Set Up Your Smtpcom Account
First, youll need to create an account with SMTP.com. This account is going to connect to your WordPress site to get your email settings set up correctly.
If you already have an SMTP.com account, go ahead and log in. Or if you dont have an account yet, go ahead and create one now.
In this tutorial, well register for a new free trial. But the setup will be the same no matter which type of account you have.
If youre creating a new account with SMTP.com, youll need to do a few additional steps after registering. These steps help prevent spammers from signing up, which is a part of how their service is so reliable.
So check your email inbox and then follow their activation link. Then, youll also need to agree to their usage policy.
Next up, SMTP.coms team will review and approve your account . This approval will most likely require you to provide additional details and clarification, so keep an eye on your inbox.
Alright, once your SMTP.com account is all set up, youll be ready to continue the setup process.
What Is A Url Redirect
A URL redirect lets you send visitors/bots from one URL on your site to another URL on your site.
For example, lets say you wrote a blog post at yoursite.com/best-plugins-2020 and now you want to change it to yoursite.com/best-plugins-2021. With a URL redirect, you can set it up so that anyone who visits yoursite.com/best-plugins-2020 gets automatically sent to yoursite.com/best-plugins-2021.
This helps you provide a better experience for your human visitors by making sure theyre always able to access the content that theyre looking for. For example, instead of seeing a 404 error page if they visited the best-plugins-2020 URL, they would still be able to access the latest content because they automatically get redirected to best-plugins-2021.
Redirects are also important for search engine optimization because they let you preserve your rankings and links. For example, lets say you got a lot of links from other sites to your best-plugins-2020 post . If you didnt set up a redirect, you would lose much of the benefit of those links when you changed the URL. But with a redirect, you can preserve that link authority for the new URL.
Are Business Emails Free
Just to clarify Its not possible to get a free business email address with a website domain on the end of it like You could get a free email that ends in @gmail.com, or @yahoo.com, but that could look pretty unprofessional.
Youll need to pay for website hosting to get that free email address that ends in your own domain, and many hosts like Bluehost offer a free business email address with their hosting plan.
Because these plans offer so much with them, including the free email address, they are nearly free solutions to get you a business email address.
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Add Social Share Buttons On Your Blog
Creating a WordPress website isnt enough. Youve to popularize your site if you want to grow your brand. And what could be an easier way than to share your content on social media? Its one of the biggest and largest platforms to share your content and grow digitally.
To grow your sites popularity, you can add social share buttons to your blog. Basically, these buttons allow your users to share your posts on their social media timelines. Hence, their friends and family can also see your work on their timeline. This gives your site a bigger exposure.
The easiest way to add social share buttons on your blog is through plugins. The most popular plugin on the market has to beEasy Social Sharing. The plugin allows your users to share your post and also displays the total number of shares. Not to mention, you can effortlessly download the plugin from WordPress.org free of cost.
Allow Gmail To Send Emails Using Smtp
At this point, new emails to your custom domain should show up in your Gmail account. However, you wont be able to reply to them from your custom email domain yet.
To fix that, you need to configure your Gmail account to send through your custom emails SMTP server. Typically, youll find your emails SMTP server information at the same spot where you found the POP3 information:
Once you have your SMTP information:
This will open another popup window that has multiple steps.
On the first screen:
- Enter the custom email address that youre using.
- Check the box for Treat as an alias.
Next, enter the SMTP information from your email host:
- SMTP Server and Port from your email host.
- Username normally, this is your full email address, but sometimes its only the part that comes before @.
- Password the password that you set when creating your custom email address.
- Choose whichever Secured connection method that Gmail recommends.
- Click Add Account.
Gmail will then send a confirmation code to your custom email address. You need to click the link in that email and click Confirm to finish the process.
Since you already configured Gmail to receive emails from your custom domain name, you should be able to receive this email from your Gmail account. It might take a few minutes for Gmail to fetch the email from your server.
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Verify Your Domain Name With Google Workspace
Next, youll need to verify your domain name with Google Workspace by adding something called a TXT record. Depending on how you have things configured, you can do this at either:
- Your web host
- The place where you registered your domain name
Google Workspace will provide detailed instructions for most popular hosts/registrars.
Heres what it looks like to add the TXT record using cPanel :
The Easiest Way To Build A WordPress Website
The single easiest way to set up WordPress is to start with a hosting account specifically designed for WordPress websites. If you choose a plan like the GoDaddy Managed WordPress Hosting account, for example, WordPress is already installed for you.
GoDaddys WordPress Hosting makes building your first WordPress website easier with a Quick Start Wizard, pre-built themes, core software updates, daily backups and 24/7 support.
Many hosts will offer a one-click option or simple directions to install WordPress directly from their control panel. If WordPress is already installed, you can skip the next section.
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Where To Find The Best WordPress Themes
The easiest place to get free themes for your site is from the official WordPress themes repository. There are over 7700 themes to choose from and all of them are free to boot. As a result, you can setup a WordPress site to look beautiful for absolutely free.
WordPress.org is the best place to get free themes, not only because the themes are free. Its also because the themes available there are quality themes that passed a rigorous review process before being available for download.
And, theres the transparency of all themes stats. You can see the number of active installs, downloads per day, user ratings, support forum activities, etc. With all of these, you can easily find out how good a theme is.
Yet, theres a catch in selecting the best theme from such a big collection. But no worries! We have handpicked the best free WordPress themes for you.
A simple website for beginners can do with a basic free theme but a powerful and complex site will require a feature-rich and professionally coded one. Such themes are available for purchase mostly. You can buy premium themes from marketplaces like ThemeGrill, ThemeForest, Zakra Theme, etc.
Also, check our ultimate best WordPress themes list .
Make Your Blog Look Great With Themes
Once youve gotten familiar with WordPress, you can customize the way your blog looks. WordPress comes with its own default themesand theyre goodbut you can get more stylish with custom-built themes. Often, these have a price tag attached, but for a small amount of money you can get a theme that will work for exactly your needs. Maybe you want big images that look great on mobile, too. Or, you want your blog to feel like an online magazine. You can find a variety of accommodating layouts on Elegant Themes or StudioPress.
Were fans of Genesis Framework by StudioPress. Its responsive and is optimized for search engines. The latter is importantit helps people find you when they search on the web.
Once you find and purchase a theme, youll download it. WordPress makes it easy to upload. Just log in to your blog, find the Appearance tab on the side and hover over it. Click Themes.
Then, click on the Add New button near the top of the screen. From there, click Upload Theme, and it’ll drop down an area to upload your downloaded theme. Just choose the .zip file from your computer and select Install Now. WordPress will do the whole thing for you.
Go back to the Themes screen, and youll see all the templates available for use. Hover over the one you just installed and click Activate. The next time you visit your blog, youll see your new theme!
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How To Configure Mailgun In WordPress To Send Emails
When it comes to troubleshooting WordPress not sending emails, this can sometimes be a little tricky. For example, many managed WordPress hosts, including Kinsta, do not provide email hosting. However, we do route email via MailChannels for clients. But if you need more control, need to send emails in bulk, or are having trouble with emails going out, it can be beneficial to configure WordPress with a 3rd-party SMTP provider or transactional email service such as Mailgun or Sendgrid. Today well show you how to configure Mailgun in WordPress to send emails.
Some Important Notes About This Method
While the Gmail part of this method is 100% free, there are some caveats to this method in that youll need to already have email hosting to make it work. Typically, you would get this through your web host if you have a website.
For example, if you host your website with Bluehost, Bluehost also helps you create your own custom email address as part of its service .
If you dont own a domain, heres a quick tool you can use to find out if the domain name youre interested in is available:
Once you set up your email address with Bluehost, the method in this tutorial would let you use Gmail to send/receive those emails at no extra cost. Unfortunately, already having this email hosting is a basic requirement for the free method.
For both creating your website and setting up the custom email account to use with Gmail, we recommend Bluehost. Plans start at just $2.75 per month and that includes hosting your website, hosting your email account, plus a free domain name.
If you dont need a website, another option would be to purchase email hosting through your domain registrar. For example, if you registered your domain through Namecheap, Namecheap sells a cheap email hosting service starting at just $0.79 $0.46 per month.
For the rest of this tutorial, well use Bluehost for our example screenshots. However, the same basic principles will apply to any host the interface will just be a little different.
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Does WordPress Offer Email Hosting
Actually, WordPress does offer an email hosting solution called Email, which gives you the ability to manage an email account from your WordPress.com account.
However, you do need to have a custom domain first. As Ive mentioned in this post, a custom domain name can run you between $10 and $15 per year.
They also offer other email solutions. You can click the link here to find out more about WordPresss email options.
When I say WordPress, I mean WordPress.com.
WordPress: Wp: Mail Not Working On Main Domain But Works On Sub Domains
I run several websites on one server and for some reason I cant seem to use wp_mail to send emails through my main domain. Every other domain and new domains I create work but not the main domain. Ive tried using several plugins including wp-mail-smtp but unfortunately I cant get my main domain to send mail using the wp_mail function. I can use the mail function but this isnt ideal and I heard it can be easily hacked. I wrote a script to test the wp_mail function:
This function seems to work with my sub-domains but not with my main domain. The error message just says message not sent. Is there a way I can test wp_mail better? Maybe get a more meaningful error message that can help me pin-point the problem code? My hosting provider insist its a wordpress issue.
Kind Regards
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How To Get An Email Address On Your Custom Domain Name
You probably have Gmail or some other free email account already. While that email is perfectly fine, it might not look very good when used for any sort of professional purpose.
Were going to show you two ways to do that:
- Option A). Involves handling everything within your user panel at Bluehost one of the leading web hosting firms on the web, famous for its low prices and good beginner-friendly approach.
- Option B). Involves connecting your domain name to Gmail as in, yes, you will be interacting with your email through a Gmail-like panel, but youll be doing so in a way that lets you use your custom domain email instead of a standard address @gmail.com.
Something we need to admit right up front is that path is much more beginner-friendly. Wed give it 5/5 on the ease of use scale. Path is a moderate 3/5.
Option A) Create Email Accounts for Your Domain Name with Web Hosting Provider
Many top web hosting companies offer free email accounts for their customers. Bluehost, Hostgator, Dreamhost just to name a few.
In this example, well show you steps to create email accounts for your domain name with Bluehost:
First, log in to your Bluehost panel and then go into the Advanced tab from the main sidebar.
From there scroll down to the Email section and click on Email Accounts.
From there click on the Create button.
Heres how to fill that out:
Once you have the fields filled in, click on Create again.
Option B) Create Email Accounts for Your Domain Name with Gmail
Start Using Gmail With Your Own Domain Today
With the methods in this post, you can get the convenience of Gmail with the professionalism and brandability of your own custom email address.
If you already have a website and email hosting, you can use the first method to use Gmail with your custom domain name for free.
If you dont have email hosting already and/or you want to completely separate your custom email address from your free Gmail address, you might want to pay for Google Workspace instead.
Still have any questions about how to use Gmail with your own domain name? Ask us in the comments!
Free guide
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