New Website for West Cork Accommodation Provider: The Cottage Bar

Like the name says, The Cottage Bar & Restaurant is a bar and restaurant in Glengarriff, West Cork, which also offers bed & breakfast and self catering accommodation.

We stopped at The Cottage Bar for lunch on one of our first trips out to beautiful Glengarriff. I remember the friendly, homey atmosphere; so I was delighted when the Somers Family contacted me to do a website for them. They wanted to start out with a simple site that they could easily update themselves. The site is now live at cottagebar.ie and shows off all that the establishment has to offer from home style cooking and comfortable accommodation to a convenient location in one of West Cork's most scenic locations.

Many businesses in the tourism industry are having a really hard time now and those that relied heavily on passing trade and word of mouth referrals are finding that they need to step up their marketing efforts, especially online. Those that don't yet have a site are now getting one and those with basic sites are getting content management systems so they can update the sites themselves to change rates and add special offers as often as needed.

As the tourism & accommodation industries are so competitive on the internet it's important that these businesses make sure that their web developer is experienced in search engine optimisation or works with an SEO, like me, who specialises in tourism. A small website will have a hard time competing on a national basis for competitive search phrases as there are so many large directory sites that are strongly optimised; but a small site can compete for more local searches, especially if all SEO techniques are utilised; especially on-page optimisation with good relevant content and high quality incoming links. These days a good social media marketing campaign is a great way to get more exposure for your establishment.

Contact me if you would like to know more about online marketing for tourism related websites.

Looking for Things to do in West Cork? Check out the Lagoon Activity Centre Rosscarbery

The newly re-branded Lagoon Activity Centre has gone by many names in the past, like Ross Leisure and Ross Paddleboats, but for the most part people knew about it not by name but, as you drive along the N71 the main road through West Cork, seeing young people and families having a great time out on the beautiful lagoon. It'd be one of those places that you say you'll go to one day, but may never get around to doing it.

Now with a new website www.lagoonactivitycentre.ie, everyone will know the name of the establishment and that it's one of the best things to do in West Cork with all it has to offer: paddleboat, row boat and canoe rentals; as well as a coffee shop in one of the most scenic spots in West Cork. They cater for parties and groups, just give a call to arrange in advance.

It's a basic one page site, but with WordPress at its backend, the owners can add more pages and information as they see fit.

New Natural Skin Care Range from SallyMiller.ie

I've just finished adding the newest addition to The Sally Miller Collection of Natural Cosmetics: Natural Skin Care Ranges which include cleansers, toners and face creams available in either Citrus Blossom & Ginger, Winter Jasmine & Chamomile and Wild Rose & Sandalwood; each suited to a particular skin type. There is also a Refining Skin Polish and Moisture Rich Night Cream.

I can't wait to try them because all of Sally's products that I use are amazing and I know that she's been working hard over the past months carefully sourcing ingredients and developing this line!

The e-commerce website for The Sally Miller Collection, www.sallymiller.ie was set up in 2007. In the early days, the Collection mainly included aromatherapy bath and body products -- and my favourites, soy candles and lip balms which I find heal chapped lips in a couple of hours. All made by hand in Sally's workshop in Rosscarbery using quality natural products.

Sally had been selling aromatherapy products for a few years before this in conjunction with her aromatherapy and massage practice. She built a big following in West Cork, selling in local shops, salons and markets. Getting online helped her to reach a wider audience - including an increase in the number of quality shops that stock her products across Ireland. Two years ago Sally added a line of Shea Butter products which are very popular and are still on the website, as are many of the old favourites.

Sally's range of Gift Sets are a big seller on the site. She also makes up special items for corporate gifts and as favours for weddings and other special occasions. A couple of years ago we sent Sally's Winter Spice Candles to our clients for Christmas. I say 'WE sent', but I should say 'SALLY sent' as we provided the labels and she did all the hard work. We got a number of great comments on that gift and it made it so easy for us!

Click here to read more about Sally Miller.

Over the summer I will be working with Sally to set up some Social Media channels so that we can keep people informed on her products, how to use them and provide helpful information on aromatherapy, skin care, etc.

Wedding-Invitations-Ireland.com gets new look with WordPress

My first friends in Ireland, Tony and Therese Cantwell started out selling creative, personalised baby announcement cards about 10 years ago and in 2002 branched into similarly creative and personalised wedding invitations with the site http://www.wedding-invitations-ireland.com. The site has gone through a couple different designs and layouts over the years and I have managed the site for them throughout. We've considered different Content Management solutions for the site, but now that I've done a number of sites in WordPress, using StudioPress premium themes (affiliate link), we decided that now was the time for a bigger change to the site - facilitating more control for Tony and Therese to manage the site themselves.

I worked with Tony through setting up the WordPress installation and some coaching (while 6 of our 7 kids played in the background) and assistance in updating the content and images, as well as SEO and social media aspects of the site. I provide this service in my blogging workshops and one-to-one training on a regular basis, but as I had been working with Tony on his sites over the past 10 years, I knew he was able to take on a lot more than a beginning user, like making changes to the CSS stylesheet.

It's great working with Tony and Therese because they are very dedicated to providing a quality product to their clients -- along with a very high standard of service. They are great at helping the brides and grooms select just the right style and develop the appropriate wording for any situation.

The site has done well on search engines for a number of related phrases and it's been a great selling tool to back-up their attendence at wedding fairs and traditional advertising they've done through a printed brochure and some print ads. The new development should even add to the current success of the site with the ability to more easily add news and informative articles through blog posts and social media integration.

Tony has now added on his newest range of wedding stationery and information on his services and can update just about any aspect of the site himself now -- and he's started on the redevelopment of the baby announcement site!

We've planned a big celebration -- mainly of the fact that Tony & Therese don't have to wait for me to make any changes for them anymore :-)

Contact me for more information on web development using WordPress and/or Studio Press Premium Themes or to book a blogging workshop so that you can take control of your website like Tony and Therese.

New Website for Wireless Broadband & VoIP Provider in SW Ireland

I've recently completed http://www.corkkerrybroadband.com for VOIP and Internet Services LTD, a new wireless broadband provider who are currently offering services in West Cork, Kerry, North Cork & Tipperary and will be expanding to other areas.

The website provides information about the company and the services it provides, which includes VoIP Telephone Services that allow you to make calls through the internet without a landline. This should be a very popular add-on to most broadband packages as many people, including myself, are doing away with the home landline (and the monthly rental charge) and turning to VoIP.

It's great to see another broadband internet provider servicing this area, which is mainly made up of rural communities that have little or no broadband options at present. Hopefully some competition will bring better services and pricing. In fact the tagline on the site is "Connecting people in rural areas with the World".

The official launch of the business takes place this evening at Richy's Bistro in Clonakilty at 7.30pm, in the presence of the Mayor Cork County Cork, Councillor Jim Daly.

From Tuesday 6th July to Sunday 11th July, from 4pm to 9pm, VoIP and Internet Services will have a mobile demonstration unit at Harte's Eurospar, The Bypass, Clonakilty, Co. Cork for anyone interested in learning more about the service.

Stop the Downgrading of Bantry Hospital

Skibbereen Business Association has asked that I set up a petition to show their support in the campaign to stop the downgrading of the Bantry Hospital.

Click here to view and sign this petition.

Downgrading the hospital will take away 24 hour acute services currently provided there. These services will then be available at Cork University Hospital, which will then mean a 2 hour, or longer, trip for the patient and their family and friends that will want to visit/assist the patient.

More serious will be the lack of emergency care in the area out of hours which may lead to an increase in fatalities due to the time to get to CUH. According to the website beara.ie "Currently 70% of admissions to the hospital are emergencies and outside 'office' hours." (Click here to view full story on beara.ie)

Winter Wonderland Site Updated for 2008

We've updated the Winter Wonderland website - www.skibbereen.ie/winterwonderland -- with opening hours and details for this year's festival and today we sent out a reminder to the mailing list that the Booking Hotline is now open. The site is organised by the Skibbereen Business Association, so we do the site as part of our maintenance of the Skibbereen site.

Winter Wonderland is one of Ireland's best Santa Visit experiences. It runs from 5th-23rd December. Throughout this time there are many other activities on in the town -- Christmas Market with food and crafts, carol singing, face painting, story telling, etc. The big news this year is a competition -- when you book your visit you go into a draw for an Interactive Whiteboard for your school!

The Winter Wonderland site is one of the top ranking sites for related phrases on search engines and gets a number of enquiries throughout the year. Children can also send messages to Santa via the site.

This year we've set up an image gallery on Flickr to make it easy for visitors to post their images. Click here to visit the Winter Wonderland Photo Gallery.

The committee and workers do an excellent job each year -- and it's really hard work, but the children and their families really enjoy the experience. It's been a pleasure working on the site for all these years and helping people find Winter Wonderland through the internet.

New Site - dreamcakes.ie - Getting Results First Week Online

I warn clients upfront that their site will not really do well in search engine results for any time from 3-12 months (maybe even longer for sites in very competitive industries: holiday accommodation, property, etc.). The site www.dreamcakes.ie launched on the 31st of October, just in time for a Wedding Fair that the client was attending. On 2nd November, the site got 3 visits via Google!! And in the past two weeks, since the launch 202 visits (15.35% direct traffic, 18.81% referring sites and 65.84% search engines)!

When the first contact form submission went through a couple days after the site went live, I thought, "Oh, no, the spammers have got us already!" but it was a genuine enquiry for a birthday cake.

In the past I had noticed that it seemed that Google's 'sandbox', that holds new sites out of search results for a certain period of time, applies mainly to the primary search phrases (or most competitive phrases) you are targeting on the site and that the new sites were getting results for many other phrases used throughout the site -- but never at this level.

Of course there are many factors that determine your search engine results -- strength of the competitors sites, when google does it's crawl, number of visitors searching on your target phrases, etc. Perhaps these were all working in our favour.

One other thing that benefited this site -- a number of our existing clients were in related industries (weddings & gifts) so we were able to add links from those sites so the site could get a very good start.

So for all those sceptics that think that SEO doesn't work -- our Search Engine Placement strategy definitely works. While I am confident that we are using the best techniques for best search engine placement for our clients and have achieved excellent results for them -- this is the first time I have seen such a quick result!!!

Read more: Search Engine Optimization - or contact me for more information on how we can achieve these results for you!

Just Launched - dreamcakes.ie and a new look progressivesolar.ie

What I love most about my work is helping people that are starting up new businesses or growing their exising businesses. It's great working with people with this new enthusiasm and energy and seeing their businesses grow -- with the help of a professionally designed web site optimised for excellent results on search engines, of course!

www.dreamcakes.ie -- This weekend Louise Manning launched her new business, Dream Cakes, at The Rectory's Wedding Fair in Glandore, West Cork. We finished the site just in time for this launch. You have to have a look at the beautifully designed hand crafted cakes that Louise makes! She was busy for the past few weeks making up samples for the site -- watch out, as you are going to get cravings just looking at them. She doesn't just make wedding cakes -- she makes cakes for any special occasion. We are very proud to have worked on this site for someone that is really going to be quickly moving to the top of her field!



www.progressivesolar.ie -- Progressive Solar has been providing renewable energy systems for heating around Ireland for the past couple of years. Now they are offering photovoltaic and wind turbine power generating systems, and have also added some new products to their existing lines of flat panel and vacuum panel solar heating systems and wood chip boiler systems. The new design of the site, featuring a bright new header really energises the site. We've also included a Google Map indicating the location of all of the Progressive Solar agents throughout Ireland.




We are very proud to launch these two sites and wish both clients the best of luck in their new ventures!

E-Business.ie - Our New 'Home' Online

Until now, we've been on the internet as www.omahonydonnelly.ie/e_business, but we have decided it best to break out on our own as www.e-business.ie. On the new site we will highlight our specialism in Search Engine Optimization. To be completely immodest I am one of the few web developers in Ireland that really practices SEO. Eventhough not all of our clients take the full Search Engine Placement Package, we have an outstanding record of success for our clients's sites. I'll be posting news and helpful information on Search Engine Optimization, as well as web development and other online marketing topics -- and some general business topics as well.