A professional email signature for a small business

A professional email signature for a small business is four or five short lines of plain text: your name, your role and business, one phone number, your website, and, for a licensed trade, your license number. It goes under every message automatically once you set it in Gmail, Outlook or your phone's mail app. Keep it plain text rather than an image, so it shows on every screen and the phone number can be tapped.

What to put in it

Here is a signature for a made-up electrician that does its job:

Tom Reyes Owner, Reyes Electric (555) 014-2290 reyeselectric.com License #EC-000000

Line by line:

Your name. The name the customer will ask for when they call.
Your role and business name. "Owner" tells them they reached the person who decides. For a team, the role saves a "who should I talk to?" back-and-forth.
One phone number. The one you answer. Two or three numbers make the customer guess which. Write it in the usual format with the area code, so phones recognize it and make it tappable.
Your website. Typed as plain text, like reyeselectric.com. Most mail apps turn it into a link.
Your license number, for trades that need one: electricians, plumbers, contractors, HVAC. Customers and inspectors look for it, and some states expect it on business documents; check your own state's rules. Showing licenses, insurance and certifications on your site covers the same idea for your website.

Useful extras, if they apply:

Your service area or address, for a shop, office or practice people visit. "Serving Fresno and Clovis" is enough for a trade that goes to customers.
Hours, if people often email expecting an instant answer.
One link to where you get reviews or bookings, such as your booking page.

What to leave out

Your email address. They are already replying to it.
Every social network. One link, at most, to the place you actually post.
Quotes and slogans. A favorite saying under every invoice gets old fast.
Long legal disclaimers, unless your profession requires one. If you are unsure, ask your attorney or your trade association what they recommend.
A second, personal phone number, unless you really want customer calls on it at 9 p.m.
"Sent from my iPhone". It tells the customer nothing useful. Replace it with your signature on the phone too.

Why images in signatures often go wrong

Many owners make a signature as one picture: a designed card with the logo, name and number. It looks great on the screen where it was made. Elsewhere:

Many mail apps block images until the reader allows them. The customer sees an empty box or a paperclip, with no name and no number.
The phone number inside a picture cannot be tapped or copied. A customer on a phone has to retype it.
Pictures arrive as attachments in some apps, so every email looks like it carries a file. That can look suspicious, and it clutters the thread.
Images make messages heavier and a little more likely to be filtered as marketing.
They look blurry or huge on some screens, depending on how the app scales them.

If you want your logo, add a small one next to text lines, not instead of them. Keep the name, phone and website as real text so the signature still works when the image does not.

How to set it in Gmail

On a computer:

Open Gmail and click the Settings gear at the top right.
Click See all settings.
On the General tab, scroll down to Signature and click Create new. Give it a name, such as "Main".
Type your lines in the box. To make the website a link, select it and click the link icon.
Under Signature defaults, choose this signature for new emails and for replies and forwards.
Scroll to the bottom and click Save Changes.

In the Gmail app on Android, tap the menu at the top left, then Settings, pick your account, tap Mobile signature, type it and tap OK. On iPhone, the Gmail app has a signature setting under its Settings too. The phone signature is plain text only and is used just for mail sent from that app. If you send business mail from your business address through a personal Gmail, see using Gmail with your business email address so the signature goes on the right address.

How to set it in Outlook

In the new Outlook for Windows and Outlook on the web:

Open Settings (the gear).
Go to Accounts, then Signatures.
If you have more than one account, choose the business one.
Add a new signature, give it a name and type your lines.
Choose it as the default for new messages and for replies and forwards.
Click Save.

In classic Outlook for Windows, open a new message and look for Signature on the Message tab, then Signatures. On a Mac, it is under the Outlook menu, Settings, then Signatures. A signature made in one version of Outlook may not appear in another, so check each place you send from.

How to set it on your iPhone or Android phone

On an iPhone with the built-in Mail app, open Settings, tap Apps, then Mail, and scroll down to Signature. Choose to use one signature for all accounts or a different one per account, then type the lines. If you have not added your business account to the phone yet, how to add your business email to your phone walks through that first.

On Android, set it in whichever app you use for mail, as above for Gmail; Outlook and Samsung Email each have a signature option in their own settings.

A signature for a team

If several people email customers, give everyone the same layout: same order, same format for the phone number, same website. Only the name, role and direct number change. It looks organized, and customers can tell at a glance they are dealing with one business. Write the template once, and send it to each person to paste in.

What to do this week

Write your signature in five lines: name, role and business, phone, website, license number.
Set it in Gmail or Outlook on the computer.
Set the same text on your phone and remove "Sent from my iPhone".
Swap any image-only signature for text, with a small logo at most.
Send a test to a personal address and look at it on a phone.
Check that the website in your signature still looks the way you would want a customer to see it.

If that last check makes you wince, you can see your site rebuilt first before you send more people to it.