More and more people are turning to the Internet to search for local businesses.  I can’t remember the last time I used the telephone book (it is buried in a drawer somewhere afterall) to find a business in my area.  It’s easier to just go on the computer and type “dry cleaners Sarasota.”   Guess what?  One top search result quickly led me to 67 locations and telephone numbers WITH a map button to click on in case I didn’t recognize the address as being around the corner.

It isn’t any different for law firms.  Enter “employment lawyer (your city)” “bankruptcy lawyer (your city)” etc. and see what happens.  Needless to say tons of results – some paid for ads, and others not – come up.  I’m sure many of you already know this.

The reason I bring it up today, is that I ran across a post by John Jantsch at Duct Tape Marketing about not being left behind in the local search engine game.

I’m not in the habit of endorsing others’ products on this blog, but John is offering a service for an annual fee of $149 whereby you complete a simple profile form that he submits to “most of the local search engines and directories” for you.  But, if you look at his profile link he lists the major players in local searches so you could submit your own profile (see John’s example).  However, there may be an advantage to using someone like John who is familiar with the process and houses it on his highly ranked site.

In any event, you should look into how to increase your legal marketing visibility in the local search engine game.