Making the Move Online – O’Malley Building Supplies

FCR Media’s Wes O’Neill discusses the benefits of an online presence.

O’Malley Building Supplies was established on the Greenhills Road in Walkinstown in March 1956 by Eddie O’Malley Snr. They began by offering solid fuel, building and hardware supplies to the local area, however, they now cover the entire Dublin area and the outskirts of neighbouring counties. Eddie runs the business with his two brothers, Martin and Gerry.

As long as Eddie can remember, he always had an advert in the Golden Pages book, which served the business very well for many years. The book has now migrated to an online version at www.goldenpages.ie. During the early 2000s, Eddie started thinking about setting up a website, but he found himself too busy to get around to it. He asked the Golden Pages to build his business a small microsite, and this humble start online helped O’Malley’s to build their online presence and customer reach through search engines such as Google.

This same microsite was successful for a number of years, and even during the hard times, according to Eddie. Continuing, Eddie said, “As the business emerged from the recession and things began to pick up, I knew it was time to invest in a new website. Technology has moved on so much over the last few years and an increasing number of customers were talking about how they couldn’t find our
website or find directions. That was because the site wasn’t built for mobiles. Smartphones didn’t even exist when our site was made”. That’s where FCR Media came onboard. There was an immediate trust there, as FCR Media are the parent company of www.goldenpages.ie and O’Malley’s had been dealing with the same rep for a number of years. So, when FCR suggested that the store invested in a
proper mobile-optimised website, Eddie was comfortably in agreement.

When another business listing was added, this time in the form of a ‘Google My Business’ profile, it was amazing to see what the statistics revealed! For example, over the first 3 months of 2018, the O’Malley business profile had been viewed by just under 5,900 browsers, and 1,500 of these browsers knew the business by name. The rest of the browsers found them through related keyword searches, such as “Builders Providers in Walkinstown” and “Rock Faced Blocks”, or “Screen Blocks”. Eddie O’Malley thought this profile was incredible and caused them to receive 231 phone calls over a 3-month period. The website allows customers to reach the store through a template form which lands in the company email inbox, and also brings customers directly to the store.

Eddie says that “Along with all that, the website looks very smart. I’m very busy, so I keep the website simple with all the important information easily accessible to any web visitor. FCR Media manage the site and I get a call every so often asking about new products or details to add to the site, which is all included in the price.”

Eddie now hopes that his son might upgrade the site with assistance from FCR Media to an eCommerce solution in 2019. This would enable the company to sell to an even larger area across Dublin and beyond.

Although O’Malley’s is very well-known locally amongst the community for a large range of building and plumbing supplies, as well as coal and gas, Eddie knew that their site wouldn’t show up for every product search carried out online. He decided to run a small Google Ads™ campaign, which was managed by FCR. This campaign accumulated clicks and website traffic for materials they hadn’t been
showing up for in local searches. This opened the business up to new customers for repeat and referral business. Having the business online was important to O’Malley’s, and a mobile-first website was a particular focus, given that the majority of customers now complete searches via mobile devices.

Eddie finished by commenting, “I wanted peace of mind knowing that we were visible and could be contacted at all times. We were introduced to Updater, an app through which I can manage the Google and goldenpages.ie listing profiles really easily. I can change opening hours for special occasions, add photos of products for Google search users to view, post FAQs and answers, and so much more. Having the website and online presence with the assistance of FCR has been a big positive for us at O’Malley Building Supplies. I’d recommend the process to any DIY/Hardware businesses.”

Visit O’Malley’s Building Supplies Website https://www.omalleybuildingsupplies.ie
If you would like more information on Websites and general detail on your online opportunities, please call Wes O’Neill at FCR Media on 087 985 0383.