A personalized email address is a must when you have your own domain because it makes you look like a true professional, especially when communicating with your business partners. A branded address with your custom name will allow you to be perceived as a more trustworthy person and thankfully, this is very easy to achieve. Gmail is one of the recommended email providers because it offers full security of your emails and it has an option to personalize the domain.
Also, Gmail provides a lot of space for your emails and attachments and it automatically protects you from unwanted spam messages by deleting them before they reach your inbox. By using the integrated search function you can rapidly find the mail that you need to find in your list. Here are the steps that you have to follow for branding your email address with your own personalized domain:
- Set up the Google App
First, you have to go to Google Apps for Work and insert your domain name without adding “http://www”. Example: yourdomain.com.
Follow the instructions by filling out the vacant text boxes with your personal details, such as username and password, followed by your organization’s details, such as contact name, phone number, address and so on.
Proceed with the following step and after agreeing with Google Apps terms and conditions, press the button that says “Create the account”.
The setup page will ask you to verify that you own the domain name that you chose at the first step. The setup provides two options for verification; “Express” and “Custom”. You can choose the one that fits you better, though the “Express” install takes less time for completion and it’s ideal if you own a small organization.
- Verify your WordPress Domain
There are multiple ways to verify your domain if you want to use Google Apps: Upload a HTML file (using a FTP software), add a HTML tag to your site homepage, use Google Analytics or Domain Name Provider.
The recommended choice is to upload a HTML File if you have full control over your FTP, but if you think you may get lost in the process, the second best option is to insert a HTML code as an alternative. You can do that in a few easy steps, as follows:
- Go to the verification menu and select Alternative Method – HTML Tag
- This will provide you with an online HTML code that you have to copy
- Paste the code in the header or footer of your WordPress site. You can use the Insert Headers and Footers Plugin for WordPress if you need help with this step.
- After the code insertion, go back to your Google App verification menu and click the “Verify” button.
- Connect Gmail with your WordPress Domain
This is an easy step which first requires you to sign in to your Google App account with your username and password (https://www.google.com/a/yourdomainname.com). Select “Organization & Users” – Services, look for the Gmail App and click the “On” button.
- Set up your branded WordPress Gmail Account
The last step is to configure your Gmail account to be able to receive and send emails. In order to do so, you have to make some changes in the DNS settings. After you log in to your Google App account, go to the navigation menu, select “Setup” followed by “Setup Gmail” and follow the instructions. The following step requires you to submit the 5 MX records that show up if you followed the previous steps correctly on your webhost.
You can easily configure your MX records with standard cPanel hosting:
- Login to your cPanel account with username and password and select the MX records Tool.
- Open “MX Records” and select your domain, in case you are hosting multiple domains.
- Select Email Routing by “Automatically Detect Configuration”
- Insert the 5 MX records provided by Google App.
After completing the last step, if everything was correctly set up, you should be the successful owner of a brand new personalized Gmail address for your WordPress domain that ends in @yourdomainname.com. As a side note, the process of integrating the MX records may take from two hours to 24, depending on your hosting and ISP.