Kilcock has changed more in twenty years than in the hundred before. It was a canal village: the Royal Canal harbour in the middle of the town, the railway beside it, Main Street a step from the water, a few pubs, a church, farms in every direction. The M4 took the through traffic off the street, the train and the motorway made Dublin a commute, and estates went up on every road out. Maynooth, a few minutes east along the canal, became a university town at the same time.
The result is a town where the names above the shops are older than most of the people walking past them, and where website design in Kilcock is largely about introducing long-established businesses to customers who arrived last year. We are in Dublin, so the first chat with a Kilcock business is by phone or video call, and after that the work runs by WhatsApp and email the same as for anyone we meet in person.
The newcomers search; the old town asks
The households in the new estates do not know who the good plumber is, which creche has places, who teaches driving or where to get a key cut, and they will not find out at the school gate for a year. They search. “Creche Kilcock”, “plumber Kilcock”, “driving lessons Kilcock”, “hairdresser Kilcock”, in the evening after the drive home or on the train before Maynooth, and the results they see are the businesses they ring. The older part of the town still runs on recommendation, through the parish, the GAA club and the Facebook group, but even there a name gets looked up before it is dialled.
The harbour, Main Street and the county line
Trade sits along Main Street and around the harbour, with the station a short walk away and the M4 junction at the edge of the town. Kilcock’s Eircode is W23, the same as Maynooth, Celbridge and Leixlip, so the routing key does nothing to mark the town out and the page has to use the name. The county line runs through the edge of the town, and a trade here works into Meath as naturally as into Kildare: Summerhill, Kilcloon, Enfield, Moyvalley, and east to Maynooth and Leixlip. All of those places need to be named on the site in sentences, because a search from Enfield matches a page that mentions Enfield.
Maynooth is the competition and the opportunity
For most things a Kilcock household could drive to Maynooth, and a lot of them do without thinking. A barber, a takeaway or a nail studio on Main Street wins that customer by being visible when the search has “Kilcock” in it, by having the hours and prices in one tap, and by taking the booking without a phone call. The reverse is also true: a Kilcock trade that names Maynooth on its page picks up a bigger town’s searches without paying a bigger town’s rent. Our guide on getting a business onto Google Maps is the starting point for the first half of that.
Creches, childminders and trades on Facebook
Kilcock’s creches, childminders, after-school clubs, carpenters, tilers and plumbers are mostly on Facebook or nowhere, with a mobile number passed from parent to parent. The regulars are happy. The family who moved in last month has never heard of them. A single page with the trade or the service, the area covered, the hours, a few real photos and a tappable number is enough to catch that family, and it stays correct while the Facebook page drifts. We have written about whether Instagram or Facebook is enough on its own for anyone weighing that up.
Cost
Essentials is €499 to set up and €50 a month. Complete is €1,499 and €100 a month and adds bookings, payments, review requests, chat and the monthly Google work. Everything is on the pricing page, and the creches and montessoris page shows what a childcare site includes.