Having a great-looking email signature is absolutely essential. So in today's video, I'm going to show you three different ways on how you can create a signature in Gmail.
Hello everyone, Scott Friesen here at Simpletivity, and I am excited to share with you three different ways on how you can customize your signature within Gmail. So let's start off with the basics.
Email Signature Basics
First, let's make sure you know where to go to change or edit your email signature. In order to do so, you're going to want to select the Settings icon here and then select Settings one more time.
On the very first tab that you see, the General tab, we want to scroll down near the bottom, and you will see a signature area. Now you've got two choices: either no signature, which means that there will be nothing appended to your messages, or you can choose to have a signature.
What you're seeing here is that you can actually have more than one email signature. In this particular example, I am using two different Gmail accounts—I'm using Gmail forwarding so I can send as either of these accounts—and I can have two different signatures or even more if need be.
But let's take a look at how we can change this very bland-looking signature down below. It can be so much more than simply your name and a tagline.
Number one, don't forget to include some links, such as an email address. I'm just gonna add a simple fake email address here.
Now, in order to add a link within your email address and to change formatting, you're gonna want to use this editor up above. First things first, you need to select what you want to make linkable—in this case, I'm selecting this email address.
Then I'm gonna select the link icon here. Now this is a clickable email address.
If I want to add a website or some other thing that is clickable, I can do so as well. Let's see how we can add a picture to maybe spruce up this email signature as well.
I'm going to place the cursor near the top of the box, and in this case, all you need to do is select Insert Image. This will allow you to insert an image of yourself or maybe a logo—whatever you would like to add to this signature as well.
You can continue on, adding social media icons, or you can add other clickable banners to this email signature. The one thing you want to keep in mind within Gmail, no matter what you do with your signature here, is to be sure to scroll down to the bottom and hit Save Changes.
If you don't hit Save Changes, all this work that you've done up above is going to go away. So make sure you hit Save Changes, and then you'll be able to use that email signature.
But would you like to spruce up your email signature a little more than just what you've seen there? Well, I'm gonna give you a second method.
Email Signature in Google Docs
If you'd like to add even more custom options and flexibility to your email signature, I recommend creating it in Google Docs. Yes, you can create your email signature in Google Docs and then copy and paste it back into Gmail, and it will be saved as your email signature in the very same place that we just saw.
The first thing I'm going to encourage you to do is actually to insert a table. You might be interested to know why I suggest that.
I'm going to insert a simple 2x2 table here, and the reason being is that many email signatures start with an image, perhaps an image of yourself, and maybe you'd like to add other factors as well. Something that you can't do very easily in the standard Gmail signature window is to create this type of layout.
And maybe you want something even more complex than what I'm gonna show you right here. So let's start out in this very first and the top left-hand corner of my table.
I'm gonna insert an image, so I'm gonna upload something from my computer. Since this is gonna be my own email signature, let's start with a picture of myself.
That's a little too big—no problem. I can just drag the corner here and adjust the size of it just like that.
Now I can click and drag my table—I'm gonna go over like this—because in this next area, this next portion of my table, I'm gonna add things like my name. Then I can add my phone number if I want.
I can add whatever other details I want in this area here. Now down below, I can customize further parts of my signature.
So let's say, for example, I want to add a banner, for example. Maybe I want another image here.
So in this case, once again, I'm gonna go back. I'm gonna upload an image from my computer.
Let me go find it—I think it's under Email Templates. There we go, here's a banner that I've created previously.
Again, that's a little too big for me, so I'm going to reduce the size of it just like that. Now because I want people to click on this, all I need to do is right-click on it, and I can insert a link.
Whatever I type in here, whatever I type in this link field here, whenever someone clicks on that, whenever they receive my email, and this is gonna be my signature, they'll be able to go directly to that particular link. Now at this point, you're probably saying, "Well, wait a minute, Scott, I don't want an email signature that has black lines around it."
Well, not a problem. If we go up to Formatting here—actually, let me make sure my cursor is within the table—if we go back into Formatting and I select Table, come all the way down to Table Properties.
I'm gonna say I want to make the table border white, and I'm gonna say OK. Now essentially, it's invisible.
Now all I need to do is copy everything that I see here and then paste it back into my email signature. So if I go back into Settings, all I need to do is go back and paste it in this box that we saw before.
But if this seems like a lot of work—aligning everything and adding links to images—I've got even one more better way of creating your signature.
Email Signature in New Old Stamp
If you want a professional-looking email signature and be able to create it in a matter of minutes, I recommend using a tool such as Newoldstamp. Here you can see an example which I've created in literally two minutes' time.
The great thing about a tool like Newoldstamp is it comes preloaded with a number of templates, so I can quickly change the layout with a simple click. The other great thing is that I can just fill in these areas—you see it already has placeholders for things like name, company, telephone.
So it's already making these things linkable, such as this email address and these social media icons, so that they go directly to my own personal social media accounts. Even other options—you see the image here of my face?
Maybe I want something more square-like, maybe I want some rounded corners—I can easily adjust the size of it if I want. It even comes with some of these preloaded banners and special buttons such as "Find me on Facebook."
Or if you want it to link to other areas of your website, you can do so as well. Now, how do you install or apply this type of email signature?
Well, once you're happy with what you've got here, simply select Save and Install. Newoldstamp gives you two convenient options.
You can either install directly with your Google account, or you can select this option—Copy and Proceed. Then all we need to do is paste this signature into the box which I showed you previously.
Now, if you'd like to learn more about Newoldstamp and try their free email signature generator, I encourage you to check the link in the description below. So there you have it—three different ways on how you can create a great-looking email signature within Gmail.
Which one is your favorite? And I'd love to know, what are some of the pieces of information that you think are essential in an email signature?
Thank you so much for watching. Remember, being productive does not need to be difficult. In fact, it's very simple.
