Here’s a bad business practice I see all the time……

Website owners who use webmail accounts @hotmail.com or @gmail.com or, even worse email accounts thru their ISP.

If you have a domain name, and a hosting account for it, there are lots of reasons why you need to use your own domain email ie you@yourdomain.com.

One of the most compelling reasons is professionalism. IMO it looks slightly sus when someone, trying to sell me something via their website uses an email address other than one @theirdomain.com …..

TRUST is a MAJOR success / failure factor when trying to sell products or services online. Far more people walk out of an online store without buying, than from a bricks and mortar store, and one of the main reasons is lack of TRUST. It’s a lot more difficult to build enough trust to get a sale when your visitors are not able to see how substantial your business is. So don’t undermine the trust you do build up, with a professional looking website, by looking like someone who may not be around tomorrow because you don’t use you@yourdomain.com as your email.

Another reason to use your domain email, especially if you are currently using an ISP email address such as youraddress@aol.com or youraddress@aapt.com, is that if you ever want to change ISP’s it’s a huge hassle having to change your email address. Use you@yourdomain.com as your email address and you are free to move from one ISP to another at the drop of a hat.