Everything you should know to create a business Gmail account

Are you a business manager, looking for the perfect email service? Then Gmail for business should definitely top your list. And while Gmail is a commonly used app for personal and corporate correspondence, many people don’t realize the full extent of it’s business functionalities.

For starters, just like having a business website, a business email makes customers perceive you as a serious and trustworthy company. It allows you to make all your communications from a single, customized domain email address.

Compared to its major competitors, Outlook, Gmail is much more affordable, making it ideal for small and medium sized businesses. Moreover, Gmail offers a user-friendly interface, better customer support and more helpful apps compared to its other counterparts.

Finally, Gmail is simple, light and powerful. You log in through your browser or mobile app and access all your emails directly from the cloud.

Creating a business Gmail account vs. free Gmail account

Free Gmail, also known as Google accounts give you access to basic Google services. They also offer minimal online storage. You may also set it up as a free business email account with minimal tools and features.

The biggest difference between the two is the email domain. A business Gmail account requires you to have a domain address where all communications are directed, which is not the case with free Gmail.

On the other hand, Gmail for business provides higher storage limits and a ton of advanced features.

Other benefits include:

Business Gmail account can be centrally managed

The other primary difference between free Gmail and Google Workspace is based on resource ownership. Google Workspace account resources are owned by the business. It has the highest control over what goes in and around the accounts through the admin console.

All data in the Google Workspace is stored in the cloud and can be centrally managed by the admin. The admin decides who can access the accounts or who cannot. If a staff member leaves the company, their access rights are shifted to their replacement and they won’t be able to access the account from outside the company.

Contrarily, free Gmail accounts are owned by the individual users. This makes them an unsuitable option for businesses because they cannot manage or control the mailboxes of each individual employee. If a worker ceases working in the company, they leave with the information in their personal accounts which can be a great risk to the company. If the individual user decides to change the login details, the company will no longer be able to access the account.

The design differs

Free Gmail and business Gmail accounts differ from the design perspective. While the two have nearly similar functions, the free version is designed with individual users in mind while Google Workspace leans more towards business and team collaboration features.

Therefore, you don’t expect to find team management features in free Gmail. Similarly, file sharing with these accounts is limited. If you wish to share a file to multiple users, you have to set the file access rights for the recipients, one by one, which can be such an inconvenience for companies.

Suppose you have a team of ten people. You must enter every member’s email address on the recipient box before sending the email.

Benefits of creating a business Gmail account

Gmail account for business is an app from Google Workspace and aims to take your emailing, team communication, collaboration, document creation and scheduling to the next level. At this point, you are aware that using personal email for business is not the best way to keep your customers hooked. It’s best to create a business Gmail account to enjoy its unlimited benefits and efficiency.

The main features to expect from Google workspace include;

Communication tools

Google Workspace applications have a ton of features to help your team act and respond in real time, and share messages to ensure everyone is on the same page. And depending on your preferred  subscription package, the email address gives you a chance to store messages and data for up to terabytes.

Google calendar is another essential communication tool from a business account. The tool helps with services scheduling and time management and lets users share schedules with their teammates. The fact that it is cloud based makes everything better. Users can highlight important dates and share them with others at the company.

The hangout feature makes things easier  and more convenient. The business Gmail account has a messaging and video chat tool that lets up to ten users join in. It’s simple and quick to hold a conference remotely.

Collaboration tools

Gmail for business integrates cloud computing to revolutionize team collaboration. It streamlines the documents creating, editing, viewing and sharing processes with it’s plethora of user-friendly templates. It facilitates real-time changes on documents and automated saving, and this minimizes chances of data loss.

Google Workspace also features Docs. It lets you edit, disseminate and alter documents fast without the fear of losing data or files. You can also share the documents in either the view only or edit mode depending on whether you want the recipient to modify the content.

Google Sheets is another collaboration tool from Google. This tool is not only easy to use but also has a robust spreadsheets service that allows you to create graphs, charts and tables to simplify the spreadsheet content.

Storage

Gmail for business lets users create, edit and renew files right from the Workspace. You may either use drive or cloud storage solutions. Drive allows you to store an array of file types, including word docs, excel spreadsheets, music, audio, slides and adobe video to mention a few.

Check out this Google drive definitive guide for more info on the same.