Why You Should Own a Custom Domain for Email?
With a Gmail account being free, you might be wondering if there is a need for owning a custom domain in the first place.
In this article, we’ll introduce five reasons why you should own a custom domain for email, especially if you run a small business, but also for individuals.
Before you read this, here are 5 reasons to drop Gmail.
It Improves Your Credibility Greatly#
If you’re an individual user no one will bat an eye on you using Gmail and in fact, it’s kinda expected. People are so used to others using Gmail that they often no longer ask “what’s your email?” but rather “what’s your Gmail?”.
However, in a business setting, the rules are slightly different. Here, you need to make sure that your business is represented professionally in every aspect and email is a huge part of that.
So a business email address that ends with @gmail is a big no-no.
Better Brand Awareness#
That ending part of your email after @ is supposed to represent your business and not Gmail or Google.
However, by using a custom domain with your business or name, you can set yourself apart from the jungle (there are 1.5 billion Gmail accounts today) and establish better brand awareness.
This even works for individual users. Let’s say you’re a freelancer looking for clients. An email that ends with your name will do a lot more to represent you as someone professional and worth working with than a simple @gmail one.
Take it With You#
Another issue with free email domains is that they are tied to that specific provider.
So let’s say you’ve been using an email address like [email protected] and one day you decide to move to another email address. Well, you can no longer use @gmail so now you have to get a new address, migrate your contacts there and so on.
With a custom email domain, however, you can take your email with you wherever you want. That means “owning” your email.
You Control the Capacity#
With free email providers like Gmail or Yahoo!, the storage is hard-set.
A Google account, for instance, is limited to 15GB of storage and that is spread across several services you are using, not just email.
However, if you’re using a self-hosted domain, you can manage your own storage capacity and add more by simply upgrading to another package for a little extra cash.
It’s More Customizable#
Well, the word “custom” is in the custom domain so it makes sense that you can customize it however you want.
If you’re a business, for instance, you don’t want to receive all your emails in one place. That’s a recipe for disaster.
Instead, you’ll want to have a separate email address for, let’s say, your finance department, customer service, sales, as well as individual employees like:
Conclusion#
Of course, those were only the biggest advantages of using a custom domain for your email, but there are many more besides.
Ultimately, it can be summarized into one word “control”. Simply put, with a free email domain you are in no way in control of your email and a custom email domain can provide just that.
Of course, none of this will truly matter if your email is not secure, so be sure to check out our 20 email security best practices here.