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I have another great post here to help you with your website and online business. You’ll learn how to get a FREE professional email address!
After not being content with creating a @gmail.com or a paying for a custom email domain, I looked around for a free option. Then I stumbled upon Zoho mail. Their service is free if you only need one custom email address domain and that’s exactly what I was searching for.
Just to clarify, an email domain is the ending of your normal email like [email protected] where the domain name is, “hotmail.com”.
Why Create A Professional Email Address?
The main reason for creating a professional email address is because it looks more authentic. When you look at the email addresses of almost every company you’ll see their email address always ends in @thecompanyname.com. But why do they do this?
- Easy for persons to remember the company’s email address so they can quickly contact them.
- Great for when the business expands since employees can get their own email that is attached to the company’s email.
- Makes them look professional when they are sending out newsletters, and other content to their subscribers.
For the second point, it would be difficult to have two different employees using a @gmail.com email address. Instead, one employee could use [email protected] while the other uses [email protected]
So, if you have started a website and you’re looking to turn it into an online business, you should definitely get a professional email address. It’s what I used to create my email, [email protected]
Of course, you could get G suite for $5/month which is not bad and it has the same inbox structure if you previously had a Gmail account. But for new bloggers and website owners who are looking for ways to save money, then Zoho mail is the way to go.
Here’s How To Get A Free Professional Email Address
This tutorial only works if you’re domain is hosted with Siteground. Zoho has other tutorials to guide you through the process if you have a different domain host.
Now let’s get started!
Step 1: Sign Up for a business email on Zoho Mail
Go to Zoho Mail and select “Business Email”. Then choose the free package.
Enter your account details for your new business email address.
Step 2: Verify Domain Ownership
Ok, this step could get a little tricky but you can do it. The easiest way to do it is using the HTML Method.
Since you are using Siteground, select “cPanel” from the drop-down list. Then download the Html file and login to your cPanel through Siteground.
Go to “File Manager”. It should be under “Files”.
Click “Home Directory”, the “Go”.
This is the folder where you want to create the new “zohoverify” folder.
Create a new folder and name it “zohoverify”.
Copy and paste the downloaded HTML file from earlier into this “zohoverify” folder. After, click the big green button on the Zoho mail page “Verify by HTML”.
Step 3: Add users and groups
Once your domain verification is done, next step is to add users to your domain. You can add up to 25 users. You can also create groups as well. If you only needed one like I did let’s move on.
Step 4: Change MX Records
The last technical thing to do before you have your professional email address ready for use.
You need to change the MX records so that you can send and receive emails using your newly created domain email address.
Go back to your cPanel and select “Advanced MX Editor”. It should be under “Mail”.
Delete the current MX records and change them to these.
When you’re done you should have only these two records left.
Step 5: Finish Configuration
Now that’s done, you simply need to finish the setup process following Zoho’s instructions. The rest of the steps are optional.
That’s It!
You now have just learned how to create a free professional email address.
The Zoho interface is nice and easy to get accustomed to. Now go and start sending and receiving emails like the professional you are!
Remember: This guide is specific for Siteground hosting. If you are using a different host, Zoho has tutorials for most of the popular ones so don’t worry. You could always switch to Siteground hosting too. It’s what I use and they are awesome!
Thanks for reading!
Let’s chat more about Business Email in the comments below.
Some questions for you:
Do you have a professional email address?
Which email service did you create it with?
Oh man I wish I saw this tutorial before. I have three emails connected to my blog and my personal one…it’s extremely inefficient. I used the Bluehost web mail and I had so many issues with it (especially with the small storage size too!)
Sorry you had to go through that. Zoho mail is great!
I’ve been using them for a while now and I haven’t had any issues, and definitely no storage problems. If you have a chance you can still think about switching over.
Such a great and helpful guide! Thanks for sharing the info!
Thank you!
Thank you for sharing this! I wish I´ve read that earlier 😉
Haha you’re welcome Stefanie
What a thorough guide! I can’t tell you how many times I visit someone’s blog and they have a gmail or hotmail address listed. Really makes things look unprofessional.
I couldn’t agree more Maya.
How could one expect readers to take their online business seriously without a business email address?
Great read and helpful! I have Siteground but could not figures out how to use it.
Thanks!
Email me Renita if you need any help on how to use Siteground so you can use it to your advantage.
I don’t have a professional email address and I definitely need to. I am going to switch over to Siteground in August so this will be perfect. Thanks for sharing!!!
You’re welcome 🙂
Siteground is an awesome web host! Combine that with a Zoho Mail email address and your website looks more professional.