Honk Honk PUNCH!

(This is a the first of a 4 part series on setting up your own email address)

In this day and age (WTF, did I really just say that? When did I turn 70?), everyone has an email address.  In fact, it is not uncommon for many people to have 3 or more email addresses.  With all the free email services out there (hotmail, gmail, yahoo, etc), why not?

One thing that I notice on a regular basis that really drives me nuts is small businesses that list their email address on their business cards, signage & stationery in the form of “XYZcompany@yahoo.com”.   To me, this just oozes unprofessionalism, and really makes me wonder if said business is really in it for the long haul, or they are mailing it in.  More often than not, if I am looking to buy their product or service, I will go to a competitor that took the small amount of time and money to set up their own domain (“info@ABCcorp.com”).  It may be a silly reason to walk away from XYZ and into ABC’s arms, but in this economy with businesses failing all around us, it’s the extra effort that makes me feel more confident that ABC will be around to back its product/service.

Note that this doesn’t only apply to businesses looking to set up their own “professional” domain, it can also apply to anyone who wants to set themselves apart from everyone else.  I mean, how cool is it that when someone asks you what your email address is, you can give them a personalized address, like “ray@raychampagne.com”?  Ok, maybe it’s not cool for everybody, but it’s geeky-cool to me.  Also consider this: if you’re one of those people who has a need to network yourself to make money, how much of an edge could you gain over your competitors if you gave out your email as “firstname@firstnamelastname.com”?  I am betting that it makes more of a difference than you would think.

Here’s the funny thing: setting up your own domain with your own email address is a pretty simple thing to do.  But like most things computer-related, the process seems daunting to the non-tech savvy among us.  That all being said, I’m here to help.  The following few posts are going to explain the process in a step-by-step manner, with screen shots, tech terms explained, etc.  In the end, you will have your own domain name, with the ability to create multiple addresses associated with that domain (like “info@yourdomain.com”, “sales@yourdomain.com”, “yourname@yourdomain.com”, etc).  And you will be able to send and receive email without having to download and configure any software – it can all be done from the web, using a tool that probably works very much like the tools you’re currently used to.

In the next post, I’ll review how to set up the domain name.