Email

Benefits of Using Own Domain Email on Google Apps Gmail

Your Email ID is a valuable marketing tool for you, and Email ID of your own domain tells that you have an online presence, where people can find you, etc. Its also a tool to promote your company, as you are promoting your domain by that. Your Email ID will promote your domain rather than Gmail or Yahoo. You can even see here why to go for own domain Email ID. ;-) You can have own domain Email ID using your hosting company’s web mail or buy Email space at some hosting company. But according to me, Google Apps Gmail is provides the best own domain email solutions, and above all, its free(Standard package). Below are few of the many reasons why you should use Google Apps Gmail for your Email purposes.

Reliability/Uptime

Our web servers keep experiencing downs and crashes, and it is a pain when you are on a shared server or low-memory VPS. Imagine you were using your hosting company’s web mail, and had to receive an important email that time when your website/server was down. It will simply bounce. By using Google Apps Gmail you overcome this, as when you use Google Apps all the associated data will be stored on Google Data centers which runs your Email services effortlessly and gives 99.9% uptime.

Collaboration

Domain users can share their calendar from any computer, see when people are available, send invitations, manage RSVPs, do real time editing on documents, spreadsheets & presentations. Also access Instant Messaging (IM)(Using Gtalk) from any computer.

Space

If you have a small dedicated or VPS Hosting, then you probably get small amount of hard drive space, and Email particularly takes a lot of space especially if you have many users. Going with Google Apps Email helps here again, as it provides at least 7 GB of storage on Email accounts and this also increases your server’s efficiency as the load is not on your server for the Email services.

Security

Your SMTP server might get flooded with Spam or SQL hacks might steal credentials of your users. You overcome these also because of Google Apps. You can even disable the email server that came with your hosting account, that is the IMAP/POP3 server and the SMTP. This saves memory too.

Conclusion

There are many more reasons for you to go with Google Apps Gmail, but if you need customized Email service for your company, like custom layout and branding on your users mailboxes then Google Apps Gmail might not be a great option as it isn’t really very flexible. If you need to use for personal purposes or branding doesnt matters, then Google Apps it is! Even if you have a huge organization you can still go with Google Apps as they have multiple editions to suit your needs, plus you get all the Google Apps benefits.

Sending HTML Emails using your Web-based Email account | Gmail | Yahoo | Hotmail

Yes, you can send your custom made HTML Email using your Web-based Email account account like Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, etc. Many people think HTML can only be send using Email Clients like Outlook or Thunderbird, etc. To send an HTML using your Web-based Email account, you need to do make a valid HTML Email Template first, like with in-line CSS, using Tables, absolute paths etc. Read here how to write an HTML Email. After you are done making it, upload it to your server or if you dont have one you can use a free web hosting service here or any other which you like. Make sure your HTML Email has absolute paths for everything, your readers are going to be at all different locations.

When done, open your Web-based Email account, click on Compose/New Mail, make sure you have Rich Formatting enabled. Also, open your HTML Email using your Web Browser. Select all on the HTML Email page using Ctrl+A(On Windows) Or Command-A(On Mac) and then paste it on your Rich Text Editor(where you are writing the Email) using Ctrl+V(On Windows) or Command-V(On Mac). Send it. Thats its. So easy to do.

Make sure HTML Email is properly formatted, be careful with it. CSS rules vary for Web-based emails, also it is not necessary that the receivers Email Client has HTML support it, it will go as plain text in that case, and if they are not web code friendly, they might just delete it in one go thinking it as some spam. Thus, you should give the receiver the opportunity to choose between HTML Email or plain text. Also if it is a commercial Email, make sure it follows CAN-SPAM Act of 2003.

Tips for writing HTML Emails

Web Designers often create HTML Email Templates and face the problem of its compatibility on Email clients and Webmail especially. It might be like, Its running good on Yahoo, AOL. But fails in Gmail. Quite often, HTML Emails fail to load on Outlook 2007 and Outlook 2010.

I’ll like to share some tips using which one can create successful HTML Emails. So that your HTML Email loads properly in all the Mailboxes and Email clients

  1. The first basic rule of HTML Email is one single file, that is you can’t attach a style sheet. And you shouldn’t probably call it too, you should simply include something like
    {code type=HTML}<style type=”text/css”>.
    /* Your Style sheet */
    </style>{/code}
    Within the <head> of your Email HTML Template. But there is a big problem with it, Gmail doesn’t supports a style sheet, its only supports inline CSS. Thus you’ll need to convert it into an inline type with no external references to style using #Tags. That is something like {code type=CSS}<p style=”font-family: “Verdana”, Arial;”>{/code} Also, attachments are often stored in randomly named temporary cache folders by some email programs. They also hog a lot of bandwidth (especially when they bounce) so attachments are not the way to go. Simply upload your images into a public-accessible web sever and call your Images from there. Also remember not to resize the Image, stretched images may not render properly. All graphics should have their correct dimensions.
  2. Another thing important is, use as less CSS as you can . Desktop Email clients, mainly Outlook 2007 and Outlook 2010 doesn’t support most of the CSS. Outlook often converts your DIVS to paragraphs, so your DIVS will be messed up. Also, Avoid using “margin” or “padding” CSS properties in your TABLE tag. Cellpadding and Cellspacing attributes are generally safe but margin or padding will often be added to every TD within the table. Also, Outlook 2007 and 2010 impose a 2-pixel height minimum for table cells. So, for example, if a table cell contains a 1-pixel transparent gif and a background color, your ‘horizontal line’ will appear thicker than expected.
  3. Tables is the safest thing to use in HTML Email. Do not rely on CSS based layouts. Make Email layouts completely based on Tables. You may also nest tables in your HTML template. Its completely safe.
  4. One more thing important is, don’t have too wide templates for your HTML Email Template. We are not designing HTML sites here. The width should exceed 600px I believe. Think small!
  5. After you are done you can test you email in virtual Email simulation and testing websites. One good site I came across was http://www.emailonacid.com, here you can see how your Email will look in various Email programs.

I hope the above points help you. Good luck!