How do I set up my business emails?

1. Non-domain based email account

By "non-domain based", we are referring to an email address that ends with the name of the supplier in the address. 

Free Email Services (eg: simplepages@gmail.com)

There are quite a few online email provider like the popular Hotmail, Yahoo and Gmail services. Most people are familiar with these, signing up for a new account is quick and easy and of course, FREE! but these accounts don't appear professional and are best used for personal correspondence only. If you simply must use a free account like this, we would recommend Gmail over Hotmail or Yahoo and some of the others.

Internet Service Provider (eg: simplepages@bigpond.com)

Email accounts are usually offered with your internet provider usually for free. An email account using one of these may end in something like @bigpond.com, @westnet.com.au etc. We don't recommend using one of these for your business for a couple of reasons. Firstly, in the future, you may likely change your internet provider, in which case you will lose your email account. Secondly, why advertise your ISP in your email address (do you customers need to know who your internet provider is?) when you could be advertising your own business instead!

2. Professional domain based email account

By "domain based" we are referring to your business domain name, not a third party's.

This is a custom business email address that uses your business domain name in it's address. For example support@simplepages.com.au is a domain based email account that is far more professional for our business than one of the free service emails like simplepagessupport@bigpond.com. Firstly, you will need to register your domain name (which you will use for your website too) and then you can consider a few different ways to host (manage and store) the email account itself and there are a few options:

Host with your website (not recommended)

Website hosting packages often include email hosting as well, often as part of their cPanel. While this might sound like a good cheap solution to roll your email together with your website hosting plan, it comes with it's problems. Usually web designers are not IT tech support providers, so your support may be very limited. If mail goes down for some reason or you can't get your computer or device set up, you could be left feeling very frustrated and in a panic when your web designer can't help you. Business email is too important and technology is constantly changing in this area, this is the main reason why Simple Pages do not provide email hosting with websites any longer, we are not computer tech support providers, we prefer to specialise in websites and online marketing.

Web hosted email can also have some other technical limitations like limited storage space and problems syncing with other software programs and devices. We have seen many clients who have used web hosted emails run into issues when their mailbox has become so full, it has crashed their website too.

Google Workspace

Google Workspace is a professional solution offered by Google and is my preferred option for a very small business needing only a few email accounts at the most. At the time of writing this service costs approximately $8.95/month with a massive 30GB storage inbox. There are other features like online documents, spreadsheets and calendars.

Please contact us if you'd like to get started with Google Workspace.

Microsoft Exchange cloud email / Office 365

If you are a Microsoft user, this solution is very powerful. All your emails, folders, contacts - everything in Outlook - is sync'd between all your devices and easily shared with other staff - making it the best tool for communications and teams within your business. This is a good solution for small to medium business wanting multiple email addresses, and has been a popular choice for many of our clients.

Pricing may vary depending on your chosen IT provider.