What Are Notion Sites and How Can I Build and Publish a Blog with Them?

Do not index

Notion just got a massive upgrade, which allows you to turn your notion template into an actual website. Making it the new kid around the block that every one wants to play with.

In this article I’ll be breaking down

What Notion Sites are?

How Notion Sites Work?

Use Cases for Notion Sites.

And best of all a Notion Sites Alternative.

So let’s dive in.

Welcome to The Matchbox!

Where I get to show you how I use different AI tools to help simplify my work life and how you can do the same just by implementing what I teach.

What is Notion Sites?

Notion Sites is a newly launched feature by Notion that allows users to publish their notion templates as websites. Now this feature has always available but it was commonly used as a way to share ‘your’ templates with others so that they could duplicate them.

This is then lead to notion creators selling their notion templates with others, some example templates include:

Habit Trackers

Meal Planners

Film/ Book Trackers

Task Mangers

And so on…

Even I have my own notion store where I sell different templates that help stay organised and systemise my work flow, if you are interested in any of my templates you can check the out at Way-to-seven.

Notion sites aren’t limited to text copy and pasting images, but also embed web content, such as PDFs, social media posts, videos, and HTML code.

You can also add your own customer domain on Notion Sites, by heading over to settings and clicking on ‘Sites’

When exploring Notion Sites, it's important to keep in mind use cases that can improve your website for better user experience:

Customization Options: Notion Sites allows you to personalize your site by customizing the top header, choosing between light and dark themes, and adding a unique favicon. This helps ensure that your site reflects your brand or personal style while maintaining a clean and professional appearance.

SEO and Analytics Integration: To improve your site's visibility and track its performance, Notion Sites offers basic SEO features, such as adding custom metadata for better search engine indexing. Additionally, you can integrate Google Analytics to monitor visitor traffic and behavior, giving you valuable insights into how your audience interacts with your site.

Enhanced Publishing Tools: Notion Sites simplifies the process of turning your Notion pages into fully functional websites with a one-click publish feature. Users can now create and manage various types of content, such as company homepages, job boards, and help centers, directly within Notion. The integration of features like breadcrumb navigation and customizable share previews makes it easier to create and share polished and professional-looking sites.

The downfall with Notion sites for free users is that they have limited access to customization on their sites, while paid users have full customization to their sites.

So you will have to pay that $10 every month.

Best Use Cases for Notion Sites

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Best Use Cases for Notion Sites

Personal Websites

Landing Page

Multilingual help center

Blogging

Portfolio

Hidden Costs: Additional Fees for Custom Domains

One significant drawback of Notion Sites is the additional fees associated with connecting custom domains. While connecting a domain can make your blog more professional, the cost can quickly add up, especially for users managing multiple blogs or websites. This can be a significant financial burden.

Feather.so: The Superior Alternative for Serious Bloggers

For those looking to take their blogging to the next level, Feather.so offers a compelling alternative. Here’s why Feather.so is better suited for serious bloggers, but before that, let me answer your buring question.

What is Feather.so?

Feather.so is a blogging platform that leverages Notion as its Content Management System (CMS). It simplifies the process of creating and managing a blog by allowing users to write their articles directly in Notion. Once the articles are ready, Feather automatically publishes them to a SEO-optimized blog.

Here's a brief overview of how it works:

Databases: Feather utilizes four different Notion databases - Content, Pages, Tags, and Authors, with the Content database being mandatory.

Field Mapping: Feather uses Notion's database properties to identify essential blog post fields such as title, excerpt, publish date, tags, and authors. This process is known as field mapping.

Draft Mode: Posts can be saved as drafts by leaving the "Ready to Publish" property unchecked. Once this property is checked, Feather will publish the post.

Automatic Publishing: Any changes made in the Notion databases are automatically reflected on your blog. Adding a new item to the Content database will publish a new blog post.

Feather simplifies blog management by automating the publishing process and allowing bloggers to use Notion's intuitive interface for content creation.

Feather is what I used to write and publish this exact blog post, and is what I use as my blogging platform.

Comprehensive Features

Feather.so is designed specifically for blogging, offering a suite of features that cater to professional needs:

SEO Optimization: Built-in SEO tools to help your content rank higher on search engines.

Customization: Extensive customization options, including CSS styling and theme editing, to create a unique blog design.

Content Management: Advanced content management features, including multiple authors and guest posts.

Email Subscriptions: Integrated email subscription forms and newsletters to grow your audience.

Performance: Optimized for high traffic with fast performance and global CDN support.

Ease of Use

Feather leverages Notion as a headless CMS, allowing you to write and manage your content in Notion while Feather handles the publishing and optimization. This integration provides the best of both worlds: Notion’s flexibility and Feather’s blogging power.

Better Value

While Feather.so might have a higher upfront cost, the value it provides justifies the investment. The platform is built to scale, ensuring that as your blog grows, it can handle increased traffic and complexity without compromising performance.

Conclusion

While Notion Sites offer a simple way to publish content online, they fall short in several critical areas required for serious blogging. The limited customization, basic SEO and analytics, and additional costs for custom domains make it less ideal for professional bloggers. Feather.so, on the other hand, provides a comprehensive, customizable, and scalable solution that leverages Notion’s flexibility and adds powerful blogging features.

If you’re serious about blogging and want to build a successful, professional blog, Feather.so is the way to go. Ready to take your Notion blog to the next level? Get started with Feather.so’s 7-day free trial. Your blog will thank you!