Are you wondering how to make a professional email address?
If that’s a yes, you’re at the right place!
In this guide, I’ll show you how to create a professional email address that boosts your credibility and gets your email all the attention it deserves.
Let’s get started!
Quick navigation
- What is a professional email address?
- Benefits of having a professional email address
- How much does a professional email address cost
- Create a professional email address with Bluehost
- Create a professional email address with G Suite
- Professional email address ideas and examples
- Conclusion
What is a professional email address?
A professional email address contains your business (domain) name in it, unlike the ones we get for free using providers like Gmail or Yahoo.
For example, if my business is DigitalGYD (my blog’s domain), a good professional email address example would be hi@DigitalGYD.com or contact@DigitalGYD.com.
The prefix can be anything (admin, help, contact, your name, etc.)based on your needs; the most important thing is to have your brand name on it.
This is totally different from using the free @gmail.com, @yahoo.com, etc., which anyone can easily get for free.
Now that we know what a professional email address is, let’s take a look on why should you have a professional-looking email address?
Benefits of using a professional email address?
With over 4.3 billion email users in 2021, having a professional email address is a must. Here are the main benefits or advantages of using a professional email address:
- A professional email address helps in boosting your brand.
- It makes you look more professional and someone who has the skin in the game.
- Emails from a professional email address increase trustworthiness.
- Professional email address boosts authenticity because spammers won’t have access to it.
- Having a professional email handle is better for resumes and job seekers.
How much does a professional email address cost?
Cost of a professional email address varies based on what platform you’re using to create it. If you use Google’s G Suite you can get started with $6 per month. Whereas if you use a hosting platform like Bluehost, you can create a professional email address for free by purchasing their hosting services. It generally costs up to $2.75 per month.
There are two ways to create a professional email address:
- Using Bluehost (get a professional email address for free with hosting).
- Using G Suite (simple way to set up your professional email address with gmail).
1. How to make a professional email address for free (with Bluehost)
Now, let’s create a professional email address with Bluehost.
Step 1: Visit Bluehost
The first step is to go to www.bluehost.com and click on the big “Get Started” button:
That will take you to their pricing page, where you’ll be required to choose your preferred plan. The good news is that Bluehost offers one of the cheapest yet reliable hosting packages in the industry.
With just $2.75 per month, you can create your own hosting account on Bluehost.
Now, choose your preferred plan to move to the next step.
Here, enter the domain name you want to register or use your existing domain (if you already have one). You can use one of our free domain name generators to come up with something creative.
Then click on the “Next” button to proceed.
Bluehost will now check to see if the domain name is available.
If the domain name is available, you’ll be taken to where you’ll fill in your account information. And if it’s unavailable, it will offer you some alternatives you can choose from, or you can simply enter a new name.
Once you’ve chosen a domain name and entered your account information, you can then pay for your Bluehost hosting.
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After you’ve paid, you will get an email confirmation from Bluehost with details on how to access your hosting cPanel.
Now, this is where you will be managing everything about your host, including the professional email account that we’ll be creating below.
Step 2: Adding email accounts to your domain
Once you log in to your hosting dashboard using the details you got from the Bluehost email, click on the “Email & Office” tab from the left navigation menu, and click on the “Manage” button next to your domain name.
This will take you to the “email account management” section of your hosting account. Now, click on the blue “Create” button to create a new email address for your website.
Then enter the email address you want to use and a password to finalize the process. You can also choose how much storage you want to allow, but I usually leave that at default as it’s not that important.
Once you’ve entered the necessary information, click on the blue “Create” button to save your new professional email address.
Your professional email address will now be created, and you will get a confirmation message.
How to use your professional email with Bluehost
Now that you’ve successfully created your professional email account on Bluehost. Let’s see how to use it.
There are several ways you can use your custom email address, such as:
1. Webmail
Checking your email on Bluehost is straightforward as they provide a clean interface from where you can easily manage your email account.
Again, go to the “Email & Office” tab and click on the “Check Email” link next to the email address you just created. See below:
Next, you’ll need to choose your preferred webmail app, after which you will be taken straight to your email account inbox.
2. Other apps and devices
Another way you can access your email account is to use an email app such as Thunderbird, Outlook, or any other mail app on your computer or mobile phone.
To use this approach, click on the “Email & Office” tab again, then click on the “Connect Devices” button.
Clicking on the “Connect Devices” button will take you to a list of the popular email devices and apps. Next, click on the email app you wish to connect to and follow the easy step-by-step instructions.
Under the list, there’s also a manual settings section that will let you connect any other app or device that is not on the list.
3. Use your custom email with Gmail
Apart from using Gmail to send and receive emails to your Google account, it also functions as a complete email client that you can use to get all your email in one place.
Gmail lets you send emails with your professional email address directly from your free Gmail account once you set it up.
Here’s how to connect your professional email address with Gmail:
1. Click on the Gear icon located in the upper right corner of your Gmail account. This will take you to the Settings page.
2. Next, click on the “Accounts and Import” tab as shown below:
While still here, scroll down to “Check mail from other accounts” and click on the “Add a mail account” link.
3. Next, you’ll see a popup that will request for your professional email address – and on the next page, you will have to enter your account information.
You’ll need to enter the email address and password you created earlier on Bluehost on the username and password field. And, on the POP server field, enter your domain name with “mail” as a prefix, as shown on the screenshot above.
4. Next, check the “Always use a secure connection (SSL) when retrieving mail” radio button, and use “995” as the port value.
5. Once you’re done, save the settings by clicking on the “Add Account” button.
6. Gmail will now ask if you would like to use the account to send emails. Check the “Yes” button and click on “Next” to continue.
7. After that, the next step is to provide a sender name and decide if you want to use this account as an alias by checking the option.
An alias is handy when you’re operating two email addresses. For instance, your personal and company email account.
If you choose to keep the ownership of this email account separate, you’ll need to uncheck the alias box. For instance, if it is your company’s departmental email address such as contact@yourdomain.com or support@example.com.
When you’re done with this step, proceed to the next step by clicking on the “Next Step” button.
8. Here, Gmail will request your server’s SMTP details. SMTP means “Simple Mail Transfer Protocol,” and it’s simply the industry standard to send emails securely.
Typically, mail.yourdomain.com will be your SMTP outgoing server, where “yourdomain.com” will be your actual email domain.
9. Next, enter the email address you created on Bluehost as the username and the email account’s password as the password.
10. If everything is correct, continue by clicking on the “Add Account” button.
You’ll instantly get a verification code to the email address from Gmail.
NOTE: The email will be sent directly to your Gmail inbox since you’ve already added that email address to your Gmail account. Now, copy the code you’ll see on the email and enter it to finish the SMTP setup process.
That’s it! You can now send and receive emails directly from your Gmail account using your professional email address.
Let’s now enter the second part of the article– how to create a professional email address with G Suite.
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2. How to create a professional email address (with G Suite)
In this tutorial, you’ll learn how to create a professional email address using Google’s Suite which lets you manage your business easily.
Let’s start:
1. The first step is to visit the G Suite homepage.
2. Then, click on the blue “Get Started” button to get started with the setup process.
On the next page, you’ll be required to enter your business name, select the number of employees, and country.
3. Once you’ve entered the necessary information, click on the “Next” button to continue. The next page will ask you to enter your name and email address:
4. Click on the “Next” button again.
5. On the next page, you have the option to use your existing domain name or buy a new domain from Google:
Now, if you don’t have a domain name already, click on the “No, I Need One” button or click on the “Yes, I Have One That I Can Use” button if you have an existing domain name.
On the next page, enter your domain name and click on the “Next” button:
6. The next screen will ask you if you want to use the domain to set up the account; click “Next” to confirm that.
7. Next, choose a username and password that you will always use to access your G Suite account. Your username will be your business email address by default, so you want to remember that when choosing a username.
8. Click on the “Agree and Create Account” button to complete the setup.
Add other people to G Suite (optional)
Once you’re done with the setup, you will get a confirmation showing that your account was successfully created. You’ll also see another button (the “Go To Setup”).
Now, click on the button.
If you wish to share your G Suite account with other people, click the “Start” button next to “Add people to your G Suite account.” This will enable you to add more users to your account.
And if you won’t be sharing the G Suite account with anyone, simply check the box that says “I added all user email,” and click on the “Next” button.
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Verify your domain on G Suite
Now that you’ve gone through the entire setup process, Google’s G Suite will require you to verify your ownership of the domain.
Here’s the 5-step process of verifying your domain name:
1. Add Meta Tag
First, you’ll be required to add Google’s verification meta tag to your domain name on your homepage’s header section.
You can simply use the Insert Headers and Footers WordPress plugin to add the meta tag effortlessly.
To do this, log in to your WordPress admin dashboard, install and activate the plugin. Then, navigate the Settings section on the left navigation menu – and locate the “Insert Headers and Footers” option.
Now, copy the meta tag and paste it into the “header section,” as shown on the screenshot above, and save. Then go back to the G Suite setup page and check the “I added the meta tag to my homepage” box.
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2. Open your domain’s control panel (cPanel)
The next step is to open your domain name’s control panel. To do this, log into your hosting account cPanel and check the “I have opened the control panel for my domain” box as shown below.
3. Delete the existing MX records
Scrolling down, you will see another radio button like the screenshot below:
On your hosting cPanel, go to the emails section and click on the “MX Entry” icon. Then, select your domain name, and you will see different options, including “5 MX records.” Here, you’ll want to delete those MX records one after the other.
Once you’re done with the deletion, go back to your G Suite setup page and check the radio button “I have deleted existing MX records.”
4. Create the new MX records
Next, you will need to create new MX Records.
Click on the “MX Entry” icon in your cPanel dashboard’s email section, and then add the new MX records that Google gave you.
When you’re done adding them, go back to your G Suite page and check the “I created the new MX records” box.
5. Save the MX records
After you’ve added your MX records, endeavor to save them. After that, check the “I saved the MX records” box.
And you’ve come to the final verification step. After checking all five steps, simply click on the “Verify Domain and Set Up Email” button to verify your domain name.
The G Suite setup wizard will now begin to verify your domain and set up your email. This may take some minutes to complete.
Once the verification process is done, you will see a message indicating that your domain name verification and email setup have been completed.
That’s it about creating a professional email address with G Suite.
G Suite pricing
Now, let’s look at the pricing also to see what it costs to use G Suite.
To do that, click on “Pricing” on the top navigation menu to see G Suite’s pricing plans. It has three plans:
- Basic- ($6 per month)
- Business- ($12 per month)
- Enterprise- ($25 per month)
Each of the plans comes with different features for different users.
As you can see from the screenshot, the cheapest plan (Basic) goes for $6 per month for a single user. With this plan, you’ll get 30GB of cloud storage, which is essentially double what a free Gmail account offers.
Aside from the storage capacity, you’ll also have access to:
- Secure team messaging
- Voice and video conferencing
- Shared calendars
- Options to create documents, spreadsheets, and presentations. Most noteworthy
- 24×7 tech support, administrative controls, and security
Here you can compare the features of different G Suite plans.
But the most exciting thing is that G Suite offers you a 14-days free trial as a new user so you can test-run their service before committing to a paid plan.
Professional email address ideas & examples
Are you looking for some inspiration for making your professional email address? Here are some proven email address ideas and examples to help you out:
1. Use your name
The best way to use your professional email handle is to have your name on it. It is simple and points to the person who is receiving it.
When using your name, you can use your first name only, a combination of your first and last name or a combination of your first, middle and last name.
For example: John@yourdomain.com, John.Do@yourdomain.com etc.
2. Use your profession or designation
Another great professional email address idea is to use your profession or your job designation.
Job designations are good examples of professional email address that don’t have to be under one person. This will work even if the person is replaced by a new employee.
For example: HR@yourdomain.com or marketing@yourcompany.com.
In case you’re using your profession as your professional email address, it is always good to use it along with your name.
For example: Cinthiawriter@yourdomain.com, Tracyblogger@yourwebsite.com
3. Use informal email address
Another great example of professional email address that don’t have to be boring is using informal handles. These create a personal touch.
For example: hi@yourdomain.com, me@yourdomain.com
Now that you have some good professional email id examples, let’s learn about the format of professional email addresses.
Professional Email Address Format
Professional email addresses have a very distinct format. They have two parts:
- The handle: This is the part that comes before the “@” symbol. It usually addresses the person or the position of the person who uses the email address.
- The domain: This is the second part that comes after the “@” symbol. This is usually the domain name of the business, person or organization.
For example: If you check the format of swadhin@swadhinagrawal.com, it can be divided into 2 parts. Swadhin – my name, and swadhinagrawal.com – my personal/business website’s domain.
Conclusion: How to set up a professional email address
I hope you’ve now learned how to create a professional email address
Which one of the above two methods will you be using to create your professional email address?
If you ask me, it depends on what you need. If you need or already have a website or blog, you can go the Bluehost way or if you just want to set up a professional email address to manage your business or for your resume, G suite would be a better idea.
