Depending on your business you might need email solutions for sending emails from your WordPress website. It can be for e-commerce stores or user registration forms. The needs can be anything.
Although WordPress provides a solution in the form of wp_mail, it is not recommended to use it. Mainly due to its inability to reach the users inbox folder and being marked as spam by the big email providers such as Gmail, Outlook and Yahoo.
Emails being sent in the users spam box is not something anyone would like. That’s why SMTP plugins are being used to prevent this from happening.
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What is SMTP?
SMTP stands for Simple Mail Transfer Protocol. As the name suggests it is a protocol for sending and receiving emails over the internet. It also makes exchanging emails more secure for your website.
Prerequisites:
You will need an SMTP server to use the SMTP plugins to send and receive the emails. Mostly your hosting provider will provide an SMTP server by default. If that is not the case then you can either choose email services such as Gmail and Outlook or go with other paid SMTP server providers.
Below are 3 Best plugins to integrate SMTP for emails:
1. Easy WP SMTP –
This plugin is one of the most famous plugins when it comes to SMTP. Plus, it is completely free to use. Once you have installed and activated the plugin you can navigate to Settings -> Easy WP SMTP and configure the SMTP server details in it.
2. WP Mail SMTP –
WP Mail SMTP by WPForms is actively being used on more than 1 million WordPress websites. This plugin makes it easy to get started and is great in email deliverability. It also supports logging all your email records.
By default this plugin allows you to setup with various SMTP servers such as SMTP.com, Mailgun SMTP, SendGrid SMTP, Gmail SMTP, Microsoft SMTP and many more. If you want to use an SMTP server that is not supported by default then you can easily configure it in the plugin settings.
3. Post SMTP Mailer/Email Log –
This plugin is the upgraded version of Postman SMTP which was abandoned by its developer. It provides a setup wizard to start using SMTP for emails. It also supports api integration with popular providers such as Gmail API, SendGrid API, Mandrill API and Mailgun API.
Another specialty of this plugin is that it allows you to mention a second SMTP server that can be used if sending fails from the first server. It also has a logger for recording all the emails being sent.
Conclusion
If your website depends on email deliverability then using an SMTP plugin is a must. With the plugins making it so easy to get started there is no reason why you shouldn’t go with an SMTP setup.