How to set up a website for a new business in Ireland

You've registered the business. You have a name. Maybe even a logo. Now you need a website — and you're staring at a wall of Wix ads, agency cold-emails, and conflicting advice. Here's the actual playbook.

1. Buy your .ie domain first

Before you do anything else. Use Blacknight, Register365 or Namecheap. A .ie costs €15–€25/year and signals you're a real Irish business. Buy the .com too if you can afford it — protects the brand.

2. Set up a business email on that domain

you@yourbusiness.ie reads ten times more professional than yourbusiness@gmail.com. Google Workspace (€6/user/month) or Zoho Mail (free for one user) are both fine.

3. Decide: DIY, freelancer, or AI-assisted

• DIY — Squarespace or Wix. Cheap, slow, you'll fight templates.
• Freelance designer — €2,500+. Good if you have a strong brand vision.
• AI-assisted build — €495–€2,250. Fastest path to a real-looking site.

4. Write the content first, design second

Most founders waste weeks tweaking colours before they've written a single sentence. Decide what your homepage says, what each page is for, and what action you want a visitor to take. AI can draft this for you — but you have to know what you're selling.

5. The five pages you actually need

1. 1.Home — what you do, for whom, and the one action to take next.
2. 2.About — who's behind it and why anyone should trust you.
3. 3.Services or products — what you sell, clearly.
4. 4.Contact — phone, email, hours, location, contact form.
5. 5.Pricing or FAQ — answer the questions you get asked most.

6. SEO basics on day one

• Unique <title> and meta description on every page.
• Set up Google Business Profile — free, huge for local SEO.
• Submit your sitemap to Google Search Console.
• Add LocalBusiness schema (a freelance designer can do this in 10 minutes).

7. Launch and tell people

A website nobody knows about is just an expensive PDF. Email your existing contacts. Add the URL to your LinkedIn, Instagram bio, business cards, vehicle signage. Ask three friends to leave a Google review the day you go live.

What it should cost, end to end

Domain (€20/yr) + email (€72/yr) + a Business-tier build (€1,150 one-off) + optional Starter Maintenance (€29/month) = roughly €1,590 in year one — and you fully own the site. Compare that to a typical agency proposal (€4,000 + retainer) and you can see why we exist.