Domain and email

What you get out of this

After this guide, your company has its own domain, for example yourcompany.se, and a professional email address such as info@yourcompany.se, without you needing to own or administer any server of your own. You learn where to buy the domain, what it costs, how to point it correctly and how the email gets through.

Why is this worth an afternoon? First, you look serious: an address on your own domain name carries more weight than a free address with an email provider when you contact suppliers and customers. Second, you own your address. If you switch email service or web host, you keep the domain and can point it elsewhere. Third, you avoid rebuilding from scratch if the company grows or changes direction: a domain that already works is an asset, not a one-time investment.

What you need before you start

• An idea for your company name, preferably two or three alternatives in case your first choice is taken.
• A payment card or Swish for the payment, expect around 100 to 250 kronor per year.
• An existing email address that someone in the company reads every day, where the email can be forwarded to begin with.
• Two people in the company who will have access to the account, so that nothing is lost if someone is sick or leaves.

Time and difficulty level

One to two hours in total, most of which is waiting for DNS, the domain name system that translates your name into technical addresses, to update. The difficulty level is low. Everything happens in ordinary web forms, no terminal or server is required.

How to do it

1. List your name suggestions and check that they are available. Search each name directly in the browser with .se at the end, and also check that the name is not taken by an already registered company in your region, so that you avoid misunderstandings.
2. Choose a registrar, that is, a reseller that is allowed to sell .se domains. The top-level domain .se is administered by the Internet Foundation (Internetstiftelsen), and registration always takes place through a registrar connected to them. We recommend Oderland or Beebyte. Both are Swedish, sell .se domains, web hosting and email, and have their servers in Sweden. Compare the renewal price, not just the first-year price, a low entry can be hidden by an expensive second year.
3. Register the domain. Create an account with your chosen registrar, enter the name, and pay. Important: enter an email address that the company can access next year too, and write down the username and password in the company's shared documents right away.
4. Turn on email forwarding. In the registrar's control panel there is a setting for email, often called forwarding or forwards. Set up info@yourcompany.se and order@yourcompany.se and point them to two different people's existing email addresses. It is free or very cheap and goes a long way for a company.
5. Choose the next step for email as needed. If you want to be able to send from your domain address, not just receive, either the registrar's forwarding needs to support outgoing email, or you need a real email service. Google Workspace costs about 75 kronor per user and month and gives you full inboxes, calendar and documents. Zoho Mail has a free tier for single users. Microsoft 365 often has packages adapted for smaller companies.
6. Connect the domain to your website. If you have a website with a provider, for example WordPress.com, Webador or a web host, there are two paths. Either you change the domain's name servers to the provider's, then the provider handles everything, or you add an A record, a DNS record that connects the domain name to the web server's address, in the registrar's control panel. The provider's guide says exactly which address you should point to.
7. Test everything. Send an email from an external address to info@yourcompany.se and confirm that it lands in the right inbox, both in regular email and in the spam filter. Open the domain in the browser and check that the right page is shown.
8. Document and share the responsibility. Write down where the domain is registered, which email addresses exist, and who has the login. Save it in the company's shared folder, so that whoever takes over can retrieve the information without chasing old passwords.

How you know it worked

The domain opens in a browser and shows your page. An email sent to info@yourcompany.se reaches the right person within a few minutes, without getting stuck in the sender's spam folder. Two people in the company can log in to the registrar account and show that the renewal date is one year ahead.

If something goes wrong

• The name you wanted is taken: try one of your backup names, add a word that suits your industry, or test a hyphen between the words, but avoid odd spellings that customers will not remember.
• The email does not arrive: first check the recipient's spam folder, then check that the forwarding is saved and active in the control panel, and test with an email from a completely different provider than the one you forward to.
• The website cannot be reached after you connected the DNS: changes in DNS usually take up to 24 hours to spread, wait and test again, and check that the A record points to exactly the address the web hosting guide states, one incorrect character is enough to break the connection.
• You have forgotten the login to the registrar account: use the reset via email on the registrar's site, and update the documentation with the new details right away, if the email address is also unreachable, contact the registrar's support and identify yourself as the customer.
• The domain was about to expire: registrars send reminders to the account's email address a few weeks in advance, make sure that email address is read, and pay the renewal right away. A .se domain is not lost the same day it expires, there is a grace period of about two months when only you can renew it, but wait too long and it is released to anyone.
• Email from you ends up in the recipient's spam folder: do not send bulk mailings, ask the recipient to mark your sender as trusted, and consider a real email service if the problem remains, forwarding via some registrars lacks the techniques that build credibility.
• Only one person knows the account and that person is leaving the company: contact the registrar's support right away, explain the situation, and ask for a new user to be added, do it while the person is still there, not at the last minute.

What you do next

With the domain and email in place, it is time to be visible and sell. Keep building with Bookkeeping so that the revenue from your new channels is documented correctly, and make sure the terms on the new site match the Legal checklist. Also have a plan for what should happen to the domain if you close down or sell the company.