The first thing you need to do to start using Google Apps is sign up for it. There is a premium service which costs money, and a standard service which is free. We will use the standard edition. Sign up!
Select the option for "Administrator: I own or control this domain".
Enter the domain name which will have email hosted by Google.
Click the Get Started button.
Fill in the required fields and place a check next to "I understand that if I cannot alter DNS records for my domain, I may impact my organization's ability to use Google Apps".
Click the Continue button.
Type a username and a password. Be sure to re-enter the password.
Type the words you see in the Word Verification image.
Read the Terms and Conditions for using the Google Apps service. When you are ready, click "I accept. Continue with set up »".
This completes the registration. You are now logged in to your Google Apps Dashboard (control panel).
Once you create an account for your domain name, you must verify that you own the domain name.
At the top of your Dashboard you will see, Welcome to Google Apps! Click the "Continue»" button to proceed.
(If you choose to do this later, you can come back to the Dashboard anytime and click the "Activate Google Apps" button.)
Now you must login with the Google Administrator username and password you picked.
There are three ways you can verify that you own the domain:
1. You can create a TXT record for google.com.
2. You can create a CNAME record to point to google.com.
3. You can add a meta tag to your site's home page.
4. You can upload an HTML file to your website.
After you click the Verify button, allow up to 48 hours for Google to verify your are the owner of the domain name.
Meanwhile, you can continue using the Google setup guide to complete your Google Apps. Alternatively, here is a walkthrough for skipping straight to email setup.
At the Google Apps Dashboard, click the 
Email link. You can change any of these settings as you see fit.
Click the link for Email activation Instructions on how to activate Email.
Read the instructions carefully. If your domain already has email addresses, you should create user accounts before changing your MX records.
Click the "Create user accounts" link.
Enter a first and last name for the email user. Enter the name of his email address.
Click the "Create new user" button.
If you need to enter more emails, click the "Create another user" link.
Once finished, go back to the Dashboard tab at the top. To quickly get to the next step, click the Activate email link, located directly under the Email link.
If you skipped creating email users, then click the "Change MX records" link.
Google reminds you to create the email users before you change the MX records, or you may have email downtime.
Google also offers you temporary email addresses, so you can use Google mail before the MX record change. The format is similar to name@yourdomain.com.test-google-a.com (The temporary email address will be deactivated once you change the MX records.)
You see "Showing instructions for" and a drop down box. Select "cPanel" as your hosting company. Follow the instructions.
Note: The steps are for the cPanel X theme; however, most HostGator clients are using the X3 theme. Here are the instructions for X3:
Be sure to go back to the Google Apps page and click the "I have completed these steps" button.
Go back to the Google Apps Dashboard and click the Email link.
Next to Web address you see a sign-in address (URL) which is similar to http://mail.google.com/a/yourdomain.com .
The login is the email name WITHOUT @yourdomain.com and the temporary password given by Google. You can find the temporary password by going to the "Users and Groups" tab at the top. Click the email account in question, and the password will be revealed.
