Most clubs start on a free web address that looks like yourclub.ourclub.live — which is completely fine for getting online. But sooner or later someone on the committee asks the reasonable question: can we have our own address, like yourclub.co.uk, and an email to match, like secretary@yourclub.co.uk? Here is how that works, without the jargon.
First: does your club already own a domain?
This is the question that decides everything else, so ask the committee before you do anything. There are three common situations:
- Nobody has ever registered one. You are starting fresh and just need to buy the address you want, if it is available.
- The club already owns one, usually registered years ago by a volunteer. The important follow-up is who it is registered with — the "registrar", with names like GoDaddy, 123-Reg, Cloudflare or Namecheap — and who has the login. More than one club has a perfectly good domain it cannot use because the only person with the password left three years ago.
- A domain points at a Facebook page or an old site. That is still a domain you own, and it can be re-pointed at a new site.
If you are not sure, a quick "whois" lookup (search "whois" and your domain) will usually tell you the registrar and roughly when it was registered.
Buying a new domain
A .co.uk or .org.uk address typically costs around £8–£12 a year, and a .com a little more. The only real decisions are which ending fits (.org.uk reads well for a non-profit club; .co.uk is the familiar UK default) and registering it to a club email address rather than a personal one, so it never gets stuck with one volunteer again.
Connecting a domain you already own
Pointing an existing domain at a new website means changing one or two DNS records at your registrar. It sounds technical, but it is usually a copy-and-paste job of two values, and a good platform shows you exactly what to paste. Changes can take anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours to take effect.
The matching email address
The part most people assume is hardest is usually the simplest. You do not have to move your whole inbox. The common setup is: send email from your club domain (so replies come from secretary@yourclub.co.uk, not a personal Gmail), and have anything sent to that address forwarded automatically to an inbox the secretary already checks. Nothing new to log into.
How this works on Natterio
A custom domain is included from the Starter plan (£7/month). You can connect a domain the club already owns, or register a new one as part of setup for many common endings; for the .uk family (.co.uk, .org.uk), we point you to a trusted registrar to buy it and then connect it in a couple of clicks. A matching email address on your domain is included too — you send from your own domain and have incoming mail forwarded to an inbox you already use. Starter covers one address; higher plans add more if different committee roles each want their own. The permanent free plan stays on a .ourclub.live address with no card, so you can build the whole site first and add your own domain only when you are ready. Start your club site free.