Your email address says more than you think
When a new customer gets a quote from you, the first thing they see is your email address. Plenty of brilliant tradespeople, salon owners and cleaners use something like daveplumbing79@gmail.com or sarahsnails@hotmail.co.uk. It works, and nobody is suggesting those businesses are any less good at what they do.
But an address like dave@daveplumbing.co.uk quietly does a lot of extra work for you. This post explains why, what your options are, and how to avoid the common trap of losing your email when you change website provider.
What "email on your own domain" means
Your domain is your web address, the part after the www. For example, yourbusiness.co.uk. Once you own a domain, you can use it for email too, so instead of a free address you have hello@yourbusiness.co.uk or jo@yourbusiness.co.uk.
The domain is the address. The email service is the post office that actually delivers and stores the messages. These can be, and often are, provided by different companies. That point becomes important later.
Why it beats a free address
It looks established
A business email address tells people you have a real, settled business with its own name and web presence. It matches your van, your invoices and your website. For a customer comparing three quotes, small signals like this can tip the balance.
It is easier to remember
If your website is yourbusiness.co.uk, people can guess your email. A free address with numbers or underscores in it is easy to mistype, and a single wrong character means a lost enquiry.
It is less likely to look like spam
Messages from free addresses claiming to be businesses are very common in scam emails. A properly set up business address on your own domain gives receiving email systems more reason to trust that the message is genuine, and gives your customers more reason to open it.
It belongs to the business
If you ever take on staff, you can give them their own address on your domain and keep control of it. If they leave, the address stays with the business. If you sell the business one day, the email can go with it.
It can grow with you
You can set up addresses for different jobs, such as quotes@ or bookings@, all arriving in one inbox if you prefer. That is hard to do neatly with a free account.
The common options, in general terms
There is no single right answer here, but most small businesses end up with one of these.
- Email included with your web hosting. Many hosting packages include basic email accounts. This can be fine for light use, but the features vary a lot, and it ties your email to your hosting company.
- A dedicated business email service from one of the large providers, such as Google Workspace or Microsoft 365. These give you a familiar inbox, calendar and apps on your phone, using your own domain. They charge per user, per month.
- A smaller independent email provider. These often focus on privacy or simplicity, and also work with your own domain.
- Forwarding only. Some setups let you show hello@yourbusiness.co.uk to customers but forward everything into an existing inbox. Replying from the business address can be fiddly with this approach.
Whatever you choose, it is worth thinking about how you work day to day. If you mostly use your phone between jobs, pick something with a good mobile app and make sure it is set up on your phone before you rely on it.
How people lose their email when changing website provider
This is the part that causes real headaches, so it is worth understanding.
Your domain has a set of settings, called DNS records, that act like signposts. One set of signposts points visitors to your website. Another set, called MX records, tells the rest of the world where to deliver your email.
When you move your website to a new provider, someone usually changes these signposts. If they change the website signposts carefully but forget about the email ones, or replace everything in one go, your emails can suddenly start going nowhere. Often nobody notices for a day or two, which is a long time to miss customer enquiries.
The risk is higher when your email is included with your old hosting. If you cancel that hosting, the mailboxes can be closed too, along with any old messages stored in them.
How to avoid it
- Find out where your email is actually hosted before you change anything. It may not be the same company as your website.
- Keep a note of your current DNS records, so they can be put back if needed.
- If your email lives with your old host, move it or copy your old messages before cancelling.
- Ask whoever is moving your website to confirm in writing that your email records will be kept as they are.
- Send yourself a test email from a different account straight after any change, and again the next day.
Keeping your options open
A good rule is to own your domain in your own name, and to be clear about who controls each part. With We are Graft, your site, domain, content and data belong to you, and you can take them with you once the 12-month minimum is complete. We have a little more on that in our FAQ, and you can see what each plan covers on our pricing page.
Want a hand with it
If you are not sure how your email is set up, or you are planning a new website and want to make sure nothing gets lost along the way, get in touch through our contact page. We reply within one working day.