Carlow town does two kinds of business at once. Along Tullow Street and Dublin Street, around the Fairgreen centre and over the bridge into Graiguecullen, it is the shopping town for the whole county and a good slice of south Kildare and north Kilkenny: solicitors and accountants near the courthouse, pharmacies, opticians, hair and beauty, takeaways, phone repair, the usual county town set. Then there is the SETU campus on the Kilkenny road, which fills the barbers, gyms, chippers and rented houses from September to May. Website design in Carlow town has to work for the solicitor and the barber alike, and it does, because both are found the same way. We should be plain about where we are: Dublin. We have no office in Carlow. We start with a video or phone call, you send us your hours, prices and photos on WhatsApp, and we build from those.
Two rushes: September and Saturday
September is the first rush. A few thousand students arrive or come back, many of them new to the town, and they need a barber, a gym, a physio for the knee, somewhere to eat after nine. They do not ask anyone. They open Google Maps on the walk from the campus and take the nearest place with photos, a price list and hours that say it is open. A new student has no loyalty to anyone yet, and the business that is correct on Google in the first fortnight of September keeps that customer for three or four years.
Saturday is the second rush, and it belongs to the county. People drive in from Tullow, Bagenalstown and Borris, and over from Athy and Castledermot, park at Fairgreen or in the town car parks, and do a week’s errands in a morning. They search before they leave the house: “alterations Carlow”, “key cutting Carlow”, “physio Carlow Saturday”. If your Saturday hours are wrong on Google, you lose the visit and never know it happened.
Between the rushes there are the commuters, who take the train to Heuston from the station on the north side of town or drive the M9, and who search for a plumber or an electrician at eight in the evening when they are finally home. For them the enquiry form and the WhatsApp button do more than the phone number.
Tullow Street, Graiguecullen and R93
Carlow is R93, and the Eircode belongs on the contact page and in the structured data so the map pin lands on the right door. Graiguecullen is in County Laois on the map, but its shops and estates are part of the town, so a Graiguecullen business should say Carlow in its titles and Google profile and mention Graiguecullen in the text. Say which side of the Barrow you are on. Say where to park, because a newcomer does not know the car parks. If you also serve Athy, Castledermot, Leighlinbridge or Tullow, write those names into plain sentences rather than a list. Reviews are the other half of being chosen in a town with this much choice; we have written about getting more Google reviews.
Salons, food and fitness that live on Instagram
A lot of what is good in Carlow is on Instagram alone: nail and brow studios booking by direct message, a tattoo studio posting work and nothing else, coffee places and home bakers, personal trainers with a timetable in their stories. Their followers know them. The new student, the new family in a Graiguecullen estate and the Saturday visitor from Borris do not, and never will until they find them on Google first. A page of their own, showing prices and taking the booking, is how they get found by people who were never going to follow them. We wrote about the choice in do we need a website if we have Instagram.
What it costs in Carlow
Essentials is €499 to set up and €50 a month. Complete is €1,499 and €100 a month and adds online bookings with deposits, card and Apple Pay payments, chat and monthly Google work. The pricing page has the detail; the barbers page shows what a barber’s site includes.