Enhancing Email Deliverability for Your WordPress Website

Ensuring seamless communication between your business and your customers is crucial. One important aspect of communicating is the “deliverability of emails” sent from your WordPress website.

These emails include WooCommerce order confirmations, password reset requests, or any other transactional emails.

Here are some key steps to consider, to enhance the email deliverability for your WordPress website:

1. Utilize an SMTP Plugin:
   • Many email providers require proper validation to ensure that you (or in this case, your website) are the authorized sender of the emails. Utilizing an SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) plugin such as WP Mail SMTP can facilitate this by connecting your WordPress website to a reputable email hosting service.
2. Choose a Reputable Email Host:
   • Good email hosts like GMail, Outlook, Brevo, and Zoho Mail are preferred as they have robust mechanisms to ensure email deliverability. They require setting up specific email authentication records like DMARC, DKIM, and SPF which help in verifying the sender’s identity.
   • Sending emails from your website is not as good, even if your website hosting company also provides email hosting. Email hosting is an “aside” for website hosting companies; pay the small monthly fee for an excellent email host.
3. Email Authentication:
   • Set up necessary email authentication records:
     • SPF (Sender Policy Framework): Helps prevent email spoofing by specifying which IP addresses are allowed to send emails on behalf of your domain.
     • DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail): Allows receiving email servers to confirm that an email claiming to come from a specific domain was authorized by the owner of that domain.
     • DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting & Conformance): Builds on SPF and DKIM protocols, adding linkage to the author (“From:”) domain name, published policies for recipient handling of authentication failures, and reporting from receivers to senders, to improve and monitor protection of the domain from fraudulent email.
     • Your email hosting company can guide you in how exactly to configure these, for settings on their system and settings with your Domain Name Registrar.
4. Configure Your Domain Properly:
   • Ensure your domain name settings (DNS records) are correctly configured with your email provider to ensure smooth email deliverability. Tools like MX Lookup Tool – MxToolbox can help verify your DNS settings.
5. Avoid Sending Emails from Hosting Provider:
   • It’s often not advisable to send emails directly from your website hosting server (unless it’s specifically configured for email hosting). Doing so may lead to poor email deliverability.
6. Monitor Email Deliverability:
   • Use tools and services that provide insight into your email deliverability performance, such as open rates, bounce rates, and spam complaints. This data can provide valuable insights and alert you to potential issues before they affect your communication with your customers.
7. Maintain a Clean Mailing List:
   • Regularly update and clean your mailing list to remove invalid or inactive email addresses. This will help improve your sender reputation and overall email deliverability.
8. Stay Updated on Best Practices:
   • Email deliverability standards and best practices evolve. Stay updated on the latest recommendations and ensure your WordPress website’s email configuration remains compliant and optimized for deliverability.

By taking these steps, you will significantly improve the chances of your emails reaching your customers’ inboxes, thereby ensuring better communication and enhancing customer satisfaction.

Should you have any further questions or need assistance with improving your email deliverability, feel free to reach out to me or leave a comment.