eNewsletter - www.paperstreet.com

PaperStreet Web Design is pleased to bring you its newsletter for the legal professionals.

PaperStreet Newsletter: El Google Loco? 

Google has not gone loco, just local. Google Local Search is now alive and enables users to find local information along with business listings, maps, directions, and useful web pages all through one easy to use search. Google searches its entire collection of web pages to pinpoint geographic information that is relevant to a user's query. Google combines this information with comprehensive local business, map, and service information drawn from a wide variety of U.S. databases such as the yellow pages and other sources. 

So what does this mean for your firm? Simple: While Google Local is still in Beta, your firm needs to be listed not only in the main search results provided by Google at www.google.com, but also in the Google Local search - local.google.com. How does your firm accomplish this? Our general advice is to list in a variety of US databases such as the yellow pages, directories, and associations, and make sure your site is already listed in Google's regular search database.

Of course, this begs the question which directories? At this time Google has not announced which specific directories are used, but if you conduct an actual search in Google Local for "lawyer" and then your city/state/zip, then the results will indicate what Google is using to provide its local search. Our research indicates that for the legal field these major yellow page directories are used heavily: YellowPages.com, SuperPages.com, Switchboard.com, with other results coming various state/local bar associations, and web sites listed in those directories.

Major Online Directories
  Yellowpages.com
  SwitchBoard.com
  Superpages.com
  Acxiom.com
  InfoUSA.com

Telephone Directories
  yp.yahoo.com (Yahoo)
  SmartPages.com (SBC)
  Anywho.com (AT&T)
  RealPages.com (BellSouth)

Minor Online Directories
  YP.net
  YellowBook.com
  SBN.com
  Selfserve.AOL.com (AOL)
  and others . . .

Legal Specific Directories
  State Bar Association (i.e. FlaBar.org or your state bar association)
  County Bar Associations (i.e. browardbar.org or your local bar association)
  Practice Area Directories (i.e. facdl.org or your practice area directory)
  Specific legal directories (i.e. techlawonline.com or other directories).

Again, our advice is simple. List your firm in as many directories as possible, and shortly your web site should appear in the Google Local search. Not only will your firm receive a boost in traffic from Google Local in the coming year, but it will receive a general overall boost in traffic by being listed in multiple directories, some of which rank very high in regular search results.

How We Can Help

PaperStreet Web Design has extensive experience developing, redesigning and optimizing web sites for the legal profession. Our expertise can save you time and money while increasing your firm's business traffic. Contact us and we can easily redesign your web site to impress clients and get results.

Feel free to contact Peter T. Boyd, Esq. at PaperStreet Web Design, or 954.523.2181.