The Best Email Hosting for Small Businesses

 Whether you’re starting a small business or are looking for an email host for your existing company, we have found all you need to know about email hosting. Our extensive research reveals everything you need to know about email hosting, why it’s so important and how to look for the best provider.

What is an Email Host?

An email host provides a service to businesses, much like a website host. Whereas a website host manages your site’s files and information, an email host manages your company’s email accounts. Your host lets you send and receive emails, store them, and manage your addresses. Mail management includes looking after your email infrastructure and ensuring your email communications are secure and operate professionally.

Different Types of Email Hosts

You can find free hosts and use addresses (domains) like @gmail.com, or @yahoo.com. However, these aren’t professional enough for a business. You won’t be taken seriously with these domains – and free email hosts don’t provide much storage space for you, or enough technical support if you want a professional-looking email account. Often, they’re not very secure, either.

Businesses – even small ones like yours – should have a professional email host. When you sign up with an email hosting provider, you can use a custom address (domain name) that includes your brand or company name. You’ll also have much more storage capacity for your emails and can operate a professional email service between yourself and your customers. Depending on your chosen hosting provider, you should receive excellent customer support and extensive security options that including filtering spam and viruses, and your email account should work without any glitches.

Why Your Business Needs Email Hosting

Whether your business is small, and you intend to keep it that way, or want to expand as you grow, you want the world to see your brand as professional. You also want to be seen as a credible, trustworthy business. 

Part of being a professional company is ensuring your customers’ safety, and if their data isn’t safe, your business and its reputation will suffer.

Professional email accounts work efficiently and quickly. They are reliable, and provide automatic response tools if you’re away from your desk so that you don’t miss any communications, forward emails to other email addresses if need be, and ensure you never miss any messages.

They also encrypt your emails with SSL certificates to secure them, protect correspondence from spam and malware, and ensure your customers’ private information (eg banking details) is safe. A pro email host will also support your business growth, with various plan options that let you add email accounts as you expand, need more storage space, etc.

What About the Cost?

Yes, you can set up your business email accounts with a free email service. But you’re missing out on what a professional email hosting service offers – tech savvy for starters, maintenance of the software and server, not to mention regular updates and backups. Let’s not forget security, which includes protecting your emails and ensuring the data isn’t compromised.

The monthly fee for all this will pay itself back in time.

Even free email hosting has hidden costs: the public isn’t likely to take a business seriously if it has a domain that seems like a free, generic or personal address.

Perhaps you could start with a free email host, but as your small business grows, you should use a professional email hosting service. You’ll know when the time is right: when your free email service has storage problems, and issues regarding spam and viruses increase.

Choosing the Best Email Hosting for a Small Business

Before you decide on which email host will work best for you, it’s important to consider the following details:

1. Storage & Server Space

You need server space to store your business emails, files and attachments. The more flexible your options, the better to increase your storage space as your business expands.

2. Email Security

Email hosting providers offer various security features – the more, the merrier. Find a host that provides numerous options, including SSL certificates, spam and virus filters, protection from malware, authentication so no data is lost and prevention against phishing attacks. A professional email host should also ensure regular automated backups for email accounts and mailboxes.

3. Easy Mail Access

You should be able to access your email online from various devices and wherever you are. Ensure your hosting provider gives you this access. You do this via POP3 & IMAP.

POP3, or Post Office Protocol, will download your email only to only one device. Once you’ve downloaded the email, it’s no longer on the server. With POP3, you can only access your emails on whichever device you have chosen. This is a great way of keeping your email account safe.

IMAP, or Internet Message Access Protocol, allows you to use more than one device to download your emails. With IMAP, you can access emails on several devices, as long as you have an internet connection. Also, the emails remain on the server; they are not removed once downloaded.

4. Customer Support

The more you’re supported as a client, the better. A professional hosting provider will ensure fast responses to any queries or emergencies. It will also offer various resources so you solve the problem yourself, such as blogs and tutorials.

Ask Yourself These Questions When Looking for the Best Email Host

• What does my business need?

Work out the volume of emails you’ll be sending, the amount of storage space you require, what professional business email resources you will use, and whether you can increase storage and resources as your business grows.

• What security requirements must my business have?

If your business website includes an online store, you’ll need extra security to safeguard customers’ personal information. You also need insurance that emails are safe from malware, spam and phishing. Check what is offered, and ensure it is sufficient.

• What will my email hosting service cost?

Check your budget before you make a final decision on which email provider to choose. Also, check what’s included in your chosen plan – the amount of storage, the features provided and customer support are all crucial. Then, check how much it will cost to set up your professional domain name for a company email address. Some hosting providers offer free domain names as part of the package.

• Is the email service simple and how much uptime does it provide?

Choose a package that is easy to use and guarantees 99.9% uptime and availability.

• Can I easily use my email service on mobile apps, email marketing platforms and various email clients?

This is vital. You need the service to integrate with all the other tools you use daily.

How to Manage Your Email Hosting

You’re paying for a service, but there are still important things you need to do to ensure your email hosting service works at its best:

• Check regularly to ensure the service is updated and secure.
• Backups also need to be done regularly. Store in a separate place, eg Google Drive.
• Keep your email server neat; remove old emails that use server space.
• Watch for spam or bounced emails, or any delivery issues. Fix these the moment they happen.
• Keep signatures current.
• Ensure automated responses are working.
• Keep a close eye on logins in case of suspicious activity or unauthorised access. Use 2FA (two-factor-authentication) to keep accounts safe.
• Check that security features and SSL certificates are updated and work correctly.

3 Top UK Email Hosting Companies for Small Businesses

According to the UK Web Host Review, there are 12 email hosting companies worth considering in the UK. We list three of their choice of 12.

1. Zoho: This host’s “Forever FREE Plan” offers email hosting for one email domain plus several paid options for multiple domains. The price depends on whether you require email-only hosting or further tools. Their numerous features include a 15-day free trial, 25MB email attachments, email forwarding and free mobile apps for IOS and Android.

2. Hostinger: Known for offering cheap web hosting as well as email hosting. Sign up for an annual subscription, and receive a free domain. Email hosting is accessed via any device, a great option for small businesses. Plans are inexpensive and include live support 24/7, templates for HTML mail, mailing lists, an anti-virus checker and free email migration.

3. Rackspace: Focusing only on business email hosting, this company guarantees 100% uptime and low-priced plans for small businesses. There’s a free trial if you want to try it out first, and their numerous tools are tailored to business emails. They provide a business domain name, secure IMAP for laptop users on Outlook and for smartphones and an easy auto-setup. Also, email spam and virus protection is included.

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