Introduction
Sending emails from your WordPress site is crucial for various functions such as password recovery, notifications, and contact form messages. Proper configuration of sending helps improve reliability and deliverability of emails sent from your WordPress site.
Recently, email protocols and connection methods have changed a lot for email security purposes, so it is worth checking this functionality of your website and making sure it is set up in the correct manner.
If we built your site and did not have access to your email accounts we may have set your site up to send emails via our server. While that will work, it is not really the correct way to do it and may affect deliverability rates. To do this the correct way and minimising the chance of notification emails being sent to spam folders, we should be connecting to, and sending emails via an email address that has the same domain as your website.
Here are the steps involved to do this properly:
Step 1: Install an SMTP Plugin
To improve email deliverability, you need to configure your WordPress site to send emails using SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol). This involves installing a reliable SMTP plugin like Fluent SMTP. These plugins provide a user-friendly interface to manage your email settings. If we built your site, this will have been installed as part of the build. If we did not build your site, we can add this for you at our usual site editing rates.
Step 2: Configure the SMTP Plugin
Once the plugin is installed, we need to navigate to its settings page. You will need to enter SMTP connection details which include the SMTP host, port, username, and password. (in English, we need login details to connect to an email account to actually send notification emails out to you and your clients.). These details are typically provided by your email hosting provider. If your email is hosted with us (in other words with your website) we can take care of this part of the set-up for you.
If you use Microsoft 365, Gmail or other third-party email providers, this setup can be a little more complex as they may demand that you set up API connections and security keys to send mail via their servers. We can help with this, but please bear in mind this will be billed at our usual site editing rates, and we will need access to your account with the email provider to set this up for you. The work will also have to be done at a pre-arranged time with our team, as your email provider may have 2FA that we need to pass to access your account to do the set-up.
Once the plugin is configured YOU will have to do the final step of connecting/authorising it, this is normally done by logging into your email account via your website admin area, we will guide you through this.
Step 3: Test Your Email Settings
After configuring the SMTP plugin with the correct details, it is essential to test if emails are being sent correctly. Most SMTP plugins have a testing feature where you can send a test email to check the setup. Fluent SMTP has such a feature. Ensure the test email is delivered successfully to verify that everything is working as expected.
Step 4: Monitor Email Deliverability
After setting up your SMTP plugin and successfully sending a test email, it's important to continuously monitor the deliverability of your WordPress site’s emails. Fluent SMTP provides a log to make this easy. Bear in mind we will NOT be monitoring this for you, running your website is your job, we manage your hosting not your site, but of course we can help you fix any connection issues should they arise.
Recommendations
We strongly recommend you create a new, separate email account just for your site to use to send out emails. EG, info@yoursite.com or updates@yoursite.com. The reason for this is, should you use an existing email address and someone decides to change the password on that address, this would mean the website could no longer connect to it to send out emails. It is much better to have a separate account set up only for the website to use.
Once your forms and SMTP have been set up, we recommend you get into the habit of checking your form submissions on your website daily so that you never miss a lead, question, or quote request. Because of tightening of email protocols and general spam paranoia from some of the biggest email providers, email as a medium has become a little more unreliable. There are thousands of companies out there with tens of thousands of custom spam filters that vary from lax to super paranoid. It is IMPOSSIBLE to please them all, and email is sadly NOT a guaranteed way of communicating any more.
Conclusion
Configuring your WordPress site to use SMTP for sending emails enhances the reliability and deliverability of your emails. By following these steps and regularly monitoring your email system, you can ensure that important notifications from your site reach their intended recipients without any issues.
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