Domain and hosting, step by step

This guide is for you if you have the Business Card package. In Professional and Expert, and with the "Domain and hosting setup" add-on, we do all the steps below for you, so you can safely skip this article.

The whole process comes down to three things: you buy a domain, you create an account with Cloudflare — the company whose servers your site will run on — and you let us into that account. Going back to the building comparison: you buy the address and the plot in your own name, and give us the keys so we can build the house on it. Everything is registered to you from day one — more on that in Who owns the site.

Set aside half an hour at a computer, and have your business details and a payment card to hand.

Step 1. Buy a domain

You buy the domain from any domain registrar, in your own name or your company's, not ours. You're the one with the agreement with the registrar, and the yearly renewal invoice will come from them. If you're not sure which name to pick, ask us before buying — we're happy to take a look. Already have a domain? Go straight to step 2.

Protect your registrar account with a strong password and, if the registrar offers it, two-step login. Whoever has access to that account effectively controls your address on the internet.

Step 2. Create a Cloudflare account

Your site will run on Cloudflare's servers. Go to cloudflare.com, sign up with your email address and confirm it. It's worth turning on two-step login here straight away too. For a site like yours, Cloudflare hosting is usually free, because the free plan is more than enough. If any fees ever do come up, you settle them directly with Cloudflare, at their prices — we don't add a margin.

Step 3. Add your domain to Cloudflare

In the Cloudflare dashboard, add your domain. At the end of that wizard, Cloudflare will show you two so-called nameserver addresses — they look roughly like ada.ns.cloudflare.com. Copy them, or leave that tab open, because you'll need them in the next step.

Step 4. Change the nameservers at your registrar

Log in to the registrar where you bought the domain, find the nameserver (DNS) settings for your domain, and replace the existing addresses with the two from Cloudflare. It's like changing your mailing address: the domain stays with the registrar, but from now on the settings in Cloudflare decide where it leads.

If email already runs on this domain, message us before this step. We'll check that its settings carry over correctly, so the switch doesn't interrupt your incoming mail.

The change doesn't take effect instantly. Cloudflare will email you when the domain is active, which usually takes anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours, and sometimes longer.

Step 5. Invite us to your Cloudflare account

In your Cloudflare account settings there's a members section (Members). Invite us there with administrator permissions, using the email address we'll agree on with you during the project. That lets us publish the site and connect it to your domain, while you remain the account owner and can take that access away at any time.

Step 6. Let us know

Finally, send us a short message with your domain name, a note that the Cloudflare invitation has been sent, and the email address where messages from the contact form should go. From there it's our job: we publish the site, connect it to the domain, and the SSL certificate — the padlock next to the address — switches on automatically.

Stuck on one of the steps? Tell us which one — a screenshot is usually enough for us to tell you what to click next.