Most horses in Ireland get their farrier the way they always have: the yard owner says ‘ring the lad who does ours, he’s here Tuesdays’, and that is that. The site is not for those horses. It is for the owner who has just moved a mare into a new yard in Kildare, or bought a first pony for a child in Meath, and knows nobody. They search ‘farrier near us’, and websites for farriers in Dublin and the counties around it are judged in a minute on three things: do you cover our area, are you taking new horses, and what does a set cost.
A trade that runs on the yard grapevine
A farrier’s book is built one yard at a time, and a good one is close to full. The site has to say so when it is true. ‘Taking new clients in Meath and north Dublin, waiting list in Kildare’ is a line that respects the owner’s time and makes you look like what you are, which is in demand. The same line comes down when a yard closes and you have a day to fill.
Say how you work. The cycle you keep horses on, and that you book the next visit before you leave. Hot or cold shoeing. Whether you work with the vet on remedial cases and are happy to be sent X-rays. Whether you do youngstock and first trims, donkeys, heavy horses, racehorses, or none of those. The owner with a difficult horse wants to know you will not be surprised.
Where you are on a Tuesday
The round is the farrier’s secret weapon and it belongs on the page. Monday north Kildare and west Dublin, Tuesday Meath, Wednesday Wicklow, and so on. The owner sees when you are near them, a cast shoe can be slotted into the right day, and you stop driving across two counties for one horse. The counties and the days go on the Google listing as your service area too, which is what gets you found for ‘farrier near us’ in each of them; the Google Business Profile guide explains how a service area business is set up without a shop address.
A WhatsApp button is the right contact for this trade. Owners send a photo of the foot, the yard name and ‘can you fit him in’, and you answer from the van at the end of the day. The form does the same for the owner who wants to describe three horses and their history properly.
Shoeing, trims, remedial
The services page is short and priced. A full set, fronts only, a trim, a remedial or therapeutic set, studs, pads, glue-ons if you do them. From prices with ‘depending on the horse and the shoes’ beside them. A paragraph on remedial work, the conditions you have worked with (laminitis, navicular, cracks, abscesses, foal limb deviations) and how you work with the horse’s vet. The vets page is the other side of that relationship, and we build the two trades to link to each other when a farrier and a practice work together.
Photos sell a farrier the way nothing else does. Before and after feet, a shoe fitted hot, a hoof in balance, a difficult case six weeks on. The van and the anvil. You, under a horse. Taken on your phone, in daylight, a few each week until there is a gallery.
Hunting season and summer ground
The farrier’s year has shape. Spring and summer are shows, eventing and hard ground, and horses that were barefoot all winter coming back into work. Autumn is the hunters being shod and studded for the season, and the wet months bring abscesses, thrush and horses that lose shoes in the mud. The quiet patch in deep winter is when the site gets its proper photos and the waiting list gets reviewed.
A seasonal line on the page, ‘booking hunters for October now’, goes up from the edit page in a minute. The local SEO guide explains why a page per county, each saying what you do there, does better than one page that says ‘Leinster’.
What we need from you
The counties and the days. Your qualifications and where you served your time. The services and from prices. The horses you do and do not take. Whether the book is open, and where. A dozen photos of feet and of you at work. Twenty minutes on the phone at the end of a day, since very few farriers are near Dublin and the first chat is by phone or video anyway.
Price, and working by phone
Essentials is €499 to set up and €50 a month, no contract, VAT on top, and it is the plan for nearly every farrier: the site, the listing, the monthly count of calls. Complete at €1,499 and €100 a month is there if you want ads in a new county or review texts. The pricing page has them side by side.