Westmeath has two big towns and they pull in opposite directions. Mullingar, the county town, looks east: the N4 and the Sligo line run to Dublin, and a good share of its estates are full of people who make that trip every day. Athlone, the bigger of the two, looks west: it sits on the Shannon, half of it is in Roscommon, and it serves east Galway and Roscommon as much as Westmeath. Between them lie Moate, Kilbeggan, Tyrrellspass and Rochfortbridge, the M6 and the old railway that is now a greenway, and to the north Castlepollard, Delvin and the lakes. Website design in County Westmeath, for a business covering more than one of those places, is about describing the patch truthfully, and we do it from Dublin, with no office in the county. The first chat is a video or phone call, you send photos and details on WhatsApp, and the site is built from them.
Two towns pulling in two directions
A trade’s patch here follows the towns, not the county. A plumber in Mullingar works Kinnegad, Killucan, Castlepollard and Ballynacargy and rarely sees Athlone. A fencing contractor in Moate works both ways along the M6 and across into Offaly at Clara. An Athlone electrician works Monksland and Ballinasloe, which are not in Westmeath at all. The county is a line on the map that none of their customers think about. What customers type is “electrician Athlone”, “plumber Mullingar”, “vet Castlepollard”, and a page is shown for the town it talks about. A county-wide business needs every town it serves written into its site, and the same towns set as the service area on its Google Business Profile, or Google has nothing to match.
Lakes, canal and greenway customers
Westmeath is the lake county of the midlands. Lough Ree at Athlone has the cruisers and the yacht club, Lough Ennell and Lough Owel outside Mullingar have the anglers, Lough Derravaragh and Lough Lene draw the swimmers and the walkers. The Royal Canal Greenway and the Old Rail Trail from Mullingar to Athlone bring cyclists through Castletown and Moate who need a bike shop, a puncture fixed, a bed and a breakfast. Kilbeggan has the distillery and the races.
These visitors are the customers who know nobody. They search from the saddle or the boat, “bike repair Moate”, “B&B Kilbeggan”, “lake house Lough Ree”, and they book the one that answers. A holiday home or guesthouse here does well to take the deposit on the site rather than by bank transfer and a text; we have written up how to take deposits online in Ireland.
Cattle country
Away from the towns and the water, Westmeath is grass on limestone and the cattle that fatten on it, with dairy herds growing and sheep on the poorer ground. The businesses around that farming, agricultural contractors, vets with a large animal round, septic tank crews, fuel and firewood suppliers, fencing contractors, equestrian yards, usually trade from the house with a Facebook page and a mobile. Their new customers are the people who bought the bungalow with the acre and the septic tank, moved out from Dublin, and have no one to ask. A plain page with what you do and where you go, and a Google listing with the right pin, is what they find. What local SEO actually is covers the rest.
Kinnegad to Glasson: covering the county honestly
Mullingar is N91 and Athlone is N37, and the Eircode of your own base belongs on the contact page and in the structured data. But a trade covering the county should lead with its towns, from Kinnegad and Rochfortbridge in the east to Glasson and Ballymore in the west, with a sentence each about the work done there. With Complete we add a short page for each main town over the months.
Plans
Essentials is €499 to set up and €50 a month for one site with your towns named. Complete is €1,499 and €100 a month and adds the local pages, bookings, payments, chat and review requests. The pricing page has it all; the rural trades we build for are under websites for.