Digital Marketing in Derry and the North West
Quick answer: Digital marketing in Derry means building for a cross-border catchment: a website that shows sterling and euro, a map listing that covers Limavady, Coleraine and Magherafelt as well as the city, and content planned around the Causeway Coast season. Digital Bridge publishes fixed prices — websites from €1,200 and search retainers from €650 a month, ex-VAT.
How do I brief Digital Bridge quickly from County Derry?
Use the "Build your brief with the Digital Bridge Agent" button on this page. The Digital Bridge Agent, the assistant Digital Bridge built into this site, asks what you sell, who buys it, what the website or system has to do and when you need it, then writes the brief, emails it to Digital Bridge and sends you a copy. It takes about two minutes and you do not need to know any service names. Digital Bridge replies with a written scope and a fixed price, and delivers to County Derry and every other county in Ireland from Gorey, Co. Wexford. Prefer to talk? Call 085 224 1848.
Which towns and areas do we serve in County Derry?
Every one of them. Digital Bridge works with businesses right across County Derry — in Derry City, Coleraine, Limavady, Maghera, Magherafelt, Portstewart, Portrush, Garvagh, Dungiven, Claudy, Eglinton, Castledawson — from Gorey, Co. Wexford, remotely and on-site where it helps. There is no travel charge and the published prices are the same in every town.
- Derry City
- Coleraine
- Limavady
- Maghera
- Magherafelt
- Portstewart
- Portrush
- Garvagh
- Dungiven
- Claudy
- Eglinton
- Castledawson
Key takeaways
Digital marketing in Derry means building for a cross-border catchment: a website that shows sterling and euro, a map listing that covers Limavady, Coleraine and Magherafelt as well as the city, and content planned around the Causeway Coast season. Digital Bridge publishes fixed prices — websites from €1,200 and search retainers from €650 a month, ex-VAT.
- A North West website has two audiences in one catchment: the city and the wider council area, and the Inishowen and Letterkenny side of the Foyle.
- Show sterling and euro on the same page. A shopper who has to convert in their head is a shopper who leaves.
- Published prices, not estimates: websites from €1,200, search from €650 a month, social from €345 a month — all ex-VAT.
- Map results and ordinary search results are two separate jobs. Most local businesses here only ever do one of them.
- One well-written city page beats twelve thin town pages, every time.
- You own the code, the domain, the hosting account and the map listing at the end of the project.
Why marketing in the North West is not the same job as Dublin
The catchment crosses a border, so a single decision — which currency to show — changes how many people finish a purchase. Around a fifth of the working population of the city travels or trades across the Foyle. Build one site that speaks to both jurisdictions and you cover the whole catchment. Build for one and you quietly halve it.
- Two currencies, one basket: show both, charge in one, make the rule obvious.
- Two sets of postcodes: BT codes and Eircodes both have to be accepted by the forms.
- Two search behaviours: shoppers on the Donegal side often search in kilometres, not miles.
- One phone number that dials from both sides, written in international format.
How to win the map results, which is a separate job
Map results and ordinary blue-link results are ranked differently. The map pack weighs your profile, your categories, your service areas and how consistently your name, address and phone number appear elsewhere. A business in the Waterside can rank for the city centre if the profile is complete and the service areas are named honestly. Guessing at categories is the usual reason a good business is invisible.
- Set one primary category that matches what you actually sell, then two or three secondaries.
- Name real service areas — Limavady, Coleraine, Magherafelt, Portstewart — not a fifty-mile radius.
- Keep the name, address and phone identical everywhere, including the international dialling format.
- Post photographs taken this season, not stock images of a generic high street.
The nine fixes we work through on a North West site
In our own audits here, the same nine problems come up again and again. None of them need a redesign. Most are a morning's work each, and together they usually decide whether a site earns enquiries or just sits there. We work through them in this order because each one makes the next one easier to measure.
- Show both currencies, with the local one first.
- Accept BT postcodes and Eircodes in every form.
- Give each service its own page instead of one long list.
- Name the towns you actually serve in body copy, not a footer list.
- Fix the map profile categories and service areas.
- Compress the images — the hero is nearly always the slowest thing on the page.
- Add a contact route that works out of hours: a form that emails, not just a phone number.
- Write delivery and returns rules that cover both jurisdictions.
- Measure enquiries, not visits, so you know what the spend actually bought.
Mistakes we see most often on local sites
The commonest fault is not ugliness, it is silence: a site that never says where the business is, what it charges, or who to ring after five o'clock. The second is a page built for a search engine rather than a person, stuffed with the city name until it stops reading like English. Both cost enquiries, and both are cheap to undo.
- Thin town pages that repeat the same paragraph with a different place name swapped in.
- Prices hidden behind 'contact us for a quote' when the buyer only wants a ballpark.
- Contact details in an image, so nobody can tap them on a phone.
- No delivery rule for orders travelling across the border.
Where AI actually helps a smaller business here
Automation earns its keep on the repetitive jobs: answering the same six questions, chasing a quote, moving an order into your accounts. A single automated workflow starts at €4,500, a full operations review is €5,000, and a company-wide build starts at €15,000. We will say plainly when a process is not worth automating.
- Enquiry triage: sort and route what comes in overnight, before you open.
- Quote follow-up: a written, dated chase instead of a note on a pad.
- Booking and reminder messages during the Causeway Coast season.
- Order-to-accounts handover, so nobody retypes an invoice.
How long results take, honestly
A website build runs to an agreed date, and we hold that date. Search is slower and nobody can promise a position. A new page usually takes weeks to settle and months to compete, which is why our retainers run on a three-month minimum and then 30 days' notice. Anyone offering page one by a fixed date is selling something they cannot control.
- Build work: a written schedule agreed before the deposit is paid.
- Search retainers: €995 setup, then €650, €1,150 or €2,400 a month.
- Three-month minimum on search, then 30 days' notice — no twelve-month lock-in.
- Monthly report in plain English: enquiries first, rankings second.
Alternatives, and when you should not hire us
If you need a single landing page and you are comfortable in a page builder, do it yourself and spend the money on photography instead. If you need a trading platform with stock feeds across dozens of suppliers, you need a specialist, not a studio. We would rather say that at the first call than four weeks into a build that was never the right shape.
- Doing it yourself: fine for one page, painful past five.
- A freelancer: often cheaper, but check who holds the hosting when they move on.
- A large agency: more people, more layers, and usually a monthly minimum.
- Us: fixed scope, fixed price, and you own everything at the end.
How a North West project runs, step by step
Every project follows the same five steps so you always know what happens next and what it costs. Nothing starts until the scope and the figure are in writing.
- A call: what you sell, who buys it, which side of the Foyle they come from, and what the site has to do.
- A written scope with a fixed price, a page list and a date. You sign it before anything is built.
- Build: structure and copy first, then design, then forms, currency display and delivery rules.
- Testing on real phones, then handover — you receive the code, the domain and the hosting login.
- Optional aftercare: search work, social content or automation, cancellable on 30 days' notice.
Cross-border details a North West site has to get right
The practical differences between a standard brief and one written for a catchment that crosses the Foyle. All prices elsewhere on this page are ex-VAT.
| What changes here | A Dublin-style brief | How we handle it in the North West |
|---|---|---|
| Currency shown to buyers | Euro only | Sterling and euro side by side, with the sterling figure first for shoppers browsing from the city and Coleraine |
| Catchment | One jurisdiction | One site targeting both sides of the Foyle — Buncrana, Letterkenny and Muff read the same pages as Waterside and Coleraine |
| VAT and invoicing | Single VAT rate baked into the cart | Checkout rules split by delivery address so a Donegal order and a Limavady order are each charged correctly |
| Delivery and pricing rules | National flat rate | Separate zones for Northern Ireland, the Republic and Great Britain, with the cost shown before the basket page |
| Map listing | One profile, one town | A profile built around the city with service areas named for Limavady, Magherafelt, Portstewart and Coleraine |
| Seasonality | Flat all year | Content planned around the Causeway Coast season, university terms and the winter events run |
| Phone and contact | One number | A number that dials cleanly from both jurisdictions, with the international format written out on the contact page |
How much does a website cost in Derry?
Our prices are published and fixed: €1,200 for a small brochure site, €2,500 for a business site, and from €6,000 for a shop with cross-border delivery rules. All figures are ex-VAT, agreed in a written scope, on 50% deposit and 50% on launch.
Do you work with businesses on both sides of the border?
Yes. The North West catchment crosses the Foyle, so we build one site that serves both: sterling and euro shown together, BT postcodes and Eircodes both accepted, and delivery rules split by destination rather than a single national flat rate.
Should I show prices in sterling or euro?
Show both, with sterling first for buyers in the council area and euro clearly beside it. Charge in one currency and say which at checkout. Making a shopper do the conversion in their head is one of the commonest reasons a basket is abandoned.
Do I need a separate page for every town?
No. Thin pages that swap one place name for another rarely rank and often dilute the page that would have. One strong page for the city, with the towns you genuinely serve named naturally in the copy, does more work than a dozen near-identical ones.
What does search work cost each month?
€995 for the technical setup, then €650, €1,150 or €2,400 a month depending on how competitive your sector is. Three-month minimum, then 30 days' notice. All figures ex-VAT.
Can you fix a site somebody else built?
Usually, yes — if we can get access to the hosting and the code. We start with a written list of what is wrong, what it costs to fix and what we would leave alone. If a rebuild is genuinely cheaper than repair, we will say so.
Who owns the website when it is finished?
You do. The code, the domain, the hosting account and the map listing are yours, in your name, from handover. Aftercare is optional and cancellable on 30 days' notice; leaving does not cost you the site.
Do you meet clients in person?
Yes, for scoping and for automation work where we need to see how the business actually runs. Most build work then happens remotely with a scheduled call each week, which keeps the cost down for businesses outside the city.
What does the Derry market look like for a local business?
The city and Letterkenny operate as a single labour and customer market, so a Derry business is usually competing for, and selling to, people who cross the boundary weekly. Healthtech, software and university-linked activity give the city a professional B2B layer, while the Causeway Coast towns run on seasonal tourism where enquiries spike hard and fall away just as quickly. Outside those, the county is trades, retail, clinics and hospitality competing inside tight local radii.
Which searches actually bring Derry enquiries?
Tourism-adjacent searches around Portstewart, Coleraine and the coast are heavily seasonal and mobile-first, and they convert on availability, price and a one-tap booking rather than on long copy. City B2B searches are decided on credibility, so named people, real work and a fast, clean site do more than keyword density. Local trade searches remain the most reliable source of steady enquiries, and they are still won on Google Business Profile quality, review flow and speed of reply.
What we build most often for Derry businesses
Booking-first builds for accommodation, activity and hospitality operators along the coast, designed to open fast on a weak signal. Credibility builds and AI integration for city healthtech, software and professional firms — enquiry triage, document automation and internal assistants. Local sites from €1,200 for trades and clinics, and search work from €650 a month. Everything fixed price, everything handed over in your name at launch.
Do you cover both Derry and Donegal for the same business?
Yes, and for most North West businesses that is the correct approach: one site, service-area content for both sides of the boundary, and pricing and delivery information that makes sense in either currency.
Can you build for a seasonal tourism business?
Yes. Seasonal operators need availability and booking above everything, minimal page weight for visitors on poor coastal signal, and content that can be switched between season and off-season without a developer. We build that in and show you how to run it.
Do you do AI work for smaller firms, or only larger ones?
Both. The most common small-firm project is enquiry triage and reply drafting, which starts around €2,500 and is scoped against the work you actually want removed from someone's day. If an off-the-shelf tool would do the job for less, we will say so.
How do we start?
A free twenty-minute scope call, a written scope and one fixed figure within two working days, then a staged build against a live preview link. Domain, hosting, analytics and code transfer to you at launch.
What happens next
You get a reply from Joey Bray the same working day. You get a fixed written quote within 48 hours — one price, one delivery date. Work starts only when you have signed the scope, with 50% up front and 50% at launch. Starting prices: Brochure from €1,200, Growth from €2,500, Authority from €4,250, Custom from €5,000, E-commerce from €6,000, AI integration from €2,500, SEO from €650 a month. All prices are ex-VAT starting points.
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- Get my fixed quote: https://digitalbridge.ie/contact