County Galway is really three counties. There is the city and the ring of towns that feed it, Oranmore, Athenry, Claregalway, Moycullen and Barna, where the trade is commuters and med-tech shifts. There is the farming east and north, Tuam, Loughrea, Ballinasloe, Gort, Portumna, Headford, Mountbellew and Dunmore, where the trade is cattle, sheep, marts and the yards that keep them going. And there is Connemara and the islands, Clifden, Oughterard, Roundstone, Carraroe, Spiddal and the Aran Islands, where the trade is visitors from May to September and the Irish language all year round. Website design in County Galway, for a business that covers more than one of those, is mostly about describing your patch honestly so that Google shows you where you actually work. We are based in Dublin and work with Galway businesses remotely: a video call to start, WhatsApp after, and the site built from the photos and details you send us.
Name the towns you serve
A county-wide trade cannot lean on a page that says it covers all of Galway. A search from Loughrea is matched to a page that talks about Loughrea. An agricultural contractor in Tuam who works Dunmore, Headford, Milltown and Glenamaddy needs each of those on the site in a sentence that says what you do there, not a list of forty townlands in a footer. A vet with a large animal round, a septic tank crew, a well driller, a fencing contractor: the same rule.
Eircodes that ignore the county line
Galway’s routing keys follow the old postal towns. H91 is the city and a wide ring around it, taking in Oranmore, Barna and Moycullen and running out along the coast. H54 is Tuam and north Galway. H62 is Loughrea. H53 is Ballinasloe. H65 is Athenry. H71 is Clifden and Connemara. A business should carry the right key for its own address, matched exactly to its Google Business Profile, and name in words the towns it serves in the other keys, because a searcher in Clifden and a searcher in Ballinasloe are a long way apart and Google knows it.
Three different calendars
The city ring runs on the commuter week and Race week at Ballybrit. The east runs on the farming year: calving, silage, the marts, the horse fair in Ballinasloe in October, the agricultural shows in Athenry and elsewhere in late summer. Connemara runs on the tourist season, with the Connemara Pony Show in Clifden in August and a quiet stretch from November to March when the holiday lets and guesthouses take next year’s bookings. A site has to carry hours and prices that follow its own calendar, and a self-edit page you can change from the kitchen table does that without ringing anyone.
Farms, visitors and the Gaeltacht
The businesses in the county most often running on a Facebook page and a mobile are the rural ones: contractors, vets, firewood and fuel suppliers, farriers, riding stables, holiday homes and B&Bs in Connemara, boat trips and guides on the coast. Their customers increasingly do not know the area. A couple who have bought a house on a septic tank for the first time, a family renting near Roundstone for a fortnight, a new smallholder who needs fencing: those people find you on Google or not at all. In the Gaeltacht a page in Irish as well as English is an add-on we quote first, and it matters, because it is the language the customer is speaking. Our guide on what local SEO is explains what Google looks for in plain words, and getting your business on Google Maps covers the service-area listing for a trade with no shopfront.
Two plans, one county
Essentials is €499 to set up and €50 a month, for one site that names the towns you work in. Complete is €1,499 and €100 a month and adds bookings, payments, chat, review requests and the monthly local pages that a wide service area needs. Prices exclude VAT and there is no contract. The detail is on the pricing page, and the rural trades we build for are under websites for.