Lot grading, sewer lines, paving and teardowns

Name the job and the town

A general contractor grading lots for a subdivision, or a developer prepping a pad, already has someone to call, and public paving work goes out to bid.

Whoever searches is looking for the job, not the trade. A site that says only excavation, with no job types and no towns, does not answer who grades a driveway in Hillsboro or who fixes a yard that floods in Beaverton.

Once a trench is backfilled or a lot is paved, a finished photo cannot show the base or the drainage underneath. A general contractor checking your CCB number sees your endorsement, bond, insurance and complaint history. The endorsement names a type of structure, not a trade, so the site has to say the work. In Washington, only a specialty registration names a trade.

What gets typed into Google and ChatGPT

Someone without your number types questions like these into Google or ChatGPT.

• “Who does excavation and grading for a new ADU in Beaverton?”
• “Who fixes a backyard that floods every winter in Hillsboro?”
• “Who does deconstruction or demolition of an older house in Portland?”
• “Who replaces a sewer line out to the street in Oregon City?”
• “Who paves a driveway or a small parking lot in Vancouver, Washington?”

Five jobs, each named as a job in a town, not as the word excavation.

Where a GC or an owner checks the company

• Oregon CCB. The record shows your endorsement, residential, commercial or both, with your bond, insurance and any complaints, but not a trade. The website has to say excavation, grading or utility work where the record does not.
• Oregon Building Codes Division. Sewer, storm and water line work on private property is plumbing, and it takes a plumbing business license on top of the CCB license. BCD's license search is public, so a buyer can check both.
• Washington L&I. For work in Clark County, the specialty registration is filed under one named trade. The site should use that name, such as excavation, grading and land clearing, demolitions and salvage, paving, striping and seal coating, or utilities and telecommunications.
• City of Portland's certified deconstruction contractors. For a house or duplex built in 1940 or earlier, the demolition permit is not issued until a certified contractor files the city's pre-deconstruction form. The list is public, so an owner can check it before calling you.
• Oregon DEQ's licensed asbestos abatement contractors. Friable asbestos has to come out by a contractor on DEQ's public list, your crew or one you sub to.
• Business Oregon's COBID directory. Public agencies, and the primes bidding their work, search it by work code and location. A certified minority-owned, woman-owned, veteran-owned, emerging small or disadvantaged business shows up in it.
• AGC Oregon-Columbia Chapter. Nearly 750 member companies, heavy highway included, with a public member directory that lists excavation work.
• Northwest Utility Contractors Association. A public contractor directory for utility and excavation contractors in Oregon and Southwest Washington.
• Home Building Association of Greater Portland and the Building Industry Association of Clark County. Both run member directories with excavating, grading, demolition and paving categories, where home builders on either side of the river can look up a sub.
• Asphalt Pavement Association of Oregon. A public directory of Oregon paving contractor members, kept separate from the equipment and material suppliers who also belong.

Finished photos, no towns, no license number

• One page for everything. Excavation, grading, paving, demolition and utility work sharing one page and one form, so a search for driveway grading or a garage teardown has nothing to land on.
• No service area. Strong equipment photos and no list of the towns or counties the crew actually works in, so a search naming Hillsboro or Vancouver has nothing on the page to match.
• Photos of the finished surface only. A paved lot or a graded pad with no photo of the base, the compaction or the drain line before it was covered.
• No license or registration number. Neither the CCB number nor, for Clark County work, the L&I registration, anywhere on the site.
• An endorsement that does not match the jobs on the site. Commercial pads and parking lots on the page and a residential-only CCB endorsement on the record. A general contractor checking the number sees the gap.
• A Portland demolition page that skips deconstruction. Nothing about certification, when the city requires it for houses from 1940 or earlier.

How the report reads for site work

• Who you are. Your CCB or L&I record, the endorsement or specialty it is filed under, your BCD plumbing business license if you do sewer or storm work, and whether they match what your site advertises.
• Site basics. Whether your pages read as text for Google, ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and Perplexity, and whether job photos load fast on a phone.
• Pages for the jobs people search. A page each for excavation, grading, demolition, paving and utility work as you offer them, each naming the towns you cover.
• Google Business Profile. A primary category named for the work, not a general category, with services and service area filled in so they match that work.
• Map results. Where you show for excavation, grading or demolition searches in your towns.
• Search results. Which pages come up for a job like lot grading or a sewer line replacement in your towns, and who holds the first page.
• AI answers. Whether ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity and Google's AI Overview name you for the kind of site work you actually do.
• Reviews. Count, recency, and whether they name the job.
• Listings, associations and brands. One name, phone and address everywhere, including the AGC, NWUCA, HBA or BIA directory if you belong, and COBID if you are certified.
• Phone and estimate form. Whether the bid or estimate form asks the job type, the lot size or linear footage, and the city.

We test from one location on one day, and the report says which, so nobody reads a single check as the whole county.