Setting Up Business Email on Your Own Domain
A Gmail or Hotmail address works. Lots of businesses run on one for years. But there comes a point, usually when you're sending a quote to someone who doesn't know you yet, where yourbusiness.co.uk after the @ does a lot of quiet work on your behalf.
It's also yours. If you ever change provider, your address comes with you, because you own the domain.
Mailbox, alias or forwarder?
These get mixed up all the time, and choosing the right one saves a lot of faff.
| What it does | Good for | |
|---|---|---|
| Mailbox | A real inbox with its own password and storage | Each person who sends and receives mail |
| Alias | A second name that delivers into an existing mailbox | info@, sales@ and enquiries@ all landing with one person |
| Forwarder | Passes mail on to another address, often outside your domain | Short-term use. It can upset spam filters, so use it sparingly |
A sole trader might have one mailbox and three aliases. A team of five usually wants five mailboxes and a shared info@ alias.
Getting it on your phone and laptop
Use IMAP, not POP3. With IMAP your mail stays on the server, so reading an email on your phone marks it as read on your laptop too. POP3 downloads mail to one device and is the reason people end up with emails "missing" from the other.
The settings you'll be asked for:
- Incoming (IMAP): port 993, SSL/TLS
- Outgoing (SMTP): port 465 with SSL/TLS, or 587 with STARTTLS
- Username: your full email address, not just the bit before the @
Your control panel shows the exact server name to use. You can always use webmail in a browser if you're on someone else's computer.
The DNS bit
For email to work properly your domain needs a few records: MX records saying where mail should be delivered, and SPF, DKIM and DMARC records proving your mail really comes from you. If your domain is pointed at us, we set all of these up. We wrote a separate piece on why those last three matter so much.
Create the new mailboxes before you change anything, then move the MX records, then copy the old mail across. Do it in that order and you won't lose anything. If we're doing your migration, we handle this part for you.
Should you use Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace instead?
Sometimes, yes, and we'll happily say so. If your team lives in Outlook calendars, shared Teams files or Google Docs, those services make sense, and you can still host your website with us. For a lot of small businesses, though, hosting email is plenty. It's included in your plan, there's no per-person monthly charge, and it does the job.
A few habits worth having
- Use a different, strong password for each mailbox.
- Keep an eye on mailbox size. Old attachments add up surprisingly quickly.
- When someone leaves, change their password and turn their address into an alias rather than deleting it, so customers still get through.
Need a hand with any of this?
We're an Essex hosting company run by people who answer their own emails. If something here raised a question, just ask.
Talk to SwiftNest