Tommy Tyrrell

• Company: Irelands Directory
• Industry: Digital
• Website: http://www.irelands-directory.com/
• Location: Business and Innovation Centre, GMIT, Dublin Road, Galway

About

Irelands Directory was set up to provide a link between the consumer and businesses in the cities, towns and villages of Ireland. Their Irish business listings provide browsers with contact details, descriptions, maps and photos of businesses in Ireland.

Starting Up

Irelands Directory was set up in 2006 by Tommy Tyrrell, a SEO specialist and Pat Dillane, a senior programmer. The pair have years of experience in attracting visitors to websites having previously worked for CNG Hotels and Go Ireland.

Tommy says “We knew it would be a long term project as we needed to have a large number of businesses in our database to compete with the Golden Pages who had approx 100,000 businesses listed.”

They could see that other directories didn’t give exactly what the browser was looking for. For instance, in most other directories if you looked for ‘Hairdressers in Galway’ it could include hairdressers as far away as Clifden which is 40 miles away. They addressed this by listing every town and village within every county and if there was a hairdresser in a small village they only list it in that location.

Another problem that they wanted to address was that you had to click through various pages of hairdressers to find the one you were looking for. “We addressed this by listing all businesses on one page and in alphabetical order which made it easier to find” Tommy says.

Future

Tommy and Pat hope to further develop Irelands Directory over the next year. Their aim is to make it the number one directory site in Ireland, whether you want to look up a telephone number, order a takeaway, book a hotel or B&B or find a genuine bargain and purchase.

At present they are receiving advice from Richard Roche previously of Roches Stores to develop an ecommerce facility which will give small businesses a presence on the internet and allow them sell their products through our site.

Tommy also has plans to expand outside of Ireland. “If it works in Ireland we plan to do the same in England where we already have www.englands-directory.com generating about 10,000 visitors a month with no work and just a sample database of businesses” he says.

Advice

Tommy’s advice for anyone setting up their own business is to look closely at what’s available first and make sure you can offer something a little different or better by thinking outside the box. “Always believe in your product and don’t let any negative comments put you off. Be prepared to work long hours at stuff you might not like doing. This will help to keep your overheads down. Never assume things will happen – make them happen.”