The first thing every business owner needs is a professional email address. After you setup your website, the next most important to do is create a professional branded email address. In this article, we will show you how to setup professional email address with Google Apps and Gmail.
What is a Professional Email Address?
A professional email is the one that has your business name in it. For example, john@myphotostudio.com is a professional email address.
Email accounts on free email services like john.photographer@gmail.com are not good because they do not look professional.
For a professional email address, you will need a domain name and a website. We have step by step guide on how to choose a domain name and how to install WordPress to quickly setup a website.
If you already have a domain name and a website, then you are all set to have your own professional email address.
Why Use Google Apps for Professional Branded Email Address?
You might be thinking why use Google Apps when most WordPress hosting companies offer unlimited email accounts with your own domain name?
Email is one of the most crucial communication tool for any individual or business. With an unreliable email service, you can miss important emails, and this can hurt your business.
Most hosting email servers are unreliable, restrictive, isolated, and less secure. You wouldn’t even know if the email you sent was delivered.
This is where Google Apps for Work and Gmail comes in.
Gmail is already the industry leader in email and with Google Apps for Work, you can use your professional branded email address with Gmail.
Here are some of the benefits of using Google Apps and Gmail for a professional email address.
Professional business email address on your own domain.
Gmail’s rock solid security and spam filters
30 GB – Double the storage of a free Gmail Account.
Manage email even when offline using Gmail app on mobile devices
Works anywhere web, mobile, tablet, you name it.
Works great with Outlook and can even sync old Outlook accounts.
Each user can have up to 30 email aliases.
Use Google Calendar, Google Hangouts for chat, video, and voice calls on your own business email address.
No advertisements and 24/7 professional support whenever you need help
Works seamlessly with your WordPress site.
Most important of all, high deliverability, no delays, no ending up in spam folder.
Now that you know why using Google Apps for professional is important, let’s take a look at how to set up a branded professional email address with Google Apps.
Editor’s Note: We use Google Apps for all of our professional email addresses, and can honestly say it’s the best.
Setting up a Professional Email Address with Google Apps and Gmail
First you will need to signup for a Google Apps for Work account.
It costs around $5/month for each user. If you pay annually, then you get 2 months free ($50/year per user). Use this Google Apps for Work coupon to get an additional 20% off.
Google Apps for Work also offer a free 30 day trial, which allows you to test drive everything before you make up your mind. Basically its all the powerful features you’re used to if Gmail, Drive, Calendar, etc (but now it’s for your business).
Simply visit the Google Apps for Work website and click on the Get Started button.
Fill out a form with your first and last name, an existing email address, and your phone number.
Click on the next button to continue.
On the next screen, you will be asked if you would like to signup for a new domain name, or use a domain name that you already own.
If you don’t have your own WordPress site or a domain name, then you can buy a new domain here. It will cost you $8 per year, and your email will be automatically setup by Google. You will not need to follow rest of the tutorial.
However, if you are an owner of a self-hosted WordPress site, then you already own a domain name. Simply enter your WordPress site’s domain name and click on the next button.
Google will now ask you to create your Google Apps account. This is where you will pick your business email address like john@yourdomain.com.
This will become your first email address and will also become your Google Apps admin account. You can always add more email addresses and email aliases later on.
Fill in the username and password and then click on accept and sign up button.
Google will now create a Google Apps business account for you. Upon completion, it will show you the progress dashboard.
As you can see in the screenshot, that you have completed the first step of the setup.
Now you need to add users to your Google Apps account. Simply click on the start button next to ‘Add people to your Google Apps account’.
This will bring up a popup where you can add more users if you need to.
If you just want to keep that single user, then you need to scroll down and just check the box next to ‘I added all user email addresses currently using @yourdomain.com.’
Click on the next button to continue.
The last step in the Google Apps for Work setup wizard is to verify the ownership of your domain name.
Google offers multiple ways to do that. You can add a meta tag to your website’s header, upload a file to your webserver, or add a TXT/CNAME record. You can choose any one of these methods.
The easiest one is to add a meta tag to your website’s header. Copy the meta tag code shown on Google Apps setup screen.
You will need to login to admin area of your WordPress site.
After that install and activate the Insert Headers and Footers plugin. For more details, see our step by step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.
Upon activation, you need to visit Settings » Insert Headers and Footers page.
Paste the meta tag line you copied from Google Apps setup screen into the headers section.
Don’t forget to click on the Save button to store your changes.
Return back to Google Apps setup screen and check the box next to ‘I added the meta tag to my homepage.’ option.
The setup wizard will now ask you to visit your domain’s account management section.
Login to your web hosting account (cpanel dashboard). Under the mail section, click on MX Entry icon.
On the next screen, you will be asked to select your domain name. After which you will see a list of options.
Scroll down and you will find MX Records. There would be one or more entries there. You need to delete all of them.
Return back to Google Apps setup screen and check the box next to ‘I have opened the control panel for my domain’ option.
Google will now show you a list of entries. These entries are called MX records and you need to add them to your domain.
Return back to MX Entry page in cPanel to add priority and then the matching MX value. Click on Add record button to save an entry, and then repeat till you have added all MX record entries shown in the Google Apps setup page.
After entering MX record entries, return back to Google Apps setup screen and check the box next to ‘I created new MX records’ option.
Google will now ask you to delete old MX Records. We have already deleted old MX records, so you can mark that as checked.
Click on verify domain and setup button to finish the setup wizard.
DNS settings like MX Records can take some time to update. In that case, you will see an estimated time notice.
You can stay on this page for a few minutes, and then it would automatically show you a success message that your domain is now verified.
Click on the next button to continue.
That’s all you have successfully setup Google Apps and Gmail.
Using Your Professional Email with Google Apps and Gmail
Your email account works as any other Gmail account. You can access it by visiting Gmail Website and sign in with your email address, e.g. john@yourdomain.com.
You can also manage your Google Apps account by visiting the admin console.
This is where you can add/remove new users to your domain name. Each of your users will have 30 GB storage and all the same features, but they will not have access to the admin console. You can remove those users at any time you want.
Troubleshooting Google Apps Domain Setup
It is likely that your web host may not be using a dashboard like we have shown in the screenshots above.
Google Apps for Work has detailed documentation for many of the popular web hosting and domain registration service providers. Visit, set up MX records (Hosts specific steps) page and then locate your domain registrar or web host from the list.
If you do not find your service provider in the list, then you can ask them directly to help you setup Google Apps for Work for your domain name.
We hope this article helped you setup a professional email address with Google Apps for Work and Gmail. You may also want to see our list of 19+ free Google tools every WordPress blogger should use.
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