Stepaside is an old village with a lot of new neighbours. The village itself is a short stretch of Enniskerry Road at the foot of Three Rock, with the forest walks at Ticknock above it and Sandyford below. Around it, since the 2000s, have come the estates: Belarmine, the new roads at Ballyogan and Kilgobbin, apartment blocks near the Luas, and more going up. The people moving in are young families, many in their first house, and they arrive knowing nobody and needing everything. Website design in Stepaside is for the businesses that meet them: creches, childminders, plumbers and electricians, physios, pharmacies, takeaways, dog walkers and the people who do children’s parties.
We are Dublin based and we come out, up the Sandyford road or across from the Luas at Ballyogan Wood or Glencairn, and we meet you at the unit, the creche or the kitchen table.
A plumber’s week in Stepaside
A plumber who works Stepaside has a week divided by the age of the houses. In the new estates it is snag lists, pressure problems, a dishwasher plumbed in, a second bathroom for a growing family, heat pump questions from people whose builder has gone. In the older houses along Enniskerry Road and up towards Kilternan it is old boilers and old pipes. The calls come from Google, from the estate’s WhatsApp group, and from a neighbour who has your number on the fridge. The Google ones are the ones you can do something about.
The estate groups deserve a word. A new estate’s WhatsApp is where “anyone know a good electrician” gets asked three times a week, and the answers are names, not links. Each name gets searched, and the one with a real page, photos of real jobs and a number that rings is the one that gets the booking. A recommendation here is an invitation to be checked.
Which Stepaside you are in
Stepaside is Dublin 18, and its Eircodes begin with D18, the same as Sandyford, Leopardstown, Foxrock and Cabinteely. The names people use are finer than that: Belarmine, Ballyogan, Kilgobbin, Kilternan, Glencullen, “up by the garda station”, “the Enniskerry Road”. Your site should say Stepaside and Dublin 18 once and clearly, and then name the estates and villages you actually serve in a sentence, because someone in Belarmine types Belarmine.
The Google Business Profile matters more here than in an older suburb, because the roads are new enough that a customer may not know them, and a pin in the wrong place sends them to the far side of an estate. Getting your business on Google Maps covers the pin, the categories and the duplicate listings that stop a business showing up. For anyone without a car, say which Luas stop or which bus you are near; the green line at Ballyogan Wood and Glencairn serves the estates on that side, and the buses through the village serve the rest.
Creches, clinics and the ones with no page
The creches here have waiting lists and still need a site, because the parents on next year’s list are choosing now and judge a creche by the page they find at eleven at night. Physios and pharmacies need their hours and their booking link where a tired parent can find them. And then there is the layer with no page at all: childminders, kids’ party entertainers, cake makers, dog walkers, personal trainers in the parks, all running on Instagram, Facebook and a number passed between neighbours.
Instagram does not appear in a Google search, cannot show a price list and cannot take a deposit for a Saturday party. A one-page site with a .ie domain does all three. Do we need a website if we have Instagram is the longer answer.
Price
Essentials is €499 to set up and €50 a month. Complete is €1,499 and €100 a month and adds bookings, payments, review requests, live chat and the managed Google profile. The pricing page compares them, and the electricians page shows how a trade working the new estates sets out its service area.