How to Get a Professional Email Address With a Custom Domain (2024)

Email is alive and well. Especially in a professional setting with the average U.S. worker spending 28% of their workweek reading and responding to and sending emails.

Despite alternative means of communication like Slack or other collaboration tools, 90% of surveyed Americans over the age of 15 still actively use email.

Here’s the bottom line: email is the leading communication channel in the workplace. So if you are thinking about starting a business, your own agency, or freelancing, having the right professional email address is essential.

In this article, we cover why this is important, provide examples, and walk you through how to get a professional email with a custom domain.

Why Is It Important to Create a Professional Email Address?

Chances are incredibly high that you will email potential and existing clients regularly. It’s often the first stage of networking and building a relationship online.

That makes your email address a crucial part of your brand, one that you should protect and improve as much as possible.

As a freelancer or business owner, you can’t afford the first impression an email address like “[emailprotected]” gives off.

First off, it’s hard to correctly judge who the email is from, at a glance. Second, even with a more serious email like “[emailprotected]”, your email recipients have no easy way of confirming your identity.

Anybody can create a Gmail or Outlook address with any name. How can a potential client confirm that you are who you say you are unless your email address backs you up?

An unwillingness to invest in a professional email address indicates that you’re not very serious about your business. That’s why you want an email address like [emailprotected]or [emailprotected].

Professional Email Address Ideas

Below, we cover a comprehensive list of examples for your business email address. The style of the email address you should choose depends on the domain name you’ve registered for your business.

If you are using the company name for the domain name and your email address, you should mix and match it with your first name, last name, or initials. You can also single out your position in the company in the email address if you need the extra authority.

In general, anything that includes your actual name or initials is good enough, and there’s no need to over-complicate things. If you have ever worked for a large company, chances are you had an email just like this.

If your registered domain name is your full name or last name, there’s no need to double up. You can use a filler word like contact or mail, or you can use your position or initials to round out a personal name domain email address.

The most significant variable in your business email is the domain name you choose. If you want to be taken seriously as a business by other companies, the least you can do is register the right domain name.

How to Make a Professional Email Address When Your Name Is Taken

We covered a lot of templates and alternatives you could use to come up with an email address. But most of them rely on you being able to get either your name or your company name on a .com or other highly trusted domain.

If all variations of your full name and initials, as well as your company name, are taken, don’t give up hope.

The best approach is to combine your company name or name with your location.

Not only will this make it easy for people to find you online, but indirectly it will also help your website with SEO for local searches and Google Business listings. There’s a reason why so many businesses are called “Your Town + Plumber” and other variations, even in 2024.

If your company isn’t based in a location, and you’re not going to be staying in your current town for a long time, then you have to get a little bit creative.

You could start by mixing and matching initials and your names, or add your name or initials to your company name, and see how those sound to you.

What Is the Best Professional Email Hosting Option?

Okay, so you’ve decided on a custom email domain. But what is the best option to host and handle your emails?

You have several different options, from using the options included with your hosting provider to opting for a premium solution like Google Workspace (formerly G Suite), which is what we use here at Kinsta.

Our entire team gets trustworthy, branded email addresses, but they also get to keep the familiar UX of Gmail for their business communication.

And that’s the tip of the iceberg.

Why Is Google Workspace the Best Choice for Professional Branded Email Address?

With best-in-class spam filters, smart search, an intuitive and tidy inbox experience, and extensive add-on integrations, Gmail is one of the best email services out there.

And the best part is we get so much more than just email. All our team members get 30 Gigabytes of storage and access to advanced features in the entire Google suite of cloud apps.

You can also use Google Hangouts Chat as an alternative to Slack, or even extend and create custom workflows with Google Apps Scripts.Read our dedicated post about the benefits of Google Workspacefor more in-depth information.

How to Make a Custom Email Domain with Google Workspace

Making and registering your first professional email address with a custom domain can seem overwhelming. But it becomes a simple process when you break it down step by step.

First, if you don’t already have a domain name, you need to register one. You will also need premium web hosting with DNS support.

If you already have a domain and a website, you can skip straight to step three.

1. Register Your Domain Name

Choose a reliable domain registrar likeNamecheap. Search for an available .com, .co, or other popular domain with a combination of your full name, or your company name.

Stay away from untrusted or cheezy domains like .biz and others. After you’ve chosen your domain name, proceed to checkout, and you will have become the proud owner of a new domain name.

2. Create Your Google Workspace Business Account

First, head over to Google Workspace, and click the “Get Started” button.Once you’ve done that, you will start the signing up process.

Fill out the basic required info, including your number of employees, your business name, and your country. It’s important to choose the country where your business is registered.

Don’t choose the United States because you want the language to be English.

Click “Next Step” to proceed.

The next step is to fill out your name and existing email address. Once finished, click the “next step” button.

Next, confirm whether or not you have a domain for your business already. If not, you can register one with the Google Domain registrar before proceeding.

If you already have a domain, fill out the domain and click “Next Step” to continue.

Double-check that the domain is correct, and click “Next Step” to confirm your selection.

Finally, create a username and password to finalize your Google Workspace account. Check the Captcha and press the “Agree And Continue” button to move on to the next step.

Note: If you already have an existing email provider for professional email, make sure that you enter the right username.

Confirm that you chose the right payment plan for Google Workspace before you continue.

If you’ve followed along with us this far without issue, you’ve successfully created your Google Workspace account.

3. Verify Your Google Workspace Domain

Now that you’ve created a user, head to Google Admin Consoleand log in with your new credentials.

Once you’ve logged in, there is a tutorial that will help you set up Google Workspace. You will start by verifying your Google Workspace domain.

Click the “Verify” button to open up your options for domain verification.

The default option is adding a TXT record to the DNS records of your business site. Adding the TXT record to your DNS won’t affect your website or domain in any way.

Once you’ve selected the TXT option, Google will generate a code that starts with google-site-verify. Click the “Copy” button to copy the code to your clipboard.

Now you need to access the DNS tool of your hosting provider in a new tab or window. Don’t close the Google Workspace tab.

Existing Kinsta customers should use the Kinsta DNStool.

Click on the “Add a New DNS Record” button at the top of the page. That should open a new tab where you can add a record.

Select “TXT” from the “Type” dropdown menu.

Copy and paste the verification code into, and press the “Add DNS Record” button.

Once you’re done, return to the tab with the Google Workspace signup page in it.

Scroll to the bottom of the page and click the “Verify my domain” button to complete the verification.

Note: It may take a few minutes for the DNS records to go live, so it will take some time before Google can complete the authentification.

4. Add Google Workspace Users

If you’re not the only employee in your company, this is the best time to add the other users. Especially if you already use a different email service to handle emails.

Click the “Create Accounts” button to proceed.

Fill out the name and username, and click the “Add New User” button.

Repeat for all members of your staff.

If your company already has email addresses, ensure that every username matches the existing one exactly.

5. Activate Gmail for Your Google Workspace Account

The final step is to activate Gmail for your Google Workspace accounts.

Click the “Activate” button to continue to the next step.

On the page, you’ll see the following MX records:

• aspmx.l.google.com / priority = 1
• alt1.aspmx.l.google.com / priority = 5
• alt2.aspmx.l.google.com / priority = 5
• alt3.aspmx.l.google.com / priority = 10
• alt4.aspmx.l.google.com / priority = 10

You’ll need to open a new tab and go to your host’s DNS tool, or re-open the DNS tool tab from earlier.

Typically, you would need to copy and paste manually, but not with Kinsta. Since we are big fans of Google Workspace, we have created a one-click solution for helping our customers setting this up quickly.

Simply access Kinsta DNS through MyKinsta, and click the “Add Gmail MX Records” button at the top of the page.

The MX records, like nameservers, are the same, regardless of the user, so you don’t have to change anything. Press the “Add 5 records” button to proceed.

Since it can take some time for the changes to go live, you can take a tea or coffee break before continuing.

Alternative Method For Other Hosts

For other hosts, you’d need to access your DNS tool, for example, through logging into your cPanel and opening DNS Zone Editor.

Select the appropriate domain, and then click the “Add Record” button to open a new window.

Fill out the appropriate priority and then copy and paste the destination.Double-check that everything is correct, and click “Add Record” to complete. Repeat the process for the four alternative MX destinations.

If your host has email enabled by default, you might need to remove existing MX records.

Once you’re done, you should return to the Google Workspace signup tab and scroll to the bottom of the page, and press the “Activate” button.

It will take a moment to verify. If, at first, it doesn’t detect the new records, give it a few minutes, and then press the “Retry Activation” button.

Once the changes go live, Google will find the MX records and take you to the final screen.

You’ve now finished setting up your professional email address through Google Workspace and can log in through Gmail to access and send emails.

All that’s left now is to test that your new professional email address is working.

7. Test Your Email Address

Since Google confirmed that you correctly entered the MX records, this is technically not a necessary step.

But it’s the fastest way to take your new branded email for a spin inside the Gmail inbox.

Open another email account, Gmail, Outlook, AOL, it doesn’t matter. Compose a new email and enter your new email address in the “To” field.

Write a random subject like “First email” and send it.

Now, head over to Gmail and log in with your Google Workspace credentials.

If you did everything correctly, you should see the test email you send from your other account in your inbox.

You can also try composing and sending an email the other way around to confirm that you can send mails without issue as well.

How To Receive Emails to Your Professional Email In Desktop / Mobile Apps

In this section, we will quickly cover how you can set up different apps with your new professional email.

Setting Up Your New Google Workspace Email in Mail for Windows 10

If you prefer to use your Windows 10 Mail app instead of your browser, it’s effortless to set up.

If you haven’t set up an email account yet, all you have to do is open the app. It will automatically prompt you to “Add an account.”

If you already have an active one, log out from it, and click the “Add new account” link.

Next, click the “Google” button, and log in with your Google Workspace credentials.

Google will prompt you to confirm that you are allowing windows access to the data.

Just scroll to the bottom and click “Allow.”

Once you’ve done that, you will be able to read and send emails from within the Windows 10 Mail app.

The setup is done and you don’t need to do anything else at all.

Setting up Your New Google Workspace Email on a Mac

If you don’t want to access the Gmail web app through your browser, you can easily add your new Google Workspace email address to the Mail app.

First, open up your Mail application. Then click the “Mail” option in the top menu to expand the main preferences.

Select the “Add Account” option, choose “Google”, and then click continue.

From that on, you’ll start the easy activation process.

If you’d like, you can now even select which apps to sync with the account, not just Mail, but also your Calendar and Notes.

You can now send and receive emails from your new address from using the Mail app.

How to Use Your Professional Email Address on Mobile Devices

Since you’ve set up your email address through Google Workspace, accessing it on your mobile phone is very simple.

Using the Official Gmail App

If you aren’t already using the Gmail App, which is available for both iOS and Android, download it and log in with your freshly-created Google Workspace credentials. Easy peasy.

If you are already using it with another address, you’d need to add your new professional email address to it.

To do so, open your Gmail App on your phone.

On Android devices, press the hamburger icon to expand the menu, scroll to the bottom, and click “Settings”.

From here, all you need to do is click the “Add account” link.

Next, click the “Google” button to open the Google Account login page.

You may have to enter your smartphone’s pin code before being able to continue.

Once you see the “Set up email” page, log in with your Google Workspace account.

That’s it.

If you’re using an iPhone, the steps are pretty similar.Tap on your thumbnail in the top-right corner of the Gmail app

This will bring up a new window where you’ll need to choose the “Add another account” option on:

You should now have the possibility to add your freshly-created professional email address, simply pick Google as your preferred option here:

What if you don’t want to use the Gmail app, but rather the standard mail app on your devices? Well, here’s how to add your professional email address to it.

Using the Standard Android Email App

To access your Gmail email address from the default “Mail” app on your Android phone, the first thing you need to do is heading to the accounts settings.

Next, tap the “Add account” option, and select the “Mail” or “Email” application (Email is the default for Samsung phones).

Finally, select Gmail/Google Workspace, and log into your new Google Workspace account.

Once you’ve logged in, you will receive emails and notifications from your pro address.

Using the Mail App on iOS Devices

On iPhones, you’d also follow the same process.

Open the Passwords & Accounts menu in the general iOS settings.

Tap the “Add Account” option, and select Google:

Complete your login, and wait for the Mail app to verify your login.

Finally, select additional settings like contacts and address book, and save the new account.

You can now access your Google Workspace professional email address from your iOS-powered devices.

Summary

Setting up a professional email address is like laying the foundation for your future business communications. You can choose to set up your email address via a traditional host and their cPanel dashboard. Or you can opt for a managed hosting option and integrate your Google Workspace account in a matter of a few clicks.

Simply try not to spend too long obsessing over the email address, just make sure it includes your real name or initials, and get your business started. That’s the important part!