Email is an integral part of any small business. Whilst the number of free email service providers for individuals grows by the week, finding a reliable host that offers ample storage, manageability, the option of POP or IMAP access and most importantly the option of sending emails from your business’s domain for free, can be a struggle.

Whilst many web site hosts and Internet Service Providers offer an email hosting service, businesses sometimes end up feeling tied to the provider even when things go bad because they know that if they change to another company, it could involve a lot of disruption and hassle, not just with their email but with their web site hosting or office Internet connection too. This is why many businesses choose to stay and suffer with their existing provider, even if it means sub-adequate service and higher costs. Using a quality, reliable and independent provider for your valuable email service is vital.

Enter Internet giant Google. You may or may not have heard about their offering called Google Apps. This solution can only be described as a God send for small businesses. Encompassing a selection of their most successful products, Google Apps allows small businesses to easily carry out some of their most important IT related tasks absolutely free of charge and with the option of using the business’s own domain name to maintain a professional appearance.

Included in the Google Apps suite of products are:

• Gmail for email
• Google Docs for basic web browser based administration of common Office documents
• Google Calendar
• Google Sites for simple web site creation (it is very restrictive though)
• Google Talk, for cheap phone calling via the Internet and instant messaging

Two plans are available, a standard free edition and a paid-for premier edition. Unless your business is planning on expanding to dizzying heights, the features of the free edition should suffice even the slightly hectic of small businesses.

With the free edition you get the standard Gmail features that include:

• 6 – 7GB of storage space (a figure that is continually growing)
• Ability to access email via POP or IMAP protocol, in addition to the very attractive and useful web based interface and Google Mobile site
• Auto/vacation responders
• The option of in turn downloading email from other POP email accounts
• Google’s impressive reliability
• Email filtering

Whilst it is possible to define a business email address as the sender address of a standard Gmail account, the primary Gmail address still gets transmitted with the message and in some software the message then gets displayed as being sent by “you@yourbusiness.com on behalf of you@gmail.com”, which slightly defies the point of using an alternative sender address to preserve anonymity.

By signing up via Google Apps, Gmail works based on your domain, so when you send an email from you@yourbusiness.com, the email will be displayed to your recipient as being sent by you@yourbusiness.com.

I am inclined to say that Gmail from your own domain is by far the most useful feature of Google Apps for a small business. However, increasingly more users are coming round to the idea of also using Google Calendar and Google Docs for other business administrative tasks when comparing the cost of using them (free) to the cost of proprietary software such as Microsoft Office.

Migration to using Google Apps for your email, that is transferring all your existing email and contact lists, is relatively straight forward and help is provided via Google help pages.

Moving to use Google Apps is a move well made in my opinion. The extra freedom this gives you in the future to move ISP or web hosting company makes it all worth while, if the Gmail service alone isn’t enough of a benefit to your small business.

Whilst the move to using Google Apps for email is relatively straight forward, it does involve a certain degree of DNS configuration and in some cases a trick or two in order to transfer old emails to the new account. I have successfully set-up and configured Google Apps for a number of small businesses, so if you wish to make the move and require the assistance from someone who has experience with making the switch, please contact me.