Choosing a domain name
A domain name is the address people type and the end of your email address. A good one is short, easy to spell when heard aloud, and close to the business name. Before you choose, say it to someone and ask them to write it down. If they spell it differently, so will customers.
Endings used by UK businesses include .co.uk and .uk, which are run by Nominet, and .com. You buy a domain through a registrar, a company that sells domains, not from Nominet directly.
Register it in the right name
Register the domain in the name of the business, or in your own name if you are a sole trader, and use contact details that will stay correct. Nominet's terms for .uk domains (conditions 4.1, 7.2 and 7.3) require registrants to give, and keep up to date, correct contact details. Condition 16 allows Nominet to suspend or cancel a domain if it receives proof that the details are significantly inaccurate, or if the registrant fails to keep them up to date. Revised .UK Registrant Terms, listed on Nominet's policy page, take effect on 9 February 2027.
Avoid letting a builder register the domain in their own name or account. If you part company, getting it back can be slow. If a builder does register it for you, ask for it to be in the business's name and for you to have your own login.
Renewal
Domains are registered for a period and must be renewed. Note the renewal date and who pays it. Switching on automatic renewal with a payment card that will not expire soon is a simple safeguard. A lapsed domain can stop your website and email working.
Hosting
Hosting is the service that keeps your website online. How you get it depends on your platform:
- With a hosted builder or shop platform, hosting is included in the plan.
- With self-hosted software, you rent hosting separately and install the software on it.
If you need separate hosting, ask about: backups and how to restore one, whether security certificates for https are included, what support is available and when, and how easily you can move the site elsewhere. Write the monthly or yearly cost into the budget estimator.
Make sure the site loads over https. Browsers mark plain http pages as not secure, and a contact form sent over http is exposed in transit.
Business email
An address at your own domain, such as hello@yourbusiness.co.uk, looks more established than a free webmail address, and it stays yours if you change provider. Business email can be a separate service from the website, with a monthly charge per mailbox.
Protect your domain from spoofed email
Criminals can send email that pretends to come from your domain. The National Cyber Security Centre recommends three controls, set up as records on your domain:
- SPF publishes which servers are allowed to send email for your domain.
- DKIM adds a cryptographic signature to the email you send, so receivers can check it came from you.
- DMARC tells receiving servers what to do with messages that fail those checks, and sends you reports.
In the NCSC's words, the aim is to make it hard for anyone to send fake email from your domains. Your email provider will have instructions for SPF and DKIM; DMARC can start in a monitoring mode before you ask receivers to reject failures.
If someone else holds your domain
If a previous builder or a former colleague registered your domain, find out now rather than when it is about to expire. Look up which registrar holds it, then ask the person who controls the account to transfer it to an account in the business's name, or to update the registrant details to the business. For .uk domains, Nominet's terms place the duty of keeping contact details correct on the registrant, so the registrant should be the business itself.
Keep the request polite and in writing, and give a date. If the domain is in someone else's name and they will not help, take advice before it lapses.
Moving hosting or email later
Changing provider later is easier if you plan for it now. Before you sign up, find out how to export the site and your mailboxes, whether the provider charges to release a domain, and how DNS records are managed. When you move, copy everything first, lower the time-to-live on the DNS records a day ahead if your provider allows it, switch the records, and keep the old service running for a short overlap so no email is lost. Check SPF, DKIM and DMARC again after the move, because a new email provider sends from different servers.
Who holds the keys
Make a short record of every account the website depends on: registrar, hosting or platform, email, any booking or payment service. For each, note the login email, who has access, and the renewal date. Keep it somewhere safe that more than one trusted person can reach.
The launch checklist includes these points, so they get checked before the site goes live.
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