Small Business Website Launch Checklist
Domain, hosting, email and certificate in the order that works, plus the first-hour checks and the things people forget.
Read the guide
Resources
Domain and Hosting Guides
Domain and hosting guides in plain language: the things you get asked to buy during signup, explained for people who run a business rather than people who run servers.
Start with these domain and hosting guides
If you are launching, buying or inheriting a website, these four cover the ground in the order it usually comes up.
Looking for advice about your own trade? There are 83 guides written one industry at a time, from restaurants and roofers to law firms and funeral homes.
What a Website Costs to Run
The shape of the four recurring costs, and how to read any provider's pricing page for the renewal price rather than the headline.
Read the guideHow to Choose a Domain Name
The phone test, the traps that cost money later, and what to do when the name you wanted is already taken.
Read the guideTaking Over a Website You Did Not Set Up
Nobody has the logins and the domain is in a former designer's name. How to find out what you have and get control back.
Read the guideComparisons
Two decisions that are easier once somebody has laid out the trade-off honestly.
Domain Name vs Web Hosting
The difference between the address and the space the website lives in, and how to tell which one you are missing.
Read the guideWeb Hosting vs Website Builder
Convenience against control, and the portability question that only matters once you want to leave.
Read the guideDomain guides
How registration, ownership, transfers, records and expiry actually work.
Domain Names for Small Business
Registration, renewals, transfers, locking and the mistakes that cost businesses the name they trade under.
Read the guideHow to Transfer a Domain
The full procedure, including getting the authorisation code and what to do when a transfer stalls.
Read the guideDNS Management
What each record does, what TTL really means, and walkthroughs for the three changes you will actually make.
Read the guideWhat Happens When a Domain Expires
Written for somebody already in trouble: what breaks first, and what to do in the next hour.
Read the guideDomain Privacy Explained
What the public WHOIS record contains, who reads it, and what privacy does and does not hide.
Read the guideHosting guides
Choosing a plan, and moving to one without taking your email down.
Shared Hosting: Is It Enough?
The signs you have outgrown it, and why a slow site is usually the site rather than the plan.
Read the guideWordPress Hosting
What a WordPress-tuned plan arranges for you, and the question that decides it: who owns the updates.
Read the guideWebsite Migration Checklist
A checklist you can work from, in the order that keeps the site and the mailboxes alive.
Read the guideWhat Is cPanel?
The control panel your hosting account lives in, the handful of screens you actually need, and the login people confuse with their website.
Read the guideEmail guides
Choosing between the two products, and moving mail without losing any.
Microsoft 365 for Small Business
What the bundle contains beyond the mailbox, and the honest test for whether your team needs it.
Read the guideEmail Migration Step by Step
The procedure, including the inventory people skip and the sender records that decide whether mail lands in the inbox.
Read the guideSecurity guides
The three that matter most, in the order we would do them.
Website Backups That Actually Restore
What a backup has to contain, how to test a restore, and the decisions you face part-way through one.
Read the guideMalware Removal
For a site compromised right now: the first hour, what kind of compromise it is, and getting delisted afterwards.
Read the guideWordPress Security
The hardening checklist in the order things actually bite, starting with plugin discipline.
Read the guideHero photograph: Lin Kristensen from New Jersey, USA, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Cropped.
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