The time is rapidly approaching when a website won’t make much difference to your practice. That’s hard to imagine. But, you only have to think back to when websites didn’t matter to see how how quickly things change.

My firm built a website 14 years ago. It didn’t do much for us back then. Why? Because websites didn’t matter. Nobody was on the web.

Things changed, in a big way, in the intervening years. The web became our home away from home.

Now, things are changing again. And the speed of change today is much, much faster than it has been in the past. Websites won’t matter much sooner than 14 years from now. What took 14 years before might take 14 months now.

So what will matter?

We’re quickly moving to a world where everything that matters, with respect to commerce anyway, is all about mobile and local.

Everyone will do their purchasing research on a mobile device – maybe an iPhone, a Droid, or an Apple tablet. Which devices will prove popular is yet to be determined. Very few consumers will be interested in doing their research in front of a big screen at home. Many folks won’t even have a traditional desktop or laptop computer.

The device they’re using will be location aware and know where the user is at the moment. They’ll seek a divorce lawyer on their device and they’ll quickly see names and addresses of nearby attorneys. Each attorney will be ranked and rated by former clients. Reviews will be easily accessible. The client will want the best and the device will instantly identify that lawyer.

The prospective client will push a button and dial the attorney’s office.

How do I know? Because this isn’t science fiction. It’s reality today. That’s how users are picking restaurants, coffee shops, dentists and doctors. This isn’t some futuristic vision.

It’s happening very quickly. 11% of Americans used smartphones in 2008. That went up to 17% in 2009. These users represent the most desirable clients for most family law practitioners.

So what do you do about it? Focus on local listings for now. Make sure you’re registered with the local business centers for Google, Bing and Yahoo. Be sure your happy clients are writing reviews on directory sites. Worry more about these activities than you do about your website or blog. Be sure you have these basics covered so that you’re ahead of the crowd as this shift occurs.

Now is the time to prepare for the change.