What is a Custom Email Domain and Do You Need One?

As a website designer, we come across this question a LOT with our clients. What is a custom email domain, and do you really need one? So we thought we’d break down this frequently asked question in today’s post! Keep reading to learn more.   

What is a Custom Email Domain? 

First things first – what is a custom email domain? 

This refers to when your email address matches the domain of your website. For example, our domain is northdesignco.com, and our email addresses are name@northdesignco.com. We see a lot of business owners with non-branded email addresses when they first start out – such as yourname@gmail.com, or yourbusinessname@gmail.com. While there’s nothing wrong with this necessarily (especially because it’s free!), we always encourage folks to create a custom email domain as soon as it’s doable. 

Why You Should Have a Custom Email Domain

While it’s not the end of the world to use a non-branded email address for your business, there are many compelling reasons to make the switch. 

Reason #1 – It Looks More Professional 

Having an email address that matches your business’s domain looks WAY more professional than an email address ending in @gmail.com or @yahoo.com. It shows your clients and customers that you are serious about your business and willing to invest in your brand image. To us, this is the most important reason why you should consider creating one, even if it’s just you in your business and you don’t have a team. 

Reason #2 – You Can Add Additional Matching Emails As Your Team Grows 

For a lot of businesses, eventually, your team will grow to multiple members. And when that does happen, it’s easy to add additional email addresses once you have your email domain claimed for your business. 

You can add new team members’ email addresses by their names (ex. jane@yourdomainname.com), or by their function (ex. techsupport@yourdomainname.com). 

As a business owner, having a custom email domain makes it easy for you to keep track of your network of team members and their email accounts.      

Reason #3 – You Can Set Up Alias Emails 

Alias emails (aka alternate email addresses) allow you to set up different email addresses under the same account. For example, you can have name@yourdomainname.com as your primary and then create an alias for support@yourdomainname.com. These emails will go to your same inbox, but you’re able to organize them more easily and also reply from the alias address. This is especially helpful for an entrepreneur who has multiple roles within your business. Plus it’s a great way to save you money if you don’t want to pay for multiple accounts, but still need the ability to have different email addresses.

Another use of an alias email would be to keep your name private on the internet. You could create an alias for hello@yourdomainname.com, or info@yourdomainname.com. This can also help keep your inbox clear of receiving spam messages.

Reason #4 – You Have Access to More Advanced Business Tools 

When you use Google as your email domain provider (through Google Workspace), you will automatically have access to TONS of great tools for running your business. You will be able to use the entire suite of Google products, including; 

• Google Docs (for creating documents such as SOPs (Standard Operating Procedures), letters, etc.) 
• Google Sheets (for creating spreadsheets) 
• Google Meet (for virtual meetings) 
• Google Slides (for presentations)
• Google Calendar
• And more! 

In our opinion, these tools completely replace Microsoft Office and the need for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. Additionally, you’ll automatically be given a Google Drive account for each account you set up – which is a cloud-based storage system. Your Drive will hold all the documents, spreadsheets, and presentations you create, and it’s incredibly user-friendly to navigate and keep organized. It’s also a great tool to collaborate inside these tools, both with your team and outside organizations. We use Google Drive to collect content from all of our clients and couldn’t run our business without it!   

Pro Tip 

Though we mentioned at the beginning of this post that you don’t have to create a custom email domain right away, if you can, we do recommend creating it as soon as possible. This way you don’t wind up with multiple inboxes later down the line – that can get messy!  

If you did already start with a free gmail address, no worries! You can easily set up your old gmail address to forward to your new @yourdomainname email, so you never miss a message.

How to Get a Custom Email Domain

So, now that we’ve answered the question of what is a custom email domain, (and hopefully convinced you that you need one for your business!) let’s talk about how to set one up. 

By far, our favorite provider for setting this up is Google Workspace. Sometimes you can do it through your domain provider directly, but we have found Google Workspace to be way easier and far less techy for our clients. It also comes with the benefits of Google tools, is reasonably affordable, and you can write it off as a business expense! 

It’s super straightforward to use. Once you sign up, you’ll simply follow the quick start guide to create and manage your new account!   

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