If you’re a small business and are using the email service that comes with your Internet connection, you’re doing it wrong. Heaven forbid you’re using AOL or Yahoo as your email provider. At a bare minimum you should have a personalized email address with your company’s domain name. For example, I have the domain name russturley.com. When I give out my email address, it has my username, russ, along with my domain name. It’s much easier to remember than some obscure username at some local ISP’s domain name.
If you’re thinking, “But Russ, those types of service cost money that I don’t have.” I’m totally with you and have the answer. The solution is Google Apps. Google Apps provides the following services for companies with 10 users or less, FREE of charge.
Here’s what you get:
- Gmail
- Google Calendar
- Google Docs (Collaborative spreadsheets and word processing and more)
- Google Reader (News aggregator)
- Google Sites (Simple web pages)
- Blogger (Weblogs)
- More!
If at any time in the future you grow beyond 10 users that you’d like to provide email, etc. for then you an upgrade to the “Business” edition at $50/user/year for a 1 year commitment or $5/user/month with no commitment. Still a good deal and there are more group features that are available with the upgraded service that a company with that many employees can take advantage of.
All the versions have the option of integrating third-party apps like MailChimp, an email marketing and newsletter service, and Freshbooks, invoicing made easy, into Google Apps. Great part about the third-party apps is that most have a free version also so you can try them out before making a commitment to the full service.
