3 Things to Set Up After Buying a Domain

Hi, I'm Rahul. I'm documenting what I learn while building products.

If you just bought a domain for your website, there are three things I'd set up next.

Want your coding agent to guide you?

Replace the details below, copy the prompt, and work through the setup one step at a time.

Help me set up my new domain correctly.

My domain:
[YOUR DOMAIN]

My website is hosted on:
[WEBSITE HOST]

My app is hosted on:
[APP HOST]

My email provider is:
[EMAIL PROVIDER]

Guide me through these three tasks:

1. Connect my main domain to my public website and use app.[YOUR DOMAIN] for my product.

2. Set up notifications.[YOUR DOMAIN] for important app emails and updates.[YOUR DOMAIN] for marketing emails. Help me configure SPF, DKIM, and DMARC correctly.

3. Check or create my sitemap, connect the domain to Google Search Console, and submit the sitemap.

Before suggesting changes, inspect any relevant project configuration you can access.

Guide me through one step at a time and wait for me to confirm before continuing.

Never guess DNS records. Tell me exactly where to find the values supplied by my hosting or email provider.

Do not overwrite an existing DNS or DMARC record without first explaining what it currently does and asking for confirmation.

If you cannot access my domain provider or another service, tell me exactly where to click and what information to copy back to you.

Step 1 of 3

Separate your main domain and subdomain

Use your main domain for the website and a subdomain for the actual app. This keeps your public website and product separate.

yourdomain.comWebsite

app.yourdomain.comApp

How to set it up

Go to wherever your app is hosted.
Add app.yourdomain.com as a custom domain.
Your hosting provider will give you a DNS record.
Go to your domain provider's DNS settings.
Add the record exactly as your hosting provider gives it to you.
Wait for it to verify.

Always use the DNS values provided by your hosting provider. Do not guess them.

Step 2 of 3

Separate your app emails and marketing emails

Do not send every email from the same domain. Keeping product and marketing emails separate helps protect important messages if marketing emails ever have deliverability or spam issues.

notifications.yourdomain.comApp emails

updates.yourdomain.comMarketing emails

Important app emails

Use notifications.yourdomain.com for sign-ups, password resets, billing, and account notifications.

Marketing emails

Use updates.yourdomain.com for newsletters, promotions, product updates, and marketing campaigns.

How to set it up with Resend

Open Resend and go to Domains.
Add notifications.yourdomain.com.
Copy the DNS records Resend provides into your domain provider's DNS settings.
Wait for Resend to verify the domain.
Repeat the same process for updates.yourdomain.com.

Resend will normally ask you to configure SPF and DKIM. You should also configure DMARC for your domain.

If a DMARC record already exists, do not overwrite it without checking your existing email setup first.

Step 3 of 3

Set up your sitemap and Google Search Console

Your sitemap helps Google discover the public pages on your website.

First, check if you already have one

https://yourdomain.com/sitemap.xml

Some website builders and frameworks create this automatically. If it already exists, you can use it.

If it does not exist, create one that includes important public pages such as your homepage, pricing, features, about page, blog posts, and public documentation.

Do not include private pages such as dashboards, account settings, admin pages, or anything that requires a login.

If your website is built with code, ask your coding agent to create and maintain the sitemap automatically.

Connect Google Search Console

Open Google Search Console and click Add Property.
Choose Domain.
Enter yourdomain.com without https://.
Add Google's DNS verification record to your domain's DNS settings.
Return to Google Search Console and verify the domain.

Submit your sitemap

Open Sitemaps.
Enter sitemap.xml.
Click Submit.

Submitting a sitemap does not guarantee that every page will immediately appear on Google, but it helps Google find and crawl your public pages.

Final setup

yourdomain.comMain website

app.yourdomain.comActual app

notifications.yourdomain.comImportant app emails