How to make a professional email address

Christopher Simpson

• 2 min read
How to make a professional email address

So how do you make a professional email address?

If you have a "@hotmail" or "@gmail" address for your business, it looks unprofessional. You know it, yet how do you fix it? In order to make a professional email address, you need to have email hosting and own a domain name (also known as a web address or url).

Summary for busy people

  • You can normally buy email hosting from the same place you purchased your website address (if you have one)
  • You don't need to buy email hosting from the same place you purchased your website address or web hosting, but it may be more convenient. You probably want this option (because it's often easiest), unless you've had a bad support experience or performance issues. Avoid hassle, stay with the place you got your web address from, if possible/comfortable
  • Avoid/Be weary of cheap 99pence or similar offers, there are always hidden costs or low storage limits so you'll run out of space quickly
  • Some professional email providers include: Karma Computing(that's us), 1&1Hosting, and Rackspace. There are many more.

Options for professional email address

In order to make a profesisonal email address, you need to have email hosting and own a domain name (also known as a web addres or url).

  • "Domain name" simply means your website address or url
  • "Hosting" simply means who stores your emails on your behalf

A lot of small businesses already have a domain name, but might not have purchased and set-up email hosting yet. Do you already have a website address? If yes, then this is your domain name.

A common misunderstanding is people think they need to get their email hosting from the same company that does their web hosting. This is not true.
You don't need to get email hosting from the same place you purchased your domain name. It may be easier and more convenient however.. check out their reviews or if you've had a bad experience with support or performance, try elsewhere.

Steps

  1. Buy a domain name / web address (options: NameCheap, Karma , Google Domains)
  2. Buy email hosting (options include: Karma Computing (makers of Subscribie), 1&1Hosting, Rackspace)
  3. Add your account to your phone/laptop

As you're buying your web address, you'll often get offered email services as an addon package. Take a look at the details and see. It may be a bargain , but before you commit be sure to:

  • Check reviews or recommendations from existing users
  • Find out the price after the trial ends, it'll often jump massively
  • Check the storage limits, 2GB isn't a lot

If you're a larger / growing team, you may want to look instead at services like Google Business, Microsoft Exchange or collaboration tools such as ERPNext which have CRM tools built in.

Heads up! Don't try and solve a collaboration challenge with email. If you're finding yourself constantly back-and-fourth with your team on email about projects, email is not the tool best suited to that. Try something like ERPNext, a good old white board or similar.

Celebrate!