Use a business e-mail address for more professional results

The domain name of your Appraiser XSite website, or other business website, is a vital component in your marketing. Your website address should be on everything that reaches potential clients or customers. That includes yellow pages ads, business cards, e-mail signatures and all client correspondence. Doing this helps brand your website as the public face of your business.

Doesn't it follow that your business domain name should be in your e-mail address as well? If you want to successfully brand your website, say, www.westernreserveappraisal.com, you're really undermining your own efforts if you continue to use an rr.com, sbcglobal.net, comcast.net or other Internet Service Provider (ISP) e-mail address. At best, it makes it look like your website isn't fully functional, just an online brochure. That's certainly not true if you own an XSite. You should avoid inadvertently leaving potential clients and the public with this perception.

Your concern might be that so many people have your current e-mail address that changing it would be a huge effort. There's a simple solution that's no effort at all: e-mail forwarding.

It can work either way. Let's say you want to start using an address like you@westernreserveappraisal.com but don't want to have to tell everyone who has your comcast.net address to change it. You would set up your comcast.net address to forward all its mail to your new business address. The way you do this on comcast.net is, for example, described here. Your ISP likely has similar instructions easily available on their support site.

Now, anyone who has and wants to keep using your comcast.net address can still do so. When they send something to that address it will automatically be forwarded to your new business address. They, and you, won't miss a beat.

You can also set up your XSite CertMail to forward to your ISP e-mail address. Then, when you give out your new business address to new clients and the public, anything written to you by them at that address will forward to your ISP address. You haven't had to get people who have your "old" e-mail address to change their address books or Rolodexes either way.

And either way, you're able to bolster the branding of your website by using a business e-mail address.