In contrast, using a personal email address, such as a Yahoo or Gmail account, for business communications can make your company appear unprofessional and may even lead potential clients to question your legitimacy.
Professional Email Address Format
The most standard and recommended form of a professional email address is of course the [email protected] format. But there are some other ways you can get a professional email address, such as: [email protected]. [email protected].
Bad Practices:
Avoid addresses that include a nickname, hobby, pet's name, or any other personal information. You don't want to showcase something that could lead to discrimination or give a bad impression. And, definitely avoid political, religious, or gender references.
Firstly, you don't necessarily need to put your real name (although it is a requirement by Google). You can just put your nickname and make it look convincing that it is a name, and you should be okay with it. If you don't need Gmail, you can just follow the steps here and you should be alright.
An outdated or unprofessional email address can really spook a potential employer. Read on for more info on how to create a polished email address for your job search. What was your first email address?
[email protected] is essentially the gold standard of what people consider professional with more than 90% ranking this type of email address as “most professional.” No other type of email address garnered anywhere near that type of positive response.
The major difference between free Gmail and business Gmail (Google Workspace) is the design of the product. While free Gmail is designed for personal users, Google Workspace is specifically designed for business use, with business Gmail and team collaboration capabilities.
The most professional way to setup an email address is to use your first name and last name without numbers. For example, [email protected]. You can also use just your first initial or last initial such as [email protected] or [email protected]. You can't go wrong by keeping it simple.
Swap @gmail.com with your own domain to create professional email addresses for everyone on your team, like [email protected]. With a custom email at your domain, you can help build customer trust and create group mailing lists, such as sales@yourcompany.
Outlook offers more customization options, while Gmail has a more user-friendly interface. Outlook is better suited for advanced users needing progressive email organization and management features, while Gmail is better for collaborative work and users prioritizing third-party app integration.
Customer support: Only Outlook offers direct support for free users; Gmail users require a workspace account for it. Search: Outlook lets you search through your emails with great precision than Gmail. Contacts: Outlook has contacts integrated directly into the platform, while Gmail connects to Google.
Some webmail clients that provide paid services include Zoho, Gmail, Hushmail, and ProtonMail. Gmail is the overall best email service. Outlook is good for multiple app integrations. Yahoo has good spam blocking capabilities. Zoho Mail is the best option for home businesses.
Since its launch in 2004, Gmail has managed to become the most popular email service among individual users, but businesses still gravitate toward Outlook because of its seamless integration with Microsoft's suite of office applications, which include Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and others.
It's time to stop using your personal Gmail Account for business. There's a risk of losing critical business data (without recovery). Also, using a Gmail account might also hurt how your clients see you professionally (and that's definitely a no-no!).
Google Workspace starts at $6 per user per month and includes the following: An ad-free Gmail account with your company's domain name, such as [email protected]. Ownership of employee accounts. 24/7 phone, email and chat support.
So, how many Gmail accounts can I have in total? If you have already reached the four accounts limit, and need more email accounts for other projects, a quick solution would be to verify them with a different phone.
Avoid Using Numbers and Hyphens
If you want to go for a good email name, just avoid using hyphens and numbers. Imagine telling people your email address is [email protected]. It is very confusing and complicated to type. Thus, to be safe, just do not use numbers and hyphens too much.
They comprise your first and last name. They are short, easy to pronounce, and remember. Good email names do not contain random numbers & special characters — except dot, underscores & hyphens. They are free from adjectives/words of self-conceit — like hot, cool, sweet, handsome, pretty, cute, ultimate, powerful, etc.
Usernames can contain letters (a-z), numbers (0-9), and periods (.). Usernames cannot contain an ampersand (&), equals sign (=), underscore (_), apostrophe ('), dash (-), plus sign (+), comma (,), brackets (<,>), or more than one period (.) in a row.
Don't just use your name as a username. Avoid using the beginning of your email address as your username. Your username should be simple enough to remember but hard to guess. Never use easy-to-guess numbers with your usernames (for example, address or date of birth).
Fortunately Google does not allow duplicate accounts to be created, so it's not possible (for example) to have both a first. last@ and a FirstLast@ account. There are not two accounts with the same name and no one is getting e-mail that hasn't been sent specifically to their account.
Unlike a personal email account, which can be used as you please, corporate email accounts are maintained and paid for by a company that wants the accounts used for business purposes. Some companies will also have stronger password and email security than you would find on a standard account.