Show Notes
What is an Email Domain?
The email domain is the part of the email that is after the @ symbol.
Example: [email protected] - the "beyond50percent.com" is my email domain.
What's the problem with a free email?
Why don't I use [email protected]?
- I run a business... it may be small but I take it seriously and I want my customers, suppliers and business contacts to take it as seriously as I do.
- A custom domain name (like beyond50percent.com) is also a guidepost to the Beyond 50 Percent website. In most cases if you just put the domain name from someone's email into your browser... bingo you end up at the company's website... it's like magic!
How do I get my own custom email domain?
You an do this in less than an hour for less than $20 per year!
Choose a domain name. Sure start with your company name and if you're lucky (or clever) the domain will still be available. If it's not no sweat - just put on your creative cap and come up with a name that reflects your business.
Example:
Step 1 - Choose a Domain Name
We run a great indoor plant store called Joe's Plants.
Running a search at Namecheap reveals: joesplants.com is not available. :(
Since we live in Fort Collins, Colorado and most of our business is local we try joesplantsfortcollins.com which is available so we put that in our shopping cart and off we go.
Of course, there may be many other aspects of your business that you can use to narrow down a domain name:
- Geography
- Target Audience Demographics
- Features (24hr, custom, etc.)
- Market (joesweddingplants)
- Simple Variations (plantsbyjoe, joesindoorgreen)
Okay, We've got our domain name (we'll stick with joesplantsfortcollins.com for now).
Step 2 - Purchase the Domain Name and Email Hosting Service
Sticking with Namecheap (mileage will vary here with other vendors), once you've added the domain name to our shopping cart you just choose the email hosting package from the menu.
They will even ask you if you'd like to create an email address right away if you'd like or you can set them up later!
About 7 minutes of searching and using the shopping cart and we've arrived at the shopping cart below.
Cool, the email hosting for a single email account is free (12/23/2016)!
Step 3 - Pay
Earlier I said you could do this in less than an hour for less than $20.
So far we've spent 7 minutes and $9.88.
Step 4 - Create Your Email Address
If you didn't set up your email address in a previous step - no problem. Just sign into your account on your provider (Namecheap for this example) and enter the email address you want to use.
Step 5 - Add Your New Email to Devices
Setting up email on a device has gotten much easier. The hosting providers will most likely have very well written instructions on how to add your email to any number of email clients (Outlook, Apple Mail, iOS, Andriod...).
You're all done - now you can start sending email that reflects the pride you have in your small business!
All told you probably spent less than half the time and money that I said earlier!
Send me an email with your new email address at [email protected].
Do you have a custom email resource you'd like to share? Add it to the comments below and help make another small business owner's day a little brighter!
