Getting your business online in Uganda

Most advice written about websites is written for businesses in other countries, where nobody pays for data by the megabyte, nobody runs their enquiries through WhatsApp, and nobody has to decide between a .com and a .co.ug. These guides are written for how business actually works here.

They are also written to be useful whether or not you ever hire anyone. Where the honest answer is that you can do something yourself for free — setting up a Google Business Profile is the clearest example — we say so and explain how. A guide that only makes sense if you buy something is an advertisement, and you can tell the difference immediately.

Every guide carries the prices we actually charge rather than a range that changes on a phone call, and every figure quoted about the wider market comes from prices competitors publish themselves. If something here goes out of date, it gets corrected rather than quietly left up.

What you will find here

• Real costs: what a website, a domain, hosting and ongoing care actually come to in Uganda
• Getting found: Google Business Profile, Maps, and what SEO can and cannot honestly promise
• Domains: .com against .co.ug, what each costs, and who ends up owning your address
• Payments: taking Mobile Money and card payments online, and what that needs
• Deciding: when a website is worth it for a small business, and when it is not yet