A new driveway is the dearest thing most people will ever spend on the outside of their house, and they go looking for it in a particular way. They have seen a neighbour’s cobblelock or a porcelain patio, they search “driveways Dublin” or “paving contractors near me”, and they open four or five sites looking for reasons to rule you out. Websites for paving contractors in Dublin get judged on whether the work looks like it will still be level in five years, whether you are insured, whether you cover their side of the city, and whether getting a quote is going to be a hassle.
The quote is the whole job, online
Nobody buys a driveway from a web page. They ask for a quote, and the winning site makes that one step painless. A form that asks for the address, a rough size, the surface they are thinking of and a few photos of the existing drive means you can rule a job in or out before you drive across the city to measure it. The call button sits beside the form for the people who would rather talk.
Say how quoting works. Free, in writing, within a few days, itemised by excavation, sub-base, edging, drainage and surface. People who have been burnt by a verbal price on the doorstep notice that sentence.
Photos that show the base, not just the finish
Every paving site has a photo of a finished drive on a sunny evening. The ones that win also show the dig-out, the hardcore going in, the compactor, the edging set in concrete, and then the finish. A customer who has read about driveways sinking knows what that sequence means. Photograph your jobs at three stages and name the material and the area in the caption: granite setts in Castleknock, resin bound in Lucan, a porcelain patio in Rathfarnham.
List the surfaces you actually do and the ones you do not. Block paving and cobblelock, tarmac, gravel with a stabilising grid, imprinted concrete, resin bound, natural stone and porcelain for patios, kerbing, steps and walls. If you do not touch tarmac, say so and save both sides a phone call.
The questions you answer every day
Does the footpath need to be dished for a new entrance, and who applies to the council for that. Where does the rainwater go, because a front garden that drains onto the footpath causes trouble. How long will it take and can they park on it that night. Do you take away the old surface. What does the guarantee cover and for how long. Each of those gets a short plain answer on the page, written in your words, so the enquiries that come in are from people who already understand the job.
A season that starts with the first dry week
Enquiries pick up with the brighter evenings in March and run hard until October, with a late wave from people who want the drive done before Christmas visitors arrive. Winter is quoting season, when people plan and compare. The edit page lets you put “booking for April onwards” at the top in January and “two slots left before Christmas” in October, from your phone, in a minute.
Google matters more than you might think for a trade that works at people’s homes. Your Business Profile gets set up as a service area business, with the areas you cover and photos of real jobs, and it feeds the map results people see first. We go through the mechanics in how to set up a Google Business Profile in Ireland. Reviews matter in this trade more than most, because “turned up when they said and left the place clean” is exactly what the next customer is looking for, and how to get more Google reviews covers asking for them without it being awkward.
What we need from you
The surfaces you offer, your coverage area, your insurance details, a line on your guarantee, how you quote, twenty photos covering a few jobs at the dig-out, base and finished stages, and the number the enquiries should go to. Ten minutes on the phone or at the yard, and the site is live within a few days.
The plan that suits a paving crew
Essentials, €499 to set up and €50 a month, covers the site, the .ie domain in your name, the quote form, the Google listing and a monthly report of calls and enquiries. Complete, at €1,499 and €100 a month, adds review requests after each job, deposits paid online, Google Ads on request and the chat box. Both are laid out on the pricing page. If you also do the planting and lawns around the drive, the landscapers page covers that side of the work.