My Experience with Building a Website Using Notion: Why I Didn't Succeed

There are many ways to create a great website, and Notion Sites is one of the easiest. However, my experience with the service wasn’t great.

Building a website with Notion may seem like an easy and convenient solution for many thanks to its simple and flexible interface. However, you may encounter some unexpected challenges that affect the quality and performance of the website. In my experience, despite the enthusiasm with which I started, I found that some technical and functional limitations made it difficult for me to achieve the desired result. In this article, I will share the details of my experience, the most prominent problems I faced, and the reasons why Notion Sites did not meet my needs to build a professional website. Check out how to create a professional website without any effort.

What are Notion Sites?

Notion Sites is a built-in service that lets you publish a website from pages in a Notion workspace. You can add different forms of media, including text and images — I wanted to create a website that showcased my photography portfolio using this service.

When you create a website with Notion Sites, it will look like a regular website. You can share a link to it with anyone you want to show your content to.

You don't need to do anything extra to get Notion Sites; all plans are included in the basic offer.

Develop a website using Notion Sites

It’s very easy to develop a website with Notion Sites. First, you’ll need to create a Notion workspace. If you’re not sure where to start, consider trying out these Notion workspace ideas. Once you’ve completed the initial setup, you can use the following instructions to create a website in Notion.

1. Create a new page. You can either click the edit icon (pen and paper) in the upper corner of the left-hand toolbar or select the plus (+) icon next to Private to add a new page.
2. Fill in your page content in Notion. Repeat these two steps until you have all the pages you want to display on your website.
3. When you are satisfied with everything, move on to مشاركة -> نشر Click on the blue publish button.
4. Choose whether you want your website to be indexed by Google. You can also choose whether you want to include Google Analytics in your settings, which can be useful if you're starting a new blog.

As you can see below, my published website actually looks like a Notion page shared online:

What I liked about Notion Sites

Although Notion Sites wasn't a great choice for me outright, it has so many features that it might be enough for you.

1. Notion Sites didn't take long to set up.

I’ve been running my own travel blog using WordPress.org for a while now and have started several websites. If you don’t have any coding or design experience, the process can be time-consuming. Sometimes, you just need to get something published — Notion Sites lets you do just that.

While I still needed to customize the content on each of my pages, it took literally seconds to publish my website. If you need something quick, Notion Sites is a free and easy option. And if you want to start a blog without spending a lot of time on web design, Notion Sites is a great place to start. There are other great blogging platforms besides WordPress and Blogger that you might want to check out as well. Check out What Are the Best Blogging Platforms: The Ultimate Guide (Top Picks).

2. You can choose whether your website is indexed by Google.

When I started my blog, I did everything manually. That included getting my site indexed by Google; it took me six months to realize I hadn’t submitted my sitemap! The SEO stuff is so tedious, and I love that Notion lets you choose whether or not Google indexes your website quickly.

You definitely want to index your website if you’re blogging, and the same goes for portfolios when your goal is to attract clients in your niche. You can also choose to index hobby sites, but you might prefer to keep everything off the search engines instead.

I also liked that Notion Sites allowed me to choose whether I wanted to use Google Analytics. If you want to increase your website traffic, or just get an idea of ​​how popular your website is, analytics tools are essential.

What I didn't like about Notion Sites

Despite the benefits I've already mentioned, there were two reasons why I didn't like using Notion Sites.

1. You need Notion Plus to get a custom domain

Notion gives you a default domain when you publish your website with the free plan, but in my opinion, the domain name seems very inappropriate. I certainly wouldn’t want to share it with a client if I was trying to sell a product or service, for example. To add a custom domain (or multiple domains), you need a Notion Plus subscription.

Since I didn't want to use my Notion site for anything serious, domain wasn't a big issue. But if you're building a Notion site for something bigger (i.e. sharing your resume), I'd suggest upgrading to Notion Plus and getting a custom domain.

2. The website looked like a Notion document.

Another thing I didn’t like about using Notion Sites was that my website actually looked like a published Notion document. This isn’t a problem if you want to make a resume, company wiki, or something similar, but it’s a big deal if you want your website to look unique.

While Notion has some customization features, they weren’t quite what I wanted. This may have something to do with me being so used to WordPress, but it’s still worth considering.

Who benefits from Notion Sites and is it worth using?

While I said Notion Sites wasn’t for me, I think it’s useful for some people, especially if you get Notion Plus and can add a custom domain. If you want to create a simple portfolio site without portrait images, Notion Sites is a great option (especially if you’re primarily using text).

Notion Sites is also useful if you want to share essential documents and pages with others. For example, if you’re working with friends on a big project at university, keeping everything in Notion Sites is a great option (though you can also share a workspace and keep it private). It’s also ideal if you don’t care much about design customization.

However, I wouldn’t recommend using Notion Sites if you need to build a more substantial website. In these cases, WordPress or Squarespace are better options. Now, you can see the pros and cons of using Canva’s website builder to design your website.