Why Your Emails Go to Spam – The DNS Fix Every Business Needs

You finish a job for a client and email the invoice.

The money doesn’t arrive. You call them.
They never got the email. You send it again and this time it lands in spam.

That tiny problem might be costing you more than you think. And the fix lives inside something called DNS.

Imagine sending a birthday card with £20 inside, but it never arrives. You’d be fuming, right?
Well, your business is doing that every day. And if you’ve got staff, they’re sending their own £20 notes too.

The invisible side of modern business

If your website or email stopped working tomorrow, do you actually know who could fix it?
Most small businesses don’t and that’s where DNS comes in.

The internet was designed decades ago to survive a nuclear attack. It’s basically a giant web of nodes. If one goes down, the traffic finds another route. Clever stuff.

DNS is what keeps that web organised.
Think of it as the digital address book of the internet.

When someone types your website name — like askjt.co.uk — DNS tells the internet where to find it.
The same goes for your emails.
DNS is basically saying: “Website lives here, email goes there.”

Whoever controls your DNS controls your business online.

Why this matters

If your DNS isn’t set up properly, three bad things can happen:

1. Your emails go to spam — or never arrive at all.
   That’s not just annoying, it’s an operational cost. Clients miss invoices. You resend them. It wastes time and makes you look unreliable.

2. Your website could drop offline — maybe because of a hack, ransomware, or a server crash.
   Your DNS setup decides how quickly you can get back online.
   DNS records take time to update across the internet — what’s called propagation.
   If your settings are modern, you’ll be live again in minutes. If not, it can take days.

   And before you say, “But I don’t have an e-commerce site,” remember — the same rules apply to email.
   A weak DNS setup could stop your entire team from sending or receiving messages in a crisis.

3. Someone could impersonate your business.
   Hackers change bank details on invoices all the time. I saw it happen just last week.
   The client’s payment was only saved because their bank used a check-payee system.

The scary part? In most small firms, the IT company has never even looked at the DNS setup.
When it goes wrong, they point at the web company, and the web company says, “Not our responsibility.”
Meanwhile, you’re the one stuck in the middle, with no website, no email, and no idea who can fix it.

What good looks like

First, you need to own your domain — that’s the “www” bit, like askjt.co.uk.
Make sure it’s in your name, with your login and billing details. If your web company ever goes bust, you’ll still have control.
Turn on two-factor authentication and keep a backup payment card on file.

Next, look after your DNS properly.
When your site was first built, the records were probably added through your domain control panel and then forgotten about.

When people ask me who should manage their DNS, my answer’s simple: Cloudflare.

Cloudflare isn’t just a DNS host — it’s a Content Delivery Network (CDN).
That means your website loads faster and stays online even if your main server fails.
It filters out attacks, improves email deliverability, and gives you one secure dashboard to manage everything.

It’s the modern, grown-up way to manage your domain.

What to do next

You don’t need to do this yourself — but you do need to make sure it’s done properly.
Here’s how to start:

1. Find out where your domain is registered.
   Ask your web or IT company: “Who controls our domain, and where is it hosted?”

2. Ask them to move your DNS to Cloudflare.
   It’s a simple job for a professional, and it gives you visibility, security, and speed in one place.

3. Make sure these three records exist:

   • SPF – tells the world which servers can send emails for you.

   • DKIM – digitally signs your emails to prove they’re genuine.

   • DMARC – tells receiving servers what to do if someone tries to spoof you.

A good IT or web partner can sort all this in a few hours, and once it’s done, you’ll hardly ever need to touch it again.

Real-world results

We fixed this for a client recently.
Before the change, half their invoices were ending up in spam.
After sorting their DNS and adding those three records, every message hit inboxes again.

They couldn’t believe something so invisible made such a big difference.

Take control of your digital foundations

If you can’t answer these four questions, it’s time to act:

• Who registered your domain?

• Where does your DNS actually live?

• Do you have two-factor login switched on?

• Does your IT company even know the answers?

⚙️ Ready to modernise?

Most business owners don’t have a DNS problem — they have a systems problem.
The good news? Fixing it starts with a single step.

👉 Apply for a Modernisation Diagnosic here