:

[Your City] + Site Prep
[Your City] + Pond Builders
[Your City] + Forestry Mulching
[Your City] + Demolition Company

Building Your Digital Foundation: Scaling with SEO Pages

In the excavation and site prep business, you know that a solid foundation is everything. The same applies to your website. Most contractors make the mistake of building a small footprint site that only has 5 or 6 pages: Home, About, Our Services, Gallery, and Contact.

The problem? That only gives Google 5 or 6 chances to find you. Think of your website like a fishing boat: SEO pages are like putting fishing lines in the water. If you only have one line out, your chances of a bite are slim. But the more lines you place properly, the better chance you’ll have of catching a great, high-dollar contract.

Step 1 – Cast More Lines with Service Pages

Most excavation companies offer a wide range of specialized services. Instead of burying them all on one “Services” page, you need to build out individual SEO pages for each. This allows Google to index you for specific, high-value keyword combinations.

When you combine your service with a City Modifier, you’re dropping a line exactly where the big fish are biting. Here is how a “Heavy Duty” website structure looks:

Core Pages: Home – About – Equipment/Gallery – Contact – Request a Quote
Specific SEO “Fishing Lines”:Septic System Installation [Your City]
Land Clearing & Grubbing [Your City]
Basement & Foundation Excavation [Your City]
Driveway Grading & Culvert Install [Your City]
Pond Construction [Your City]

Step 2 – Claim Your Territory (The Sub-City Strategy)

You likely don’t just work in one town; you serve a 50 to 100-mile radius or even further if the job is big enough. If you only mention your main city, your “fishing lines” are all stuck in one small pond. To land the big contracts in surrounding suburbs and counties, you need dedicated SEO pages for those locations.

To rank in those cities, these dedicated landing pages signal to Google that you are the local authority in those areas. This expands your reach so that when a developer or homeowner searches for “Excavator in [Neighboring Town],” your company is the one they see—not the guy across the street.

The “Service Area” Expansion Example:

Main Service: Septic Tank Replacement
Location-Specific SEO Pages:Septic Tank Replacement [Town A]
Septic Tank Replacement [Town B]
Septic Tank Replacement [Town C]

By building out these specific SEO pages, you aren’t just on the internet, you are strategically placing lines across your entire service area. You stop being a generalist and start being the local expert for every service you provide, ensuring you’re the first one called when a high-value project goes out for bid.

Step 3 – Optimize Pages for Search Engines:

Once the pages and sub-pages are built for each of your core services, each page needs to be optimized from an SEO perspective in order to make the search engines understand what the page is about.

Here are some of the most important items that need to be taken care of for on-page search engine optimization:

Unique Title Tag on each page
H1 Tag restating that Title Tag on each page
Images named with primary keywords
URL containing page keyword
Anchor Text on each page and built into Footer
XML Sitemap should be created and submitted to Google Webmaster Tools and Bing Webmaster Tools

How to Build Up Website Authority

Once the pages are built and the “on-page” SEO is complete, the next step is getting inbound links so you can rank on page one for your most important keywords.

Everything we have discussed to this point is sort of like laying the groundwork. The pages need to be in order to even be in the running. However, it is the number of QUALITY inbound links and web references to those pages that is going to determine placement. This is how we bait the hooks.

Building the pages is just the beginning. The only way to get your site to rank above your competition is by having MORE quality inbound links and citations to your site.

Again, if there is any secret sauce to ranking well in the search engines, it really is links and authority. The major caveat? You can’t just use garbage links. You don’t want to just have a thousand links. When I say links, I’m referring to other websites hyper-linking to your website, which I’ll explain a little bit more with specific examples.

Bad or irrelevant links can actually hurt your ranking more than help it. It’s about getting quality, relevant links back to your home page and subpages through content creation and strategic link-building. How do you get the links? Where do you get the links?

Association Links – Be sure that you have a link to your site from any industry associations that you belong to (Ex. Business associations, Chamber of Commerce, Networking Groups, etc.).
Directory Listings – Get your site listed on as many directory type websites as possible (Angi’s List, Yahoo Local Directory, Judy’s Book, Yelp.com, etc.)
Create Interesting Content/Articles – This is probably the #1 source of inbound links. For example, you can write an article about a particular service offering in your industry and push it out to thousands of people through article directory sites that may each contain a link back to a specific page on your site.
Competitive Link Acquisition – This is the process of using a tool like Ahrefs to see what links your top competitors have, and then get those same or similar links pointed back to your website.

**Directory Links –**There’s a number of what I like to call “low-hanging fruit” links.

It all starts with your online directory listings.

Some examples include Google Maps, Yahoo Local, City Search, Yelp.com, Judy’s Book, Best of the Web, Yellow Pages, Hot Frog, Dental Directory, Service Magic, and the list goes on. All of those online listings let you display your company name, address, phone number and a link back to your website. Some of them even allow reviews.

For the most part, adding your business information to those directories is completely free of charge. You want to make sure that you have your company listed on as many of the online directory listings as possible for authoritative linking reasons.

They’re also valuable from the Google Maps optimization perspective because they give you citations which are very important for getting ranked on the map.

A great way to find additional online directories to add your company to would be to run a search in Google for “Your Company Type – Business Directory” or “Your City – Business Directory”. This will give you a great list of potential directory sites to add your company to.

After beginning with online directory listings, you want to look at any associations you’re involved with.

Association Links – I’m assuming you are involved in some type of association, whether it is the national industry association, the local chapter or some other group affiliation.

Visit the websites of those organizations and get listed in the member section. This will give you citations and the opportunity to link back to your website.

**Supplier Sites –**Look at the suppliers you purchase from and try to coordinate a deal with them. Oftentimes, the places where you buy your merchandise will have a section on their website that mentions their value add resellers. You can get a link from those.

**Social Media Profile Links –**The other “low-hanging fruit” links are social media profiles.

Simply from a link-building perspective, you should set up a Facebook page, X account, LinkedIn profile, Google Plus page, Pinterest profile and a YouTube channel and place a link to your website on each.

All of them will allow you to enter your company’s name, address, phone number, a description and, of course, a place to put your website address.

Local Association – Other local associations that you’re involved in. If you’re a member of the Chamber of Commerce, a networking group like BNI (Business Networking International), or if you’re involved with a local charity, find out if they list their members on their websites. Another great place to get links is by typing in your city directory.

**Competitive Link Acquisition –**You might be surprised that if you really tackle these elements and you don’t do any of the other things we have discussed, you will notice that you’ve probably got enough links to outrank your competition in your area.

I want to share some additional thoughts and strategies on how you can accomplish even more from a link building perspective. A very powerful strategy that you can implement is called Competitive Link Acquisition.

The way I like to think of it is that if quantity inbound links are the secret sauce to outranking your competition, and if we could figure out who’s linking to your competition or what links your competition have, and we can get those same or similar links pointed back to your website, then you can outrank them, because at that point you will have more authority.

Competitive link acquisition is the process of figuring out who is in the top position for your most important keywords, reverse engineering their link profile to see what links they have, and getting those same or similar links pointed back to your website. A simple way to do this is just to go to Google.com and type in “your city + your service,” and find out who is in the top few positions.

Let’s take a look at the number one placeholder. He’s there because his website is optimized well and Google knows he should be ranked well based on the quality and quantity of inbound links compared to the competition.

Once you know who he is, you can use a couple of different tools such as Ahrefs to enter their URL, run the report, and get a list of links in return.

So, your number one competitor is competitor.com. Ahrefs spits out a list showing they have 392 inbound links.

He’s got a link from the local Chamber of Commerce
He’s got a link from the PHCC
He’s got a link from an article that he posted in the local newspaper
He’s got a link from the local networking chapter

By analyzing the types of links he has, you can systematically mimic those links and get them pointed back to your website.

Don’t just do this for your first competitor, but also for your second and third and fourth and fifth competitors. By doing this on a consistent basis, you can start to dominate the search engines for your most important keywords.

If you build out your site for your services and sub-services, optimize the pages using SEO best practices and then systematically obtain inbound links, you will start to DOMINATE the search engines for your service-related keywords in your area.

Content Marketing Strategies for Maintaining Relevance

Another highly important factor in SEO is maintaining relevance in your market by adding ongoing relevant updates to your website. In the Internet age, content is king.

Google Loves Fresh Content!

In some cases, with the changes in the algorithm, just because you’ve got a great website with the right title tags and all the best links, you may get discounted if they’re not seeing fresh information posted on a consistent basis.

Google loves fresh content, and it is important to have a methodology where you are creating and posting content to your website on a regular basis. I want to give you a framework for figuring out what kind of content you could write, why you should create content, and how you can do it consistently.

First, you need to understand and accept that you need to become a subject matter expert. You might not consider yourself a writer or a content creator, but you are a subject matter expert.

There are things you know that the general population does not. You’re an expert when it comes to the service you are offering, and you have a team of people who are proficient in this area as well. You can create content on the topic that you know most about.

You may not think it at first, but there are a lot of different topics in your industry you can come up with to create content about.

Types of Content

You should also consider that your content doesn’t have to be just written words. It doesn’t have to be just articles. Content can come in a variety of forms. The most popular are going to be articles, photos, and videos. Stop and think about what content creation method works best for you.

Some people are great writers and that’s their strength. Other people like to be on camera. I personally like to create videos. I’m very comfortable creating videos. Other people can talk (and they can talk your ear off about whatever topic they are passionate about!)

Let’s use video as an example. A business director can set up a camera and record himself explaining the services his company has to offer in the market, in the same manner that he would explain it to a customer.

Now you’ll actually have multiple pieces of content. You’ll have a video, which can be uploaded to YouTube. This one piece of content can create multiple invaluable links to your website.

You can use AI to create a transcription of the video and make it into a written article as well.

Content Consistency

You want to create content on a consistent basis, using the blog on your website as the hub to post it, but then syndicating it to various sources.

Syndicating it to article directory sites if it’s in text form, and sending it to YouTube if it’s in video form. Doing this keeps the content fresh on your website/domain and creates a lot of authority, which is really going to help with the overall ranking of the website on the search engines.

You want to make sure you’re appropriating each one of these link-building opportunities to maximize your rank-potential in your area. You might be surprised that the services you offer are highly competitive from a SEO perspective. There are a lot of companies who want to rank for the same keywords, and many of them have invested heavily into getting themselves higher in the search engines.