Bandon has two main streets because it has a river. North Main Street and South Main Street face each other across the Bandon with the bridge between them, and most of the town’s trade still sits on one or the other: the hardware shops, the pharmacies, the pubs, the cafes, the clothes shops, the bookmaker. It is a market town, the first real town on the N71 after Cork, and it has been called the gateway to West Cork for so long that the name is simply true. Everything heading for Clonakilty, Skibbereen and Bantry comes past, and plenty of it stops. Website design in Bandon has to work for the town’s own people, for the farms around it, and for the West Cork traffic that pulls in for a coffee or a part. We are based in Dublin and we work with Bandon businesses remotely: a video call to begin, WhatsApp after, the site built from your photos and details. We have no premises in Bandon and we will not suggest otherwise.
Gateway is a trade, not a slogan
Being the first town into West Cork means Bandon serves a hinterland far bigger than itself. Innishannon, Kilbrittain, Timoleague, Ballinspittle, Enniskeane, Ballineen and Dunmanway all shop and do business here, and the farms between them keep the town’s co-op, machinery and feed trades going. A Bandon business is chosen by people from all of those places, and more and more they choose by phone before they drive. “Hardware Bandon”, “vet Bandon”, “cafe Bandon” are typed in kitchens in Timoleague, not on the bridge. The business that shows up with a correct listing, hours that match the door and a photo of the actual front gets the drive.
A Bandon trade’s patch
Builders, plumbers, electricians and roofers based in Bandon work a wide circle: into Cork city and Ballincollig one way, down to Kinsale and Clonakilty the other, and out through the villages. Google does not know that unless the site says it. A page that names Innishannon, Kinsale, Clonakilty, Dunmanway and Ballincollig, with a line about the work you do in each, is shown for searches from each of them. A page that says “West Cork and surrounding areas” is shown for none. Set the Google Business Profile up as a service area business with those places listed, keep the name, address and phone identical to the site, and use the P72 routing key on both. How Google Maps decides who to show is explained in plain language in our guide.
Cafes, farm shops and car dealers on Facebook
Bandon has good cafes, farm shops on the roads out and car dealers along the N71 whose only presence online is a Facebook page or a listing on a car sales site. Facebook reaches the people who already follow you. It does not reach the Dublin family driving to a holiday house in Rosscarbery who want lunch, the couple who moved to Innishannon and need a vet, or the man in Kinsale searching for a used van. A page of your own with hours, prices and a map, plus a Google listing that matches, catches those people. Whether Instagram or Facebook is enough on its own goes through what a page does that a social account cannot.
Saturdays and summer weekends
Saturdays bring the villages into town; summer weekends bring the through traffic to West Cork, which stops if it knows there is somewhere to stop. A cafe that is correct on Google Maps with a photo of the front picks up the car that would otherwise keep going to Clonakilty, and a hardware shop that lists what it stocks catches the holiday-house owner who needs a part on a Sunday.
Plans
Essentials is €499 to set up and €50 a month. Complete is €1,499 and €100 a month and adds bookings, payments, review requests, chat and monthly work on the Google listing, including pages for the villages a Bandon trade covers. Both are set out on the pricing page, and the hardware shops page shows what we build for a shop that sells across a counter.