Create a Notion website that you truly own! Build your brand with an aesthetic design, set up analytics, optimize for search engines, and so much more.
Link a Notion Custom Domain with Super
Since its inception, Notion has emerged as a popular content planning tool utilized by a diverse user base, including freelancers, content managers, and business owners. Notion’s features and flexibility enables them to create, manage, and store content in the form of pages.
However, this content often remains underutilized, merely gathering digital dust, when it could instead generate leads for your business. Even though not all content must be made public, marketing copies, blog posts, eBook, etc. are powerful assets that build brand awareness and generate relevant traffic to your “money” pages.
To give the marketing content the exposure it deserves, you must share it publicly. Even though Notion allows public sharing, the URLs it generates are infamously long — the domain name is super random and the slugs a mix of alphanumeric characters that offer no SEO benefits.
The image below exemplifies the randomness of plain Notion URLs:
Also, these pages are technically owned by Notion, which means you do not have the permission to add code snippets to the page. The biggest downside to this is that you can’t integrate your content with analytics tools, as you would need to install a tag in the page header section. So the only way to add Google Analytics to Notion is by linking your pages to a custom domain name. And the best way to do that is by using Super.
Here are the four steps to set up and use a custom domain in Notion:
1. Purchase a domain name
Your website’s domain name solves three key purposes — it tells people what your website is about, gets your SEO brownie points, and establishes your brand. Your custom domain name is the identity of your website.
As you produce more content and people learn about your brand, it’s the domain name that they search on Google to find you and the services you offer. The category of Google queries that include your brand name are known as brand queries. These searches are usually from a high-intent audience that converts at a higher rate than non-brand searches.
You would also want to add a keyword in your domain name to get SEO benefits and also to highlight your website niche.
Once you have finalized your domain name, you can purchase it from popular domain registrars but if you use Super, you can purchase it right from your Super app!
Click on “Domain” in the left-pane of your Super app, type the domain name, select from the list that Super populates, and buy the extension that is available. Yes, it’s that simple!
2. Sign up with Super
By now, you might have already created high-quality content in Notion and also purchased a custom domain name. It’s time to create a website by putting them both together. The best way to create a professional website or portfolio with your content in Notion is by using Super.
With Super, you can create a website that truly embodies your brand - a site that functions as a digital reflection of you or your business. Super can transform your website into the perfect salesperson, working round-the-clock to generate leads and drive growth.
Super’s intuitive, user-friendly interface allows you to easily set up custom navigation bars with a CTA button and footers along with all essential elements that enhance usability and boost your brand's credibility.
Further, Super allows you to optimize your content's meta details, enhancing visibility and driving organic traffic to your site.
To increase your conversion rates, Super also facilitates the creation of Notion CTA buttons. This means you can guide your visitors to take desired actions directly, whether it's signing up for a newsletter, purchasing a product, or booking a consultation.
In short, Super is the best website builder for Notion users. It takes your Notion content and pairs it with your custom domain, and enhances it with features designed to optimize user experience, SEO, and conversions.
All Super sites are deployed on a subdomain of “super.site”. To connect your own domain to your site, you’ll need to do two things. One is to point your DNS records for the domain to Super, and the other is to add the domain to your site.
3. Update your DNS settings at your domain provider
Below you can find the DNS settings you need to include on your domain registrar (GoDaddy, Namecheap, Google Domains, etc.) or DNS provider's (Cloudflare, Netlify, etc.) website.
Root domain records
For a root domain like example.com you'll need to add the following records:
Type | Name | Value |
A | @ | 76.76.21.21 |
CNAME | www |
Subdomain records
For a subdomain like blog.example.com add this record:
Type | Name | Value |
CNAME | (your subdomain) |
4. Connect your custom domain to your site in Super
To add a domain to your site, head into your site editor (⚙️ icon) and click into the Domains page, then click the Add a custom domain button.
After entering your own domain address in the popup, if you haven’t already done so, you'll need to make some changes to the DNS settings through your hosting provider.
You need to change your DNS records through your domain registrar's (GoDaddy, Namecheap, Google Domains, etc) or DNS provider's (Cloudflare, Netlify, etc) website. For specific instructions, view the content inside the toggle blocks above. For specific instructions for diffrerent providers, view the content inside the toggle blocks below.
How to update your DNS records at your domain/DNS provider
Cloudflare offers many services besides DNS. Some of these can cause your site to not load properly is misconfigured. Here are common problems and solutions for Cloudflare.
Root domain records on Cloudflare
For all domains hosted on Cloudflare, the proxy must be disabled and set to DNS only. You'll also need to use these records instead:
Using Cloudflare proxy
When Cloudflare proxy is on your site may show an error err_too_many_redirects.
This issue occurs when your Cloudflare SSL/TLS configuration is set to "Flexible". This will have Cloudflare send requests to Super over HTTP and in response Super will send data back over HTTPS. To keep all our connections secure you must request Cloudflare to only send requests over HTTPS. To fix this issue, the "SSL/TLS" option in Cloudflare needs to be set to "Full" or "Full (strict)".
Source:
We have a video guide on how to get started with Google Domains below ↓
Configure your Super site's DNS with GoDaddy
1. Go to Domain Management.
2. Back under My Products, next to Domains, click Manage.
3. Click the domain you'd like to manage.
4. Click Add Record.
5. Type in the records provided in your Super dashboard.
CNAME record - cname.super.so
A Record - 76.76.21.21
6. Make sure you’ve removed any “Parked” domain settings in the GoDaddy DNS settings.
Once you've saved your records in GoDaddy, click "I've added the DNS records" in your Super dashboard and your DNS will begin to propagate. This usually takes a few minutes, but in some cases, propagation can take up to 24 hours.
If your domain has trouble connecting to Super and you’re sure the DNS settings are correct, it’s likely the DNS propagation is delayed. You can use this tool to check.
Configure your Super site's DNS with Namecheap
1. Select Domain List from the left sidebar.
2. Click the Manage button next to your domain.
3. Click Advanced DNS.
4. Click Add New Record.
5. Type in the records provided in your Super dashboard.
CNAME record - cname.super.so
A Record - 76.76.21.21
Once you've saved your records in Namecheap, click "I've added the DNS records" in your Super dashboard and your DNS will begin to propagate. This usually takes a few minutes, but in some cases, propagation can take up to 24 hours.
Configure your Super site's DNS with Bluehost
1. Click the Domains tab from the side navigation menu.
2. Next to the domain name you'd like to update, click the dropdown icon next to Manage, then choose DNS from the drop-down menu.
3. Scroll down to locate the record type you'd like to add, and click Add Record.
4. Type in the records provided in your Super dashboard.
CNAME record - cname.super.so
A Record - 76.76.21.21
Once you've saved your records in Bluehost, click "I've added the DNS records" in your Super dashboard and your DNS will begin to propagate. This usually takes a few minutes, but in some cases, propagation can take up to 24 hours.
If you are using Wix as your DNS provider, we recommend that you switch back to your original DNS provider or switch to a free DNS provider like Cloudflare. Wix manages your DNS settings, and this can be problematic when connecting to other services like Super.
If your domain is already connected to Potion, then there are some different steps to go through in order to connect to Super. Subdomains connected to Potion can also cause a problem connecting to Super. For example, leaving the root domain or subdomain on Potion will prevent it from being connected to Super, even if the DNS settings are correct.
In this case, please remove the domain/subdomain from Potion and as Potion to remove your domain from their Vercel account. Once this is done, you will be able to complete the domain connection process in Super.
If your root domain is already connected to Vercel, then there are some different steps to go through in order to connect to Super. Subdomains connected to Vercel can also cause a problem connecting to Super. For example, leaving the root domain or subdomain on Vercel will prevent it from being connected to Super, even if the DNS settings are correct.
Connecting a Vercel subdomain to Super
If your root domain is connected to Vercel, then adding a subdomain to Super will generate an email from Vercel to approve the connection of the subdomain to Super.
You will need to approve this email in order for it to start working on our end. The email will be sent to the email address of the Vercel account owner.
Connecting a Vercel root domain to Super
It is not yet possible to use a root domain (domain.com) if it's on Vercel. You will either need to use a subdomain instead, or you'll need to fully delete the domain from your Vercel account and use another service like Cloudflare, Godaddy, etc for DNS.
Troubleshooting domain connection issues
If you run into issues, please make sure that you have:
- Added new DNS records to your domain provider
- Removed old DNS records
- Waited up to 24 hours for new settings to propagate
Why to add a custom domain to Notion?
Having a custom Notion URL costs money and requires some initial effort in setting up. But the good part is that you just need 3-minutes to build your website with Super. However, you may still be wondering if you really need a unique domain at all when you can still publish content without owning the website. Let’s address that in this section.
Here are the benefits of using Notion on a custom domain name:
1. Complete Website Ownership
You create a lot of website content in Notion, but without a custom Notion domain name, you do not truly own the content — Notion does. All the website traffic and user interaction information gets recorded in Notion’s analytics, not yours.
By setting up Notion on a custom domain, you get that ownership back. You get to decide what people do after visiting your website, how to track their activities, and how you plan your marketing funnel that converts them into paying customers.
2. Brand Identity
Without a custom domain, all your Notion public content is essentially a set of disjoint pages that do not interact with each other. While you can share them with people across the globe, you do not have the stamp of authority on it. In simpler words, those pages do not represent you — or your brand. They look like generic Notion pages due to the familiar layout and design capabilities.
By getting your Notion website on a custom URL, you can make your pages talk to each other and make them come together as a functional website. As established earlier, you get to create neat URLs — not an alpha-numeric character salad.
Further, you can design your website to brand when you own the domain. You can break out of the limited color options and Notion font styles, and create truly unique websites with content hosted in Notion but still different from the familiar Notion’s user interface. Design capabilities of Super can become a powerful differentiation factor that makes your brand stand out from the crowd.
3. SEO Brownie Points
While coming up with the domain name for your Notion site, you can consider inserting niche keywords into it. For example, if you are creating a Notion portfolio on a custom domain for your freelance design business, you can consider adding the word “designer” to your domain name, something similar to — designerjack.com.
While you should not overdo this, adding a keyword in your domain name will help you rank better for related keywords like “freelance designer for hire”, “how to hire a freelance designer”, etc. You can even go a step further and make SEO truly work for you by using Super’s SEO capabilities — You can add metadata, create pretty URLs, enhance mobile experience, and do so much more!
4. Conversion Rate Optimization
While SEO will generate high-intent traffic to your website, you still need to create content and design pages that are capable of converting visitors into paying clients. For that, you need to gently guide people to pages that they are interested in and show them how your services or products are the perfect solution to their pain-points.
While a Notion website will allow you to add internal links to help you guide visitors, a website on a custom domain will provide additional features that do the job better. For example, if you use a Super supported Notion website on a custom domain, you get to create CTA buttons that stand out from the page design and clearly tell users what you want them to do.
In fact, you can create custom navigation bars with a button using Super. The navigation bar helps you score sitelinks on Google as your website starts building reputation — and that generates even more relevant traffic!
With the help of these clickable buttons, you can guide users to your “money” pages like the pricing, contact, and portfolio page. These pages help visitors arrive at a decision before they feel like bouncing off your website. This means, more people contact you and want to use your services.
Alternatively, you can create marketing funnels where you drive newsletter signups. The use-cases are many — you need a custom domain to support them all through.
5. Powerful Analytics
You need to own a website before you can track numbers like traffic, engagement rates, time spent on page, etc. For example, you can’t set up analytics on a regular public Notion page because you need to add a code snippet to the header code of the page. And since the page belongs to Notion, you won’t have rights to edit the code.
By using a custom URL for Notion, you also get the complete ownership of your website. This allows you to add Google Analytics to your Notion site along with other tools like heatmaps, newsletter popups, etc. These integrations can help you generate powerful insights that aid in decision making.
If getting a powerful analytics dashboard without using the complex GA4 instance is your goal, you should consider setting up your Notion website with Super. That’s because Super offers a powerful in-built analytics dashboard which is easy to use and packed with insights.
FAQs
What is a custom domain in Notion?
A custom domain refers to a unique, user-defined URL that visitors use to access a website. For example, “Super” is the custom domain name of the Notion website you are on. You can check that in the address bar of your browser — the section between “www.” and “.co” is the custom domain name.
By default, Notion assigns a random domain name. You can find it in the “Settings & Members” section available from your left page. Click on “Settings” in the pop-up to find the domain name.
Even though you can change the default domain name to something more brand and SEO friendly, you can’t get rid of the “.notion.site” extension without signing up with Super.
Can you add your own domain to Notion?
After you purchase your custom domain, you can easily add it to Notion with the help of Super. You just need to update your DNS records and configure your domain with Super.
How to point a custom domain to a Notion Page?
You can assign a custom domain name to your one-page Notion website by simply updating your DNS settings and configuring your domain with Super. It is a fairly straight-forward process, we covered it in detail in this blog post.
Can you customize your Notion Link?
You can partially customize your Notion link by changing the domain name from the “Settings” screen. However, you can only change the “domain name” part of the link URL, not the “Domain Extension”. It continues to be “.notion.site” until you customize your Notion domain name with Super.
In this article, we showed you how to use Notion with a custom domain. We discussed the short-comings of Notion when it comes to changing domain extensions and a few reasons why you can benefit from a custom domain name.
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