Free Branded E-Mail With Google

For a video guide to this article see the links located at the bottom of this article.

When building a business with social media it is always emphasized to brand yourself as a professional. One way to do this is to have an e-mail address that contains your domain rather than a free e-mail domain like gmail.com, hotmail.com, yahoo.com, etc. All businesses have to be conscious of expenses but this is especially true for the home based entrepreneur who is just getting started.

In this article you will discover how to get e-mail branded with your own domain hosted for free. This is hosted by Google not some fly by night service that may disappear tomorrow and take all your e-mail with it. All you need to get started is to have registered your own internet domain name like yourname.com i.e. arnoldhight.com.

Already have an e-mail account and don't want to move it all to a new service? You can forward your new account to your current address, even if your current e-mail is with another provider like hotmail or Yahoo.

Get your Domain Name

If you don't all ready have a domain name you will need to register one. There are many places to register your domain name but I know this method works well with GoDaddy's services. So click on the link and sign register your domain.

Register your domain with Google Apps

Now that you have your own domain head on over to Google Apps and register your domain with them. It's a little tricky to find the sign up page for the free "Standard Edition" so just click on the link here Google Apps Standard Edition.

Click on the "Get Started" button. On the first page click the radio button "Administrator: I own or control this domain". Enter the domain name you want to configure for use with Google apps and click the "Get Started" tab, redundant I know.

Fill out your contact information. Be sure to use a valid e-mail address that can be used to gain access to your Google Apps account should you forget your password. If you had a standalone Gmail account previous to this I recommend you use it here. If you don't have one sign up here, or use another third party address i.e. yourname@yahoo.com. Check the box that says "I understand that if I cannot alter DNS records for my domain, I may impact my organization's ability to use Google Apps." don't worry I will tell you how to manage this.

Unless you are an officially licensed business I suggest you choose the "Personal" under the organizational type. Where it asks "Does your organization currently provide email accounts?" you will want to answer no to this as it refers to privately hosted e-mail accounts not your free webmail accounts with yahoo, MSN, etc. Once you have the form filled out click "Continue" to go to the next step.

Here you will be asked to setup "Your Administrator Account". Unless you plan to have another person manage your accounts I suggest you make this you're primary e-mail address i.e. yourname@yourdomainname.com. Read the terms and conditions and then click "I accept. Continue with set up >>"

At this point you will be logged into your Dashboard. It is important to bookmark this page so that you can get back to it easily. You will need to logon to your dashboard whenever you want to make changes to your Google apps system like adding new e-mail addresses, setting up mailboxes, or even creating a website for your domain.

Verify Domain Ownership

The next step is to verify that you own the domain you registered with Google apps. Choose the option "Change your CNAME Record". If you registered your domain name with godaddy follow this process in order to add a CNAME record to your domain.

Logon to your godaddy account. In the left pane under My Products, Domains click on Domain Manager. Click on the link to your domain name. Locate the link titled "Total DNS Control and MX Records" and click on it.

In the column titled "CNAMES (Aliases)" click the button titled "Add New CNAME Record" on the right hand side of the page. Follow the directions on the "verify your domain ownership page" as instructed on the Google apps page to create the CNAME record.

At this point you will need to wait a while for this record to propagate across the internet. This can take anywhere from a few hours to a few days, but usually a few hours will suffice. To verify the record has been created use this free DNS utility.

In the DNS Lookup box change the record type to CNAME. Copy the string from your Google apps instruction page (leaving out the http://) and paste it in the box where is says "Lookup DNS records such as A, MX, CNAME, NS.". In the drop down box change the record type to CNAME. Click the on if the record is found it will be listed at the bottom of the page.

If it says no records found below a list of Google ad's (what do you expect the utility is free) then wait for a while and try it again to see if the record has propagated. You can also logon to you Google apps dashboard and check to see if the link to verify your domain has disappeared from the top of the page. This indicates Google has located the CNAME record and verified your account.

Activate your E-mail
Next you will need to activate your e-mail. Sign into your Google Apps homepage and locate the link titled "Active email" under the "Service Settings" tab. Here you can use the drop down box to show instructions for several main providers including godaddy.

Log into your godaddy account and follow the instructions here listed for godaddy.com. Once again you will need to wait for these changes to propagate over the internet (again this can take a few hours to a few days but usually just a few hours is needed).

See The Rest...

To see the rest of this article and the video series that walks you step by step through the process visit my blog at http://arnoldhight.com