Project a professional image with your email address

By: Nelly Yusupova
Posted: November 16, 2007
Topics: How-To, Marketing, Tech Tools, Career, Business, Networking
Tags: email hosting, google apps, hosting companies, professional image

I was at a networking event recently and was having a good conversation with someone and as this person handed me her business card, I was thinking…“This would be a good person to work with”.

And then….I see her email address: her-name@aol.com.

Had I not had a really great conversation with her, I would have questioned whether or not she was serious about her business.

If YOU still have an AOL, Yahoo, or Hotmail email address on YOUR business card…it might be time to change that.  And I would recommend that you change it ASAP.

It is very easy and you can even do it yourself! Here is how:

1. Buy a Domain Name

   If you don’t have one, buy a Domain Name (this should match the name of your business). I usually buy domain names on godaddy.com ($8.95 per domain per year).

2. A - Email Hosting Company Option

   If you already have a website, ask your hosting company if they provide email accounts (99% of the time they do).

   If you don’t have a website, find a hosting company that you like. You can use godaddy.com, 1and1.com, or enom.com.

   Most hosting companies have a Frequently Asked Questions section that will walk you through the process of setting up your email account to work with your domain name and it is usually a ten minute process or less.

   Here are instructions for the domain names that I mentioned above:

   Godaddy.com
   1and1.com
   enom.com

   B - Google Apps Option

   You can use Google Apps to handle your domain’s email while keeping your existing addresses and one of the best reasons to use Google Apps is the great spam filtering that they offer. To get started do the following

   1. Create an account at Google Apps
   2. Verify your domain ownership with Google
   3. Change your MX records to point to Google’s mail servers.
   4. Wait for everything to update
   5. You can also pay the upgrade fee and import everything from your GMail account into your new email account

These are a few very simple steps to ensure that you are projecting the level of professionalism that you want reflected in your business.