Letterkenny watches the exchange rate the way a seaside town watches the weather. When sterling is strong, Derry registrations fill the car parks at the retail parks and the salons on Main Street are booked out by Northern voices; when the euro is strong, Letterkenny people make the short drive to Derry instead. It is the biggest town in Donegal, with Letterkenny University Hospital, the ATU Donegal campus, St Eunan’s Cathedral above the town and a very long Main Street, and the whole county comes to it for things it cannot get at home. Website design in Letterkenny has to serve a customer who might be in Ramelton, Milford, Ballybofey or the Waterside in Derry. The building happens in Dublin, where we are based: we talk by phone or video, you send photos and details over WhatsApp, and the site goes live within days.
Found from both sides of the border
A Derry customer searching “nails Letterkenny” or “tyres Letterkenny” is standing in a different country, with a UK mobile and a sterling bank account, and Google does not care. The site should be built so that it does not care either. Write the phone number as +353 so her phone dials it with a tap. Put prices in euro and say so. Make WhatsApp a contact route, because it works the same from both sides. If you take payment online, card and Apple Pay settle in euro to your account and her bank does the conversion, which is cleaner than arguing over a rate at the till. A .ie domain tells her where you are before she reads a word.
Main Street and the roundabouts
The town has two retail geographies: the long Main Street with its independent shops, pubs, cafes and offices, and the retail parks and shopping centres on the edge of town where the big names are. A visitor from Dungloe or Derry does not know which you are on, so the site should name the street or the park, carry the F92 Eircode, keep the Google pin on the right door and say where to park. “How do I find you” is a real question on the phone here, and a page can answer it in advance.
For a trade based here the service area is the county. A plumber in Letterkenny works Ramelton, Rathmullan, Milford, Kilmacrennan, Manorcunningham and Newtowncunningham, and a page that names each of those in a sentence is what Google shows for “plumber Ramelton”.
Hospital, college and the September intake
The hospital brings staff from across the world who rent in the town and search for everything from a dentist to a takeaway with no local knowledge at all. ATU Donegal brings a new intake every September that needs barbers, gyms, physios for the GAA injuries and somewhere to eat late. Both groups find businesses on a phone and judge them by the listing: hours that are right, a price list, photos of real work, reviews answered. Setting up and verifying your Google Business Profile properly is part of Essentials, and our guide on setting up a Google Business Profile in Ireland walks through it.
The Instagram trades
Letterkenny has a lot of hair, beauty, brows, lashes and nails, and a growing number of food businesses, running on Instagram and Facebook alone with bookings by direct message. That holds the regulars. It loses the nurse who arrived in March, the student who arrived in September and the Derry customer who has never followed you. A page of your own with prices, a booking button and a deposit catches all three, and a text after each visit asking for a review builds the thing they check first. How to get more Google reviews covers the honest way.
Plans
Essentials is €499 to set up and €50 a month. Complete is €1,499 and €100 a month and adds bookings, deposits, payments in euro, chat and monthly Google work, which is the plan for a salon, a clinic or a gym here. The pricing page has the full list and the beauty salons page shows what a salon site includes.