.co.ke or .com? Choosing a domain name for your Kenyan business

Your domain name is your address online. It appears on your website, your email, your business cards and every social media bio. Choosing it takes ten minutes, but changing it later is painful, so it is worth getting right the first time.

.co.ke or .com?

Choose .co.ke if most of your customers are in Kenya. It tells people straight away that you are a local business, and Google uses country domains as one of many signals about where a business serves.

Choose .com if you serve clients across Africa or internationally, or if your name is short and the .com is available.

Best of both: if your budget allows, register both. Use one as your main address and point the other to it. This also stops anyone else from taking the name.

For NGOs and non-profits, .or.ke or .org signal that you are an organisation rather than a company.

What makes a good domain name

• Short and easy to say. Imagine reading it out over the phone.
• Close to your business name, so customers can guess it.
• No hyphens or numbers unless they are part of your brand.
• Easy to spell. Avoid words people commonly misspell.

Make sure it truly belongs to you

This is the part that causes the most trouble. Many businesses discover, years later, that their website or email stops working because the person who registered the domain has moved on. To avoid that:

1. Register the domain in your business name, not your web designer’s
2. Keep the registrar login details yourself, even if someone else manages the site
3. Turn on automatic renewal and keep the payment details up to date
4. Use a business email address on the domain, such as hello@yourbusiness.co.ke, rather than a free email address

Domain, hosting and website are three different things

The domain is the address. Hosting is the space where your website files live. The website is what people see. You can buy each from different providers, and it helps to know which is which when something needs fixing.

Need help choosing and setting up your domain as part of a new website? See how we build websites or get in touch.