Local search is a terms that describes a search on the internet that provides results that are relevant to a particular geographic area.  Local search can be an important part of the marketing mix for a solo lawyer or small law firm.  The most recent statistics I’ve seen report that 30% of all searches are local in nature (meaning they involve a local customer looking for a local merchant) and 70% of U.S. households use the web to help them make their decision when buying a product or service locally.  That is an astounding number to me and has important implications for lawyer marketing.

There are several sites that support local search queries.  Some allow free listings, some charge a fee and most will provide a free listing and offer some enhanced services or placement for a fee.  You should at least make sure that your firm is listed in the Google and Yahoo local directories (note this is different from being in their search engine index).   Here are the sign-in pages for the Google and Yahoo local directories and several other of the more popular local search engines.

Google Local
Yahoo Local 
Superpages
Yellowpages.com
Local.com
Judy’s Book
TrueLocal

If you have your own favorite local search engines, please tell us about it in the comments section.  And, if you found this post to be helpful, I’d really appreciate it if you do any or all of the following: subscribe to our feed, blog about this post on your blog, and/or tag it with the social bookmark sites above.  Thanks!