You bought the domain. Now what?
A domain and a hosting account are the first purchases most Botswana businesses make online — and the ones explained least. This page explains both, tells you how to keep them portable, and names the four costs the invoice never shows.
The domain is the address
A name people can remember and a place for your email to live. It is a registration, not a service — you rent it annually, and the only thing that matters is that you hold the account. Botswana’s .bw namespace is administered nationally and sold through accredited registrars, so the seller is normally a company with a checkout page.
Hosting is the machine
Somewhere for files and databases to sit, with an address that resolves. It is a commodity: quality varies, but nothing about it is unique to any supplier in this market. Treat it as interchangeable on purpose — that is what gives you leverage when a renewal doubles.
Before anything else: is it in your name?
The most expensive mistake in this category is not price. It is a domain registered in somebody else’s account — an employee who leaves, an agency relationship that sours, a freelancer who vanishes. Five checks close that door permanently.
- The registrar account is in your business name, with your email address as the login — never the web designer’s.
- You know who the registrant contact is, and it is you. That is the person the namespace answers to.
- Renewal reminders arrive at an address you control. A domain that expires because somebody else forgot is a domain you have lost.
- You have the transfer/auth code, or know where to get it, so leaving is a process rather than a negotiation.
- The hosting account is separate from the domain account. One bill, two products — and either can move without the other.
Hosting is a commodity — judge it on four things
Not gigabytes, not the number of email accounts, not a wall of badges. These four decide whether the relationship works in year three:
You can leave without asking permission
Export your files, dump your database, get your DNS records. If leaving requires a support ticket to a person who stops replying when they hear the word “transfer”, the price was never the price.
Backups are automatic and somewhere you can reach
Ask how far back they go and how a restore works. A backup you cannot restore from within an hour is a story, not a backup.
Support answers in your working day, in writing
A ticket you can read back beats a phone call you have to remember. Local hours matter more than a 24/7 claim that lands in another timezone.
The renewal price is published, not revealed
Introductory pricing is normal; hiding the year-two number is not. If the renewal figure is not on the page, ask for it in writing before you pay.
The four costs the invoice leaves out
None of these appear on any Botswana hosting invoice. All of them are larger, in the first two years, than the invoice.
Your own hours
A template does not install itself, and a “simple” site is a fortnight of evenings for somebody who also runs the business. Value that time at what you charge customers — the DIY option is rarely the cheap one.
The integrations nobody scoped
The form that should reach WhatsApp, the calendar that must not double-book, the invoice that has to match the quote. Each is a small project, and each is invisible until it fails in front of a customer.
The follow-up gap
The cost of a website is the cost of every lead it collects and does not answer. That number never appears on any invoice, which is exactly why it grows.
The “who do I call?” tax
When the domain is with one supplier, the hosting with another, the site with a third, and the email with a fourth, every small fault starts with a conversation about whose fault it is. You pay in days, not Pula.
What the domain and host will never do for you
Be found. A domain is not a marketing plan. Somebody still has to put your name in front of buyers — a directory listing, a search result, a WhatsApp status, a referral.
Convert. Visitors arrive with a question. Something has to answer it, quickly, in the channel they chose — not in a form that emails you at midnight.
Follow up. Most of the money in a small business is in the second and third contact. That is a process, and processes are built, not bought with a hosting plan.
Tell you what worked. Not the number of visits — the number of jobs. That requires connecting a channel to a lead to an invoice, which is a system, not a dashboard screenshot.
The twenty-minute checklist
- 1Register the domain in your own name, even if someone else builds the site.
- 2Keep domain and hosting on separate accounts so either can move alone.
- 3Insist on a written renewal price for years two and three.
- 4Point the domain at services you could migrate: email first, then the site.
- 5Write down the logins and keep them somewhere you own — not only in a chat with your developer.
- 6Before paying for any build, decide which enquiry must never go unanswered, and how you will know it did not.
Do all six and you are free to change supplier at any time. That freedom is worth more than any discount you will be offered today — and it is why we build on infrastructure you own rather than bundling our own.
Straight answers
Who manages .co.bw domains in Botswana?+
The .bw namespace is administered nationally and sold through accredited registrars, which is why the seller is usually a company rather than a government office. What matters for you is not who administers it, but that the registrant — the account holder — is your business and your email address.
Do I need hosting if I use a website builder?+
Usually it is bundled invisibly, which is fine, as long as you know you cannot take the builder elsewhere. The test is the same one we apply to ourselves: can you leave, and what happens to your content if you do?
Is a .co.bw domain better than a .com?+
For local trust, a .bw name signals that you trade here, and buyers notice. For reach, a .com is more familiar internationally. Owning both and pointing them at the same site is a cheap way to stop a competitor taking the other one.
Does Mokoro sell domains or hosting?+
No. We are not a registrar and we do not resell hosting, so we have nothing to gain by recommending a more expensive plan. We build on infrastructure you own and we tell you what to check before you buy it from someone else.
What should I do the day the domain is live?+
Answer one question honestly: after somebody finds this site, what happens in the next ninety seconds? If the answer is “they fill in a form and I reply tonight”, start there — that gap costs more than any design change will recover.
The domain is bought. Build the part that earns.
We do not sell domains or hosting, so the advice you just read costs you nothing and we gain nothing from it. If you want the ninety seconds after an enquiry handled properly, that is the conversation we are good at.