Brand and Domains: Naming Your Service and Wiring DNS

Your service exists the moment two things are true: it has a name that isn't LinkProfit, and it answers on a domain that belongs to you. Both are one-evening tasks, and both are worth doing deliberately, because everything a client ever sees — links, dashboard, invoices, emails — hangs off the decisions in this lesson.

Naming: optimise for saying it out loud

You will say this name on calls, type it into DNS records and print it on QR stickers, so test candidates against three practical filters rather than brand-agency mystique:

• Say the test. Say the name and domain over a phone call without spelling it. LumaLinks — lumalinks.co passes. Anything with hyphens, digits or clever misspellings fails and will fail forever.
• Niche beats abstraction. If you already know your niche (and you should — the positioning lesson makes the case), let the name lean into it. A restaurant-focused service called MenuLinks pre-sells itself; SynergyTech Solutions pre-sells nothing.
• Two domains, one name. You ideally want a service domain for the dashboard and site (lumalinks.co) and at least one link domain that is short and clean (luma.link, lmls.co). The link domain is the one your clients' audiences will see, so shortness matters more there.

Do not spend more than an evening on this. A workable name registered today beats a perfect name debated for three weeks — renaming later is unpleasant but survivable; not launching is fatal.

The three kinds of domain in your service

Partners regularly mix these up, and then their DNS records mysteriously "don't work". Keep them separated:

1. Redirect domains carry short links — go.client.com, luma.link. Every click resolves against one of these. Your plan sets how many you can connect: 3 on Starter, 10 on Growth, 30 on Scale. Your own house link domain occupies one slot; client domains take the rest.
2. The dashboard domain is where you and your clients sign in. Out of the box your dashboard runs on a LinkProfit subdomain (yourslug.linkprofit.com) — fully functional, your branding inside. From Growth up you can put it on your own domain (app.lumalinks.co), which removes the last visible trace of the platform.
3. Your marketing site (lumalinks.co itself) is a plain website you own and host anywhere — a one-page description of plans with a sign-up link is entirely enough at launch. The platform does not host this page, and you do not need to be a web designer to ship it.

Connecting a redirect domain: the actual mechanics

The dashboard's domain wizard does most of this, but you should understand what it asks for, because you will guide clients through the same steps under your brand.

A subdomain (go.lumalinks.co) needs one CNAME record at your DNS provider pointing to the platform's endpoint. The wizard shows the exact record; you paste it into Cloudflare, Namecheap, GoDaddy or wherever the domain lives. The CNAME guide walks through four popular providers screen by screen.

A bare (apex) domain (luma.link with nothing before the dot) cannot carry a CNAME under DNS rules, so it is connected with an A record pointing at an IP address the platform issues to you. The procedure lives in the apex domain guide.

After the record propagates — minutes to a few hours — the platform verifies it and issues a TLS certificate automatically. No certificate files, no renewals, ever. If verification stalls, the free DNS checker shows what the world currently sees for your record, which resolves ninety percent of "it doesn't work" cases (the usual culprits: a typo in the record name, or an old record fighting the new one).

One habit worth forming now: connect your own link domain first and run it for a day before you ever touch a client's DNS. You want your first mistakes on your own domain.

Branding the inside

With domains answering, open Branding in the partner dashboard and make the inside match the outside: service name, logo, favicon, accent colours. These apply to the client dashboard, sign-in screens and the transactional emails your service sends (password resets, invitations, payment notices). The branding guide covers the details, including custom CSS if you want it.

Email sender deserves a special note. On Starter, service emails come from the platform's sending domain with your name. From Growth, you can send from your own address (hello@lumalinks.co), which requires adding SPF and DKIM records — same copy-paste procedure as the CNAME, instructions in the same guide. On the same tier the "Powered by" marks disappear entirely, completing the illusion. Neither is required to launch; both are worth it once clients pay you real money.

What "good enough to launch" looks like

Resist the urge to gold-plate. Here is the honest launch bar, and it is lower than you think:

• One link domain connected and verified, TLS green.
• Dashboard on the platform subdomain — clients genuinely do not care at $9/month.
• Logo and colours set; default emails as they are.
• A one-page site with your plans and a sign-up link.

That configuration can take money and serve clients indefinitely. Compare it with the demo to see the finished look, then stop polishing — the next lesson, pricing your plans, is where launch momentum usually dies, and you want to reach it with energy left.

Checklist

• [ ] Pick a service name that survives the say-it-out-loud test; register the service domain and one short link domain.
• [ ] Connect the link domain in the dashboard wizard — CNAME for a subdomain, A record for an apex — and wait for the green TLS check (guide, checker).
• [ ] Create a test link on your new domain, click it on your phone, and watch the click land in analytics.
• [ ] Upload logo and set colours in Branding; send yourself a password-reset email to see your brand in an inbox.
• [ ] Write down which of your 3 Starter domain slots are spoken for — house domain plus your first two client candidates.