Here’s what actually changes when you make the move, the three technical records worth understanding, and what to sort out before you switch.
What changes
It looks like a real business
An address such as name@yourbusiness.co.uk matches your website, your van and your invoices. It tells a customer you are established, and that the address will still work next year.
The email belongs to the business, not a person
When addresses sit on your own domain, you control them. People can join or leave, you can add shared addresses such as hello@ or bookings@ for different jobs, and nothing important is tied to someone’s personal account.
It is more likely to be delivered
Email providers increasingly check that a message really comes from who it claims to. Since February 2024, Google has required everyone sending to Gmail accounts to authenticate their mail, and higher-volume senders must use SPF, DKIM and DMARC together. Google says messages that fail these checks might be marked as spam or rejected. On your own domain, these records are set up once and then protect every address you use.
Calendars and files come with it
Services such as Google Workspace bundle email with shared calendars, documents and storage. Bookings, quotes and photos then live in one place the business owns, rather than scattered across personal phones.
The three records, in plain English
- SPF lists the services allowed to send email on behalf of your domain.
- DKIM adds a digital signature to each message, so the receiving server can check it is genuine and hasn’t been altered.
- DMARC tells receiving servers what to do with a message that fails those checks, and can send you reports about who is sending email in your name.
Getting these slightly wrong is common, and invisible. Everything appears to work until an important quote lands in someone’s spam folder.
Before you switch
- Decide on the addresses. Most small businesses need fewer than they think: one for each person, plus one or two shared ones such as hello@.
- Find your domain login. The records are added wherever your domain is registered, so make sure you can get in before you start.
- Bring your old email with you. Existing messages and contacts can usually be imported, so you keep your history.
- Keep the old address running for a while. Forward it to the new one, then update your website, email signature, Google Business Profile and invoices as you go.
- Know the running cost. Business email is a monthly subscription per user, paid to the provider. It is better to know that up front than to discover it on a bank statement.
Is it worth it?
For almost any business that takes enquiries by email, yes. It is one of the simplest ways to look more established, and it gives you a tidy foundation for what comes next: website forms that land in the right inbox, shared calendars for bookings, and well-organised documents that can later inform an AI assistant.