How to Get Your Business Found Online in Grand Forks, North Dakota
Grand Forks is a tight-knit city of about 59,000 people, anchored by the University of North Dakota and a strong base of healthcare, agriculture, and manufacturing. Whether you run a coffee shop near the downtown area, a landscaping service on South Washington, or a repair shop serving the surrounding farms, your customers are searching online for what you offer. But here’s the problem: most small businesses in Grand Forks are invisible on Google.
Why? Because many owners assume that having a website or a Facebook page is enough. It’s not. Google ranks businesses based on a handful of simple signals. If you’re not sending those signals, your competitors—or big-box stores—will show up first. The good news? You can fix this yourself with a few straightforward steps.
1. Set up and complete your Google Business Profile
This is the single most important thing you can do. Go to Google Business Profile (it used to be called Google My Business) and claim your listing. Fill in every field: your exact address, phone number, hours, and a short description of what you do. Add photos of your storefront, your team, and your products. Google uses this information to decide if your business is real and relevant. If your profile is incomplete, you’re telling Google you don’t care—and it won’t show you to searchers.
2. Ask for reviews (and respond to them)
Reviews are like votes of confidence. When a customer leaves a positive review, Google notices. It tells the search engine that people like doing business with you. So ask every happy customer to leave a review on your Google profile. And when you get one—good or bad—respond to it. Thank the person for their feedback. This shows you’re active and attentive, which Google rewards.
3. Make sure your website works on a phone
Most searches in Grand Forks happen on phones. If your site takes more than a few seconds to load, or if the text is too small to read, people will leave. Google tracks this and will rank you lower. You don’t need a fancy redesign. Just check that your site is “mobile-friendly” using Google’s free testing tool. If it’s not, talk to your web developer or switch to a simple, responsive template.
4. Use local keywords naturally
When someone in Grand Forks searches for “plumber” or “pizza,” Google looks for those words on your site. So mention “plumber in Grand Forks” or “pizza delivery near UND” in your page titles, headings, and descriptions. Don’t stuff keywords in awkwardly. Just write naturally about what you offer and where you serve. That’s enough.
What about backlinks? (Explained simply)
Backlinks are links from other websites to yours. Think of them as referrals. If a trusted site like the Grand Forks Herald or a local chamber of commerce links to your business page, Google sees that as a sign that you’re worth knowing about. The more quality backlinks you have, the higher you’ll rank. But getting them isn’t easy for a busy small business owner. That’s where we come in.
How BacklinkUSA.com can help
We publish articles about local businesses on high-authority websites. Those articles include links back to your site, which helps Google see you as a trusted resource. If you’d like us to do that for your Grand Forks business, visit BacklinkUSA.com and let’s talk.