Dalkey sells to two kinds of people and they want different things from a website. The first is the day tripper: off the DART on a Saturday, a short walk to Castle Street, into the heritage centre at the castle, down to Coliemore Harbour to look across at the island, and then hungry. The second is the regular, who lives on one of the hills behind the village or down towards Bulloch Harbour, walks the dog past your door twice a day and already knows your name. Website design in Dalkey has to work for both at once.
Castle Street is the whole commercial village: restaurants, pubs, a bookshop, delis, boutiques, estate agents, pharmacies, coffee. We are based in Dublin and we meet Dalkey owners on the premises, mid-week and mid-morning when there is room to talk.
Castle Street from Monday to Sunday
The week here is lopsided. Tuesday lunchtime is locals: people working from home, retired neighbours, a quiet pub. Saturday afternoon is families from the city, couples who came for a walk on Killiney Hill and ended up at the harbour, visitors from the hotels in town, all searching “lunch Dalkey”, “pubs Dalkey” and “coffee near Dalkey DART” as they step off the train. June brings the book festival and a different crowd again; January is quiet enough to repaint.
The visitors pick from the map on the phone, and they pick fast. A menu they can read, a price range, photos of the room, reviews, and a note that says how far from the station. The locals do not pick; they check. Are you open the bank holiday Monday? Have the evening hours changed? Is there a table for six on Friday? A site that answers those without a phone call keeps both groups.
A page that works for a visitor and a neighbour
Dalkey’s Eircodes start with A96, shared with Dun Laoghaire, Glenageary and Killiney, and plenty of your weekday trade comes from those places. State Dalkey plainly, name Castle Street, mention the DART and be honest that parking is tight, because everyone who has tried already knows. The Google Business Profile needs the right pin, the right category and the Sunday hours, since Sunday is a trading day here in a way it is not in most suburbs.
Reviews carry extra weight in a village that strangers visit. How to get more Google reviews is about asking at the right moment with a direct link, and with Complete that text goes out after each visit without anyone having to remember.
The quiet months
A tourist village has a January. The site is what trades for you then: the hours say you are open, the menu is current, the gift shop’s online orders still arrive, and the bookings for Valentine’s weekend and the spring are being made by people planning ahead. Owners who switch everything off for the quiet months spend March catching up on hours, menus and reviews that should never have gone stale.
Food, gifts and the Instagram problem
Dalkey has makers, bakers and small-batch food businesses that sell through the shops on Castle Street and through Instagram, plus photographers who shoot weddings along the coast and families on the hill. Instagram holds the pictures and nothing else: no map result, no hours, no price, nothing for the visitor who does not have the app. If you are wondering whether that matters, do we need a website if we have Instagram is the honest answer.
Plans
Essentials is €499 to set up and €50 a month; Complete is €1,499 and €100 a month with bookings, payments, review requests and live chat included. The pricing page lists everything in each, and the pubs page shows what a village pub tends to use.