Creating an email for your business is an important (and exciting!) step for any new organisation. Not only will a branded email address look more professional, and signify credibility, but unifying all your employees under a single email domain can do wonders for improving the connectivity of your team.

But what’s the best way to go about creating one? Put simply, it all comes down to email hosting.

What is email hosting?

Knowing you need an email account is all well and good, but where are you going to put it? Every email needs a destination, and that’s where mail servers come in. And how do you get a server for your email? With the right email hosting provider.

Existing separately from domain hosting and web hosting, email hosting provides you with a destination to house your account. When you pay for an email hosting service, you’re effectively renting a server where all of the emails and files within your email account are stored. Our Email Hosting starts from just £1 a month, including advanced security features and 24/7 support as standard. For businesses with greater demands, we also offer Exchange Email packages.

Learn more: What is hosted Exchange email?

What is an email domain?

One of the trickiest decisions you have to make when creating a business email is settling on your email domain.

Your email domain is the part of the email address between the @ symbol and the domain extension. So in the email address "dave.banks@wikipedia.com" - Wikipedia would be the email domain. Many companies decide to use the company name for the email domain, as it’s a solid indicator of the email’s origin.

It’s worth noting that you’ll have far more email domain options when you opt to use a paid email hosting provider, instead of one of the free solutions on the market.

The benefits of a business email address

Now you know how email hosting works, let’s take a look at some of the benefits a business email can offer in more detail.

Show your professionalism

It sounds obvious, but creating a bespoke business email domain will clearly indicate to any current (or prospective) customers that you take your company seriously. particularly over a free email solution with a generic domain like @gmail or @outlook.

Signal your legitimacy

Similarly, the right email address will speak to the legitimacy of your organisation. If you needed to contact us, and our email address was "contact.fasthosts@hotmail.com" - wouldn’t that raise alarm bells? A branded email domain can improve customer trust, and reinforce your credibility.

Boost brand visibility

Another core advantage of paid business email is the extra visibility it gives your brand name. It’s a very low-cost marketing tool which can help to solidify the image and reputation of your organisation, reminding recipients of your company name with every email you send.

Avoid the spam folder

Using a paid email solution with your company name nice and visible can also help to prevent your customers from marking any marketing emails you send them as spam. They’ll recognise your brand straight away, and you might achieve a higher open rate as a result too.

Better security

Paid email hosting providers usually offer more robust security measures than the free equivalents on the market, so you can protect your business from data breaches and other security concerns at a low cost.

Tips for creating an effective business email

When it comes to actually choosing the email domain for your business, there’s a handful of best practice tips that can help you on your way. Here are the main guidelines to keep in mind:

Avoid numbers & special characters

Even if your actual company name has a special character in it, it’s best to leave that hipster asterisk out of your email domain. In fact, email addresses with numbers in can even set off spam filters, meaning your carefully curated newsletter ends up in the junk folder.

Keep it clear and impactful

While it can be tempting to choose a creative, witty email domain, you may be shooting yourself in the foot. Your brand should be instantly recognisable from your business email, to stand the best chance of making a good impression.

Use a standardised format

For the sake of consistency, it’s a good idea to use a standardised format for your company email. First name dot last name (like bob.smith@fasthosts.co.uk) is a common approach for a reason - it enables your customers and clients to keep track of who’s who, and once they’ve got the name of a staff member, they’ll be able to email them.

Try generic names for specific purposes

If you’ve set up specific inboxes for purposes like getting in touch, finding support or requesting a quote, it’s worth using generic addresses with the standard business email domain. Here are a couple of examples for a (fictional) company called Jelly Beans.

  • hello@jellybeans.com
  • info@jellybeans.com
  • support@jellybeans.com

Registering your business email

After you’ve settled on the perfect email domain and picked a hosting provider, you’re good to go. The next step is registering your email address - and with a reputable provider like us, we do all the admin for you, so you can get started on building your empire.

Still not sure whether to invest in professional email hosting? Our Email Hosting plans start from just £1 a month, with unparalleled perks like advanced security, super spacious inboxes and 24/7 expert customer support.