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Here we gooo! Any startup business looks more professional if it's using a business email address. Better "sarah@mycompany.com" than "sarahiscool@hotmail.com" right? This guide will show you how to setup your business email address in simple steps. The great thing is, it doesn't cost a fortune and most email services these days are highly reliable and easy to use.
If you get stuck or would like us to setup your business email addresses for you then please get in contact here or on 01225 931200.
Step 1
Purchase your domain name! A domain name is "myawesomecompany.co.uk" or alike. You can purchase your domain from various providers on the internet, but to keep it simple we'll use Names.co.uk for this example. You usually pay a yearly fee to register the domain to yourself or company/business and the great thing is, many domain providers allow you to register a new domain for free/cheap for the first year! After that you're looking at costs of around £15 /year.
Visit names.co.uk - the domain name provider.
Enter the domain name for your business and click search.
If someone else already owns the domain name, you can't use it. You'll need to find another.
If it's available, follow the steps to register the domain!
Recommend you use your personal email address to sign up and manage your names.co.uk account.
Note: as you go through the purchase of the domain, deselect the Email option. This is a more basic email service than the one we will use in this guide.
Note: you may be asked if you want to purchase a Domain Proxy service. Anyone can look up the registered user details for a domain name. Adding a domain proxy will shield your personal details from "WHOIS" searches and usually replace them with the domain providers details instead. It is up to you if you think it is worthwhile.
Step 2
Ok so you've registered your domain. At this point, that's all it is. It doesn't have an email service attached to it and that's what we need to setup next.
Note: there are various email service providers available. Two popular ones are G Suite (Google) and Office365 (or Microsoft365 after a recent rename). For the purpose of this guide we will use Office365 Exchange Online. This reason for this is it is highly compatible with the Outlook program that many of us use. At the time of writing Exchange Online costs £3 /month per user.
Visit https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/microsoft-365/exchange/exchange-online and click on the Buy now button.
Follow the steps on screen to setup your account.
At step 3 it'll ask you to create an identity. Use your business name at this point and don't worry that it says "amadeupcompany.onmicrosoft.com". We will change the login name to yourname@amadeupcompany.co.uk later on, but take note of the above username and password.
Enter your billing details and finish the setup.
Congratulations, you have activated your email service.
Step 3
Bookmark https://admin.microsoft.com/Adminportal/ as this is where you can manage your mail service should you ever need to.
Login with your "username@amadeupcompany.onmicrosoft.com" username and the password you set.
Now it is time to link it to your domain name so you can start sending and receiving emails. In the left hand menu go to 'Settings' then 'Domains'.
Add your domain name as whatever you registered on names.co.uk.
You now need to verify that you own that domain, giving you permission to use it. The way to verify ownership is by adding a domain record. The next page will tell you what record you need to add.
So we need to take the TXT name, value and TTL and create the record on your domain name.
Step 4
Head over to https://account.names.co.uk/dashboard#/ and click on the cog for your domain, then 'DNS settings'
Note: you are about to change DNS settings for your domain name. You may already host a website on your domain or other services, so be really careful before you start modifying settings. Before you begin making changes, take a picture or screenshot of the settings as they are so you can revert back if necessary. You may also have to accept a warning before you can start changing records. Add additional records rather than overwriting existing records where appropriate.
Reference the record details from the Microsoft admin centre and enter the equivalent on names.co.uk.
Hit save at the bottom of the page.
Go back to the Microsoft admin centre page and click verify.
Note: it can take about 24 hours for your updated domain records to propagate so don't worry if verifying ownership doesn't work immediately. Try again an hour later, it is usually quick.
After verification click on 'Add your own DNS records' and continue.
You'll be presented with the list of records you need to add to your domain for your emails to start working.
Go back to the names.co.uk DNS page and add the above records to your domain.
Once entered, click save at the bottom and head back over to the Microsoft admin portal and click continue. The portal will then check that all domain records have been entered.
Your domain should now be connected!
Step 5
In the Microsoft admin portal, click on 'Users' then 'Active Users'. From here you will be able to change your primary username to 'yourname@amadeupcompany.co.uk' rather than use the 'yourcompanyname.onmicrosoft.com and set your email address to 'yourname@yourcompany.co.uk' by clicking on the 3 dots then 'Manage username and email'.
When you've done this, you can start using your email! You can either connect your email on your phone or on the Outlook desktop application. Alternatively you can use your email address by going here: https://outlook.office.com/mail/.
That's it! If you get stuck we can help. Get in touch here or on 01225 931200. :o)
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