Look cool while doing business.

When I receive emails from MyComputerGuyIndiana@hotmail.com I question their credibility and dedication. Make your business look professional with a proper email address.

It’s really not too difficult to do. I’ll try and walk you through it.

In Summary: (Total time required less than 1 hour)

• 1. You find a hosting company and register your DOMAIN (I highly recommend bluehost.com, don’t use godaddy - save yourself the aggravation).
• 2. You purchase an email plan (usually $50 or less per year).
• 3. You create your email account(s).
• 4. You can purchase hosting space for a website as well if you want (but not required).

First thing you need to do is pick a good domain for your business. The domain is the “address” on the internet you will own. This is very important for SEO and name recognition. It should be descriptive of what your company does – but should not be long. Nobody wants to type www.yourreallyongdomainnamehere.com. If you can, make the domain resemble or the same as your company name. It helps people to find your website by typing in your company name. Also keep in mind, you will be investing business cards time and effort into this company after it is created, so you probably won’t want to change the name later. Pick a good name and domain from the start. This is critical.

PcComputerGuy’s name came from the fact that pccomputerguy.com was an available address. The name is descriptive, tells you what I likely do, and isn’t terribly long.

You DO NOT have to have a website if you are not ready for that yet. Buying a domain does not mean you are buying a website. Remember the domain is JUST the name you own on the internet, nothing more. It is not a website, it is not web space (where you store your website), it is not email, and it is not anything more than an empty building on the street.

Now that you have your empty building on the street you’ve rented (your domain), you can then choose what to put in that building. In this case, we want to put an email account.

When you own your domain, your email will be anythingyouwant@yourdomain.com. For example, I can create SuperAwesomeNick@PcComputerGuy.com or anything else since I own PcComputerGuy.com.

I would recommend creating firstname.lastname@yourdomain.com – as it helps if you end up with multiple employees over time. You can also use a general box if you so desire, such as PetCare@MyVetComapny.com. Don’t use jguqiu828@yourdomain.com – that’s jibberish.

So after you’ve registered your domain with your hosting provider, you then are provided further options you would want such as webhosting, email accounts and more. Select an email package that fits your needs. With bluehost you get basically unlimited web space for your website (that you build or hire me to build), unlimited email accounts and support for IMAP which many other companies charge extra for.

Now that you’ve created your email account you can usually access it a number of different ways including webmail and outlook.

Webmail means to access your email through your web browser (internet explorer, chrome, firefox etc). You can often go to http://webmail.yourdomain.com or http://mail.yourdomain.com – where you will then be prompted to enter your email address and password.

You can also configure outlook to connect to your mailbox you’ve created. The instructions for that vary so much that it’s impossible for me to put generalized information here. Whomever you registered your domain with, will have that information.

On a related topic, there are two TYPES of email often used, POP or IMAP. If given the choice, I’d definitely go for IMAP. IMAP helps sync your email between multiple devices such as your phone, webmail and outlook. POP offers no syncing ability. Your options for POP and IMAP are determined based on your hosting company.

For $50 or less per year you can have professional looking email. It takes only an hour (maybe two) to get setup. It looks so much more professional.
If this seems like too much, just give me a ring at 317-883-PCCG (7224). I’ll set you up with the domain you request and email for $50/year.

Sign up yourself with BlueHost - the company PcComputerGuy chooses for our own domain needs.