County Wicklow is three counties wearing one jersey. Down the east coast, strung along the N11 and the railway, are Bray, Greystones, Kilcoole, Wicklow town and Arklow, with Rathnew, Ashford and Newtownmountkennedy between them and Enniskerry in the hills above Bray. Over the mountains to the west, on the N81, are Blessington, Dunlavin and Baltinglass, which look to Naas and Tallaght as much as to Wicklow town. And in the middle are the mountains themselves: Glendalough, Roundwood, Laragh, the Sally Gap, Rathdrum, Aughrim, Tinahely, the Wicklow Way, the forestry and the sheep.
Trade moves along those lines. A plumber in Wicklow town works the coast from Kilcoole to Arklow but rarely crosses to Blessington. A fencing contractor in Baltinglass works west Wicklow and into Kildare and Carlow and never sees Bray. A guesthouse in Laragh gets guests from all over the world and hardly ever a local one. Website design in County Wicklow, for a business that covers more than one town, is mostly about describing that patch truthfully so that Google shows you where you actually work. We are based in Dublin, so the first conversation is a phone or video call for everyone in the county, and the rest works the same as it does for a client we meet in person.
The commute shapes when people search
Wicklow is a commuter county along its coast. Bray and Greystones empty onto the DART every morning, Wicklow town, Rathdrum and Arklow fill the Rosslare line trains, and the N11 and M11 carry the rest. Blessington sends its commuters up the N81 to Tallaght and the Luas. Those people search for a tradesperson on the train at eight or on the sofa at nine, and they search by town name: “electrician Greystones”, “roofer Arklow”, not “electrician Wicklow”.
That is why a county-wide trade cannot rely on a single page that says it serves all of Wicklow. Google matches a search for Arklow to a page that talks about Arklow. The site needs a short, honest section or page for each town you serve, saying what you do there. With Complete we add those local pages month by month as part of the ongoing work.
East and west have different Eircodes and different neighbours
The routing keys tell the story. Bray and Enniskerry are A98. Greystones, Kilcoole and Delgany are A63. Wicklow town, Rathnew, Ashford and Rathdrum are A67. Arklow is Y14. Blessington and Baltinglass are W91, the Naas code, because the postal areas never followed the county line. A business in west Wicklow competes with Naas and Newbridge on Google as much as with anyone in Wicklow. A business in Bray competes with Shankill and Killiney in south Dublin. Naming the real neighbours matters more than naming the county.
Farms, visitors and the trades that serve both
Outside the towns, Wicklow is sheep farms in the hills, tillage and dairy on the lower ground east and west, forestry, and a tourist trade built on Glendalough, Powerscourt, the Wicklow Way, the beaches at Brittas Bay and the film studios in Bray. The businesses that serve that mix, agricultural contractors, vets with a large animal round, septic tank and well drilling crews, firewood suppliers, tree surgeons, holiday lets and guesthouses, are often run from a farmhouse kitchen with a Facebook page and a mobile. Their customers are increasingly people new to the area: a family with a septic tank for the first time, a Dublin couple renting a cottage near Laragh, a new owner of a few acres who needs fencing. They find you on Google or not at all. Our guide on what local SEO actually is explains what Google looks for in plain words.
Plans for a county-wide business
Essentials is €499 to set up and €50 a month, and covers one site that names the towns you serve. 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. Extra pages on Essentials are an add-on that we quote first. The detail is on the pricing page, and the rural trades we build for are listed under websites for.