Setting Up a Professional Email Address
Still using yourbusinessname@gmail.com to email clients? Then it's time for an upgrade! This blog post is for all the business owners that currently still use a Gmail, Hotmail, Sympatico, or some other standard email client to manage their business email.
If you have one of these, please make sure to read the rest of this post and follow these steps to set up a professional email address.
Why Should I Use My Own Domain
Two main reasons: Visibility and Security. Let's tackle each of those separately.
Visibility
When you hand out a business card, having a professional email address on it says you mean business. Anyone can set up a Gmail account, but a specific, business address like max@mydomain.com helps to legitimatize your business.
Longevity
Many of the personal email addresses are just that, personal. What happens when you need to hire an employee and give them an email address? You likely will want to maintain control of that email address in case they leave as well. Setting up a structure from day one will help with the longevity of your email and ensure you maintain control over your email addresses.
So How Should I Set Up My Professional Email Address
There are two things you will need:
- Your own domain registered and paid for (about $10 a year)
- Google Apps for Work (about $5 a month per user)
The domain is step one. Using a registrar like GoDaddy, NameCheap, or any other domain registration service, you want to register your domain. Most of the common systems make this very easy and should cost between $10-15 a year.
Once you are registered, you can set up Google Apps for Work. Setup is fairly straight forward, with an interface that takes you step by step. You will need to change some records on your registered domain, but if you follow the steps they outline, it should go off without a hitch.
Once those two pieces are setup, you will be able to login to a new Gmail account that will work with your custom email address. If you are familiar with Gmail already, you are all set. If not, watch some of the tutorials on how to best use Gmail.
Why Google Apps for Work?
Google Apps for Work is the leading small business solution for email. It's even enterprise-friendly as well, so you never have to worry about how many accounts you will need.
A few major highlights:
- Additional forwarding email addresses are easy to setup. Want info@ or contact@? Just log in to your admin console and add those groups, who is part of them, and who emails should be forwarded too.
- Adding new employees is only a few clicks. It sends them their credentials, adds their billing to yours, and allows you access if they decide to leave or are locked out of their email. You can also shut down access to the email address instantly if termination is required, as well as forward it to someone else if someone takes over their position.
- Drive, Docs, Sheets, Slides, and much more. Google Apps are a huge benefit to your productivity and quickly becoming a tool most businesses use. Sharing files, having all your files easily accessible in the cloud, and the security that it brings to all your files is important.
- Gmail and Google Apps have many many extensions that will make your business run smoother. One to immediately check out is Streak CRM. A free add-on, it will keep your customer information organized right inside your inbox.
All of this is yours for under $5 a month. It's likely one of the best investments I have made and is something I recommend to all my clients, as it is easy to set up and maintain, no professional IT resource required.
Where Do I Start?
If you want to get started on this but are still unsure how to get it done, that is not a problem. Give us a call or contact us today!
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