Kinsale is visited by people who looked it up first. The family on the Wild Atlantic Way, the couple down from Dublin for a weekend, the sailors coming in to the marina, the day visitors off a cruise ship at Cobh: nearly all of them have typed “restaurants Kinsale”, “B&B Kinsale harbour” or “things to do Kinsale” into a phone before they see the painted houses on Main Street or walk out to Charles Fort. That makes website design in Kinsale a different job from most towns. The customer is not local, is not loyal yet, and is choosing between you and every other place in the town from a small screen, often from another country. We are based in Dublin and we work with Kinsale businesses remotely: a video call first, WhatsApp after, and the site built from the photos and details you send us. We have no office in Kinsale.
The season, the festival and January
Kinsale’s year has a shape. Easter opens it, the summer fills every table and bed, the gourmet festival in the autumn brings a last surge, and then January is quiet enough that some restaurants close for a few weeks. The site has to follow that: hours that change with the season and are right on Google when they change, a booking calendar that closes when you close, and a page that still answers questions in February for the people planning June. On Complete we keep the Google listing and the seasonal pages current as part of the monthly work.
Boats, beds and tables
Three kinds of business carry the town. Restaurants and cafes, from the harbour front up through Market Quay and Pearse Street, chosen from reviews and photos and booked through a page rather than a phone call. B&Bs, guesthouses and holiday lets in the town, in Scilly and Summercove and out towards the Old Head, booked weeks ahead by people who want to see the room before they pay a deposit. And the boats: sailing, harbour trips and angling charters, booked on the morning someone wakes up and looks at the weather. Each needs a page that loads fast on a phone with a weak signal on the pier, says what it costs, shows the real thing, and takes a booking or a deposit there and then.
What a Kinsale page has to carry
Photos that are yours, not stock, because the visitor is comparing the picture on the page to the view from the street. Hours by season. Prices in euro, because a visitor from abroad cannot ring to ask. A map and a word about parking. Reviews, replied to. A deposit on bookings in July and on the festival weekend, taken by card or Apple Pay, with a cancellation policy written down before anyone pays. Our guides on taking online bookings and taking deposits online in Ireland cover how that is done fairly and within the rules.
The AI tools matter here more than in most towns, because the visitor planning a trip asks ChatGPT for “a seafood restaurant in Kinsale with a view” and gets an answer assembled from websites, listings and reviews. A business with clear facts on a page of its own is the one that gets named. We promise nothing about where you appear.
Gift shops, galleries and the walk-in trade
Not everything in Kinsale is booked ahead. Gift shops, galleries, delis and yoga studios with a drop-in class live on people wandering the streets between lunch and dinner. For them the page is about being on the map with the right hours and a photo of the front, and about selling online to the visitor who gets home and wants another of whatever they bought. An online shop is an add-on we quote first.
Price
Essentials is €499 to set up and €50 a month. Complete is €1,499 and €100 a month and adds bookings, deposits, payments, review requests, chat and the monthly Google work, which is the plan most Kinsale businesses need. The pricing page has both in full, and the restaurants page shows what we build for a place with tables to fill.