If the people you email find your messages in their spam folder, work through these checks. Most problems come from the first two.

1. Set up SPF, DKIM and DMARC

These records prove your emails really come from you. Without them, Gmail, Yahoo and Microsoft are much more likely to mark your email as spam. See Setting up SPF, DKIM and DMARC.

2. Test your email

Send a message to mail-tester.com. It gives your email a score out of 10 and explains what to fix. Aim for 9 or above.

3. Check your website's contact forms

Emails sent by website forms, such as WordPress contact forms and order confirmations, often go to spam because they're sent without logging in to a real mailbox. To fix this:

• install an SMTP plugin (such as WP Mail SMTP or FluentSMTP) and set it to send through one of your email accounts
• send from an address on your own domain, such as website@yourdomain.com, rather than the visitor's address
• put the visitor's address in the Reply-To field instead

4. Check what you're sending

• Avoid subject lines in capitals, lots of exclamation marks and phrases such as "free money" or "act now".
• Avoid emails that are just one large image or contain only a link.
• Avoid link shorteners and attachments where you can. Share large files by link from a trusted service instead.

5. Use the right tool for newsletters

Don't send newsletters or bulk email from your hosting email account. It's limited by our sending limits and can harm your domain's reputation. Use an email marketing service instead and include an unsubscribe link.

6. Check blocklists

Use a free blocklist checker, such as MXToolbox, to check whether your domain is listed. If our server's IP address is listed, open a Technical Support ticket and we'll deal with it.

7. Ask your recipients

Ask regular contacts to mark your email as "Not spam" and add you to their contacts. This teaches their email provider to trust your messages.

New domains have no sending history yet, so it can take a few weeks of normal email for providers to trust them fully.