We know that Gmail is fast and easy to use. It is virus as well as spam free. Gmail is web based and universally accessible.

But, for most internet users, the biggest turn off is the fact that you cannot use your own domain name with Gmail. In fact no free webmail service is known to me which provides this facility as on today.

However there is a workaround! You can use the cool and fast interface of Gmail and send/receive mails using your professional email ID using your own domain name.

For that you have to do the following simple steps:

Grab a domain name. Register it from any leading registrar
Host the domain on a reliable server
Create an Email account. Say you created yourname@yourdomainname.com
Open a Gmail account say yourname@gmail.com
Now you can set a forwarder in your server to forward all mails coming to yourname@yourdomainname.com to yourname@gmail.com. Thus you are keeping a copy of all incoming emails on your server and sending a copy to your Gmail account so that you can access it from there.
Now log into your Gmail account. Go to Settings => Accounts. Click on Add another email address. Enter yourname@yourdomainname.com email address there and confirm.
Now Google will send you a verification email. Since it will be sent to yourname@yourdomainname.com, it will be forwarded to yourname@gmail.com. So you can instantly check that and enter the validation code.
Once validated, you can again go to Settings => Account and mark this account as your default account.
Now, whenever you will send an email, it will go from yourname@yourdomainname.com even when you are sending it from your Gmail account. And of course all replies will come to your gmail interface as yourname@yourdomainname.com emails are forwarded there.

Enjoy! The productivity enhancement Gmail offers to you without losing on your brand image.