When you set up your first website, whether it is for a small business, a personal blog, or a local hobby group, it is tempting to go with the "everything in one box" approach. Most hosting companies offer a free email account as part of your web package. It seems easy and it keeps everything on one bill.
However, keeping your email and your website under the same roof is a bit like keeping your house keys and your car keys on the same ring and then leaving them in the ignition. If one thing goes wrong, you are stuck across the board.
Here is why you should separate your digital life.
1. Don't Put All Your Eggs in One Basket
If your website hosting company has a technical hiccup or a server outage, your website will go offline. If your email is hosted there too, your email goes offline with it.
This is a huge headache. If your site is down, you need your email to stay in touch with support or get alerts about the problem. Keeping them separate ensures that even if your website is having a bad day, your inbox stays open and your digital life keeps moving.
2. Avoiding the "Spam" Neighborhood
Most affordable web hosting companies put your site on a server with hundreds of other people. If one of those people does something wrong or gets their site hacked, the "neighborhood" gets a bad reputation.
When that happens, big providers like Gmail or Yahoo might start sending all mail from that server straight to the junk folder. You could be sending a perfectly normal email to a friend or a customer, but they never see it because your "neighbor" got your server blacklisted. A dedicated email service like Fastmail protects you from this.
3. The Freedom to Switch and Grow
Websites are like furniture: sometimes you want to move them or upgrade to something better. If your email is tied to your web host, moving your site to a new company becomes a massive chore. You have to worry about moving years of saved messages and folders without losing anything.
When your email is separate, your website is portable. You can move your site to a faster or cheaper host whenever you want. Your email stays exactly where it is, untouched and uninterrupted. It makes growing your hobby or business much less stressful.
4. Better Apps and Better Privacy
Web hosts are experts at serving websites, but they usually treat email as an afterthought. Their email interfaces are often clunky and their mobile apps are rarely great.
By using a specialist, you get better tools. You get a faster app on your phone, better search tools to find old messages, and much stronger privacy. Most "free" email services scan your data to show you ads, but a professional service keeps your data private.
My Recommended Setup: Fastmail and BetterSiteHost
To get the best experience, I recommend using two experts instead of one generalist.
For Your Email: Fastmail
I use Fastmail because it is incredibly fast and respects your privacy. Whether you are managing a busy inbox or just keeping in touch with a hobby group, it is a joy to use.
No Ads: You never have to look at advertisements in your inbox.
Easy Search: Find any message or attachment in a split second.
Masked Emails: A great feature that lets you create "disposable" addresses so you don't have to give your real email to every random website.
Sign up for Fastmail today and save 10% on your first year!
For Your Website: BetterSiteHost
For the website side of things, speed is everything. Joe Workman recently launched BetterSiteHost, and it is designed to make sites load instantly. They use modern technology to ensure your blog or project is always snappy and reliable for your visitors.
By using Fastmail for your mail and BetterSiteHost for your website, you are building a setup that is reliable, private, and ready for whatever you want to create next.
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