Adare Village Website features on Business Leader.

A website promoting the village of Adare and its businesses has marked its 20^th Anniversary. Writes Nick Rabbitts of the Limerick Leader.

Back in 2002 www.adarevillage.com was founded by Geoffrey Doran and Ronan Balfe, who ran a computer business called Adare IT Solutions. Geoffrey’s father Brendan, a former Southern executive, has since taken over the mantle of running the website, which on average attracts almost 500 views per day.  “It’s an online directory for the village. Just about everything anybody wants to know about Adare is there. Hopefully, it’s easily accessible. Some websites have too much emphasis on cutting edge, but they must remember when people click, they want to see information straight away. So I’ve tried to explain the simplicity rather than be too clever and wasting people’s time” Brendan told Business Leader.

Of course back in 2002 things looked very different in the online world – there was no Facebook, Twitter or Instagram, and internet advertising was in its infancy. Brendan Said” It was good foresight to set up the website”.

Since then the site has gone from strength to strength, and he believes it’s now considered to be Adare’s most important tourism initiative.

“The website promotes Adare on the world stage as Ireland’s Prettiest Village providing visitors to the website with a comprehensive view of Adare”, Brendan said.

It’s solely funded by subscriptions from businesses listed on the website.

“Local businesses are quite happy to continue supporting it. For them, it’s a small subscription for a whole year of advertising”. “We are getting around 180,000 page hits a year, so it’s significant. We are probably earning 500 hits a day at present, for a village of this size it is good activity and good traffic”, explained the website administrator.

As well as local businesses, the website has a detailed transport section, with information on how to get to the village. Essential information on banking, church masses, taxi services and other things are also available. Local business owners and groups across Adare have also congratulated Brendan on the success of the website. These include the Adare Heritage Centre and the Adare Community Trust.