How to Choose a Domain Name for Your Small Business UK: A Checklist
Choosing a domain name is one of the few business decisions you make once and rarely revisit. Get it wrong and you live with the typos for a decade. This is the five-step checklist Duport uses with first-time UK founders, in the order it matters.
Step 1: Default to .co.uk for UK trade
Pick .co.uk first and only switch if you have a specific reason not to, this is one of those choices that feels minor at the start but tends to stick longer than expected. Nominet runs the .co.uk extension and it carries the default trust signal for UK trade. UK customers still tend to default to .co.uk, especially in trades like plumbing or accountancy, where people are often typing it straight from memory rather than clicking a link. If you go with .com, you’ll often find yourself reminding people, which gets old surprisingly quickly. It’s quite common to hear founders say they end up adding having to add “.com, not .co.uk” at the end of every phone call.
Use .com only if you are aiming at a global market from day one. Or if someone already owns the .co.uk you wanted and you’re willing to compete with them. Both .uk and .com make fine secondary registrations to lock down. The .co.uk should still be the one you print on your business cards. In practice, this is where a lot of founders end up pointing everything back to anyway after a few months, usually after noticing enquiries drifting to the .co.uk version they didn’t prioritise. A .co.uk costs around £8 to £15 a year at an independent registrar, so locking the variants down isn’t expensive.
Avoid .biz, .info, .online and the long tail of newer extensions for a UK trading business. Extensions like .biz or .info tend to get associated with older, low-quality sites, think outdated directories or thin affiliate pages, which is why people hesitate before clicking them. The cost saving doesn’t justify it.
Step 2: Make it short, easy to spell, and easy to say
Aim for something under 15 characters and under three syllables. A simple test is to say it once on a phone call, if the other person pauses or asks you to repeat it, that’s usually a sign it won’t stick. If you need to spell it out, the domain is too clever.
Avoid hyphens. They do technically work, but this catches a lot of people out later, especially when emails get read out loud or typed quickly on mobile. They also raise the spam-likelihood score on receiving mail servers. If your first choice is taken, it’s usually better to step back and rethink the name rather than forcing a variation, this is where you start to see slightly awkward “Plan B” domains, the kind that work, a year later, the owner still hesitates slightly when saying it out loud.
Avoid numbers for the same reason, people rarely agree on how to say them out loud, which leads to the classic “was that 1 or ‘one’?” confusion. 1stchoiceplumbers” is a good example, it sounds clear in your head, but over the phone it usually turns into a quick back-and-forth to clarify, often with both sides guessing different versions before landing on the right one. Use numbers only when the brand itself contains one.
Step 3: Match it to your registered business name where it matters
Make the domain match your registered business name closely enough that a customer searching one finds the other. If you trade as “Bristol Cake Company Ltd”, a domain like bristolcakecompany.co.uk lines up the search. A clever domain like “happybakes.co.uk” makes you harder to find when somebody Googles the name on your invoice.
You don’t have to match exactly. UK law (Companies Act 2006 s.82) requires your registered company name to appear on your website. So your trading domain can be tighter and shorter than the registered name. The registered name just needs to appear in the footer.
Haven’t formed the limited company yet? Duport’s Reserve a Company Name service secures the name at Companies House for £149 before you commit. Useful when the .co.uk you want is free and the matching company name still isn’t taken.
Step 4: Check trademarks before you pay
It’s worth checking the trademark register before committing to a domain, this is one of those steps that often gets skipped until after things like logos, invoices, or even vans have already been branded, which is usually the point where changing it becomes a much bigger decision than it should have been. The UK Intellectual Property Office offers a free search at gov.uk/search-for-trademark. Type your candidate name, look at the existing marks in your trade class, and rule out any candidate that conflicts.
It only takes a few minutes. It’s also one of the most commonly skipped steps before launch and one of the more expensive ones to fix later. A trademark holder can force a domain transfer through Nominet’s Dispute Resolution Service even if you registered first. Do the search. If a strong match comes up, pick a different name.
One thing most “how to pick a domain” guides skip: legal compliance on the eventual website. Whatever domain you pick, the website it points at will need a privacy policy, a cookie notice, terms and conditions, and the right business information in the footer. Website builders like Wix or Squarespace will give you template pages for things like privacy policies, but they don’t check whether the content is complete or legally correct, so it’s quite common to see sites missing things like a proper cookie setup or complete company details. Especially true we find, on first builds where the focus is more on getting the site live than checking the fine print. If you already have a website, run it through our free compliance checker to see what’s there and what isn’t.
Step 5: Register at an independent registrar, not your website builder
Buy the domain somewhere you can move it from later. Wix and Squarespace both bundle a domain with your site. Wix gives you the first year free on annual plans. The catch comes at renewal: the price jumps to about £12 – £15 a year. Portability is the bigger issue. Domains registered through website builders are often harder to move than people expect. It’s the kind of issue that doesn’t show up until a year or two in, when you decide to move and realise it’s not as straightforward as expected, often at the exact point you’re trying to redesign or scale the business.
Buy at a UK independent registrar instead. Non-trading individuals who hold a .co.uk can opt their address out of the public WHOIS register at no extra charge through Nominet’s privacy rules. We covered the wider Wix lock-in problem in Why Wix Doesn’t Work for Small Business UK.
If you would rather not pick a registrar yourself, Duport’s domain registration starts from £20.99 a year. Once your domain is live, the next job is to set up a business email at it. The full setup is in Setting Up Business Email with Your Own Domain UK
Want the whole lot handled for you?
Rather hand over the domain, the website, the email and the SPF/DKIM records together? Duport’s website build covers all four. Live in 72 hours, 30 minutes of your time. Duport’s website build starts from £360. Mention this article when you get in touch and we’ll honour the £144 rate. For those also registering a limited company, the full bundle is £244 upfront. That covers company formation, your website, email, and seven compliance tools together.
FAQs
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Should I buy the .com as well as the .co.uk?
If both are available and the cost is small, lock down both. The .co.uk is the one you put on your card. The .com stops a competitor from registering it later and confusing your customers.
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Can I change my domain name later if I pick the wrong one?
You can, but it’s rarely straightforward in practice, most founders only realise how many things are tied to the domain once they start trying to change it. Your email addresses change. All your printed marketing changes. Search rankings reset, and any inbound links from other sites point at a dead address. Getting it right first time costs much less than changing it later.
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Does my domain name need to match my registered company name exactly?
No. The registered company name has to appear on your website (Companies Act 2006), but your trading domain can be shorter, tighter or different. See Why Are My Business Emails Going to Spam UK? if your existing setup is sending mail that customers aren’t seeing.
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Are .uk domains different from .co.uk?
Nominet runs both, and both are UK-specific. Most UK customers still expect .co.uk for a business. The shorter .uk reads as a newer alternative. If you can register both, do. If you can only secure one, .co.uk is still generally the safer choice in the UK market, mainly because it’s what people expect to see. Many founders only realise how important this is when customers start defaulting to the wrong version and enquiries begin landing somewhere they’re not actively monitoring.
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Is my Wix or Squarespace website legally compliant in the UK?
Not automatically. UK law requires your website to include a privacy policy, a cookie notice, clear terms and conditions, and specific business information (such as your registered company name and number if you’re a limited company). Most website builders include template pages for some of these, but they don’t check whether your content is accurate or complete. Use our free website compliance checker to see what your site has and what it’s missing.
