What a septic service website needs: pages, words and photos

A septic service website mostly serves two kinds of visitors: a homeowner with a problem right now, and a homeowner who knows a pumping is due and wants to book it. The first needs a phone number they can tap within a second. The second wants to know your area, what a visit involves and how to get on the schedule. Build the site around those two, add the details your crew needs before they roll the truck, and you have most of what a septic company site should do.

Who is looking, and what they check

Septic customers are mostly rural and suburban homeowners, many of them older, plus people who just bought a house with a tank they have never seen. They check:

Do you come out to my road, my township, my county?
Can you come today if it is an emergency?
Do you pump, inspect, repair, or all three?
Do I need to find and dig up the lid myself?
Are you licensed by the state or county?
Roughly what does a pumping cost, and what changes it?

New homeowners also want basic orientation: where the tank probably is, how often it needs pumping, what not to flush. A short, friendly answer to those wins customers for years.

The pages to have

Home. A headline with what you do and where ("Septic pumping, inspections and repairs across Polk and Marion counties"). Right under it, a large phone button and a clear line for emergencies: "Backup or overflow? Call now, we answer around the clock" if you do, or your real hours if you do not. Then a "Schedule a pumping" button and a short list of services.

Services. Pumping, inspections, repairs, riser and lid installation, tank locating, drain field evaluation and repair, line jetting, new system installation if you do it. A few lines each. The guide on pumping, inspections and emergencies covers how to explain the main three in more depth.

Service area. List counties and towns. In rural areas, people also think in terms of roads and landmarks, so it can help to say "north to the river, east to Route 9". The guide on service area pages has more ideas.

What to expect on a visit. See below.

About. Family-run? How long? How many trucks? Your state or county license and any certification for inspections or installs. Rural customers often choose the company their neighbors use, so local roots are worth a line.

Reviews. Short ones from local customers, with a link to your Google reviews.

Contact and scheduling. Phone, email and a request form.

A "what to expect" section saves you calls

Many homeowners have never had a tank pumped and do not know what will happen. Write it out:

Finding the tank. If you know where the lid is, tell us. If not, we can locate it using the house plumbing and a probe. County records sometimes show it too.
Uncovering the lid. Many tanks have lids below the ground. Say whether you dig, whether there is an extra charge for digging, and whether the homeowner can uncover it ahead of time to save.
Pumping. The truck needs to park within a certain distance of the tank. Say how far your hose reaches and what to do if the tank is behind a fence or across a soft lawn.
A look inside. We check the inlet and outlet baffles and the level of the liquid, and tell you if anything looks wrong.
Paperwork. You get a record of the pumping with the date and anything we noticed. Some counties want this filed.

That last step is useful for the homeowner later, when they sell or when the county asks.

The request form: ask what your crew needs

A good scheduling form gets the details your dispatcher would otherwise call back for:

Name, phone, email
Property address, and directions if the address is hard to find
Is this a backup or emergency? Yes or no
Tank size, if known
When it was last pumped, if known
Do you know where the lid is? Yes, roughly, no
Gate codes, locked gates, dogs on the property
Anything else: a home sale date, a recent addition to the house

Put a line on the form for emergencies: "If sewage is backing up into the house, please call us instead of filling in this form." The guide on contact forms that people actually fill in has more on keeping it short.

Photos: honest without being gross

Septic work does not lend itself to glamorous pictures, and nobody wants to see what is inside a tank. Photos that work:

Your trucks, clean and with the company name, parked at a farmhouse or a suburban home.
Your crew, in uniform, at work with the hose or a locator.
Risers and lids after installation, neat and level with the lawn.
Excavation for repairs or installs, which shows equipment and skill.
Your yard or office, if you have one, so people know you are a real local business.

Skip anything that shows sewage. Stock photos of generic plumbing look out of place on a septic site; use your own.

What to leave out

Long technical sections on how anaerobic bacteria break down waste. A sentence is plenty.
Products you do not stand behind. Many homeowners ask about septic additives. If you have a view, say it briefly and honestly rather than selling something you would not use.
Alarming photos or warnings. People calling about a backup are already worried.
Prices that are years out of date. If you list a typical pumping range, keep it current and say what changes it: tank size, digging, distance.

Make the phone number impossible to miss

For septic work, the phone is the main channel. Make sure:

The number is at the top of every page as a tappable link, large enough for an older thumb.
Your hours and emergency availability sit right next to it.
If calls go to voicemail after hours, your greeting says when you call back.
The same number appears on your Google Business Profile, your trucks and your site.

What to do before the next busy spell

Write your "what to expect" steps, including how you find and uncover lids.
List your counties and towns clearly.
Put your license number in the footer.
Photograph your trucks and your next riser install.
Make the request form ask about tank size, last pumping, lid location and gates.

If your current site does not say most of this or is hard to use on a phone, you can see your site rebuilt first and decide when you have looked at it.