How to Create Your First Website on Pixelesq

Before You Start: Decisions You Cannot Undo

Most onboarding choices are editable later, but a few are not. Know these upfront so you make the right call the first time:

• Domain slug becomes your default URL and cannot be changed without contacting support. Pick a clean, brand-safe slug that could serve as a public URL in a pinch.
• Industry selection can be changed, but it shapes the AI's vocabulary, tone, and section suggestions from day one. Changing it later does not retroactively update content already generated.
• Whether you import an existing site determines how much context the AI has. Importing once is easier than reconstructing context manually through Settings later.

Step 1: Import Your Existing Site or Describe Your Idea

The first onboarding screen gives you two paths:

Have a website (recommended if you have one): paste your URL. Pixelesq's AI fetches your existing pages, extracts your brand voice, messaging, and visual identity, and uses this context for everything downstream. A 30-60 second analysis gives the AI weeks of helpful context.

Start from scratch: describe your site in up to 240 characters. Be ruthlessly specific. "Marketing agency" gets you generic AI output for the rest of the project. "Full-service digital marketing agency specializing in paid media for DTC e-commerce brands under $10M ARR" gets you content that actually sounds like you.

[Screenshot: Onboarding screen with both options visible]

Step 2: Profile Info (30 seconds)

First name, last name, role (Individual Contributor, Manager, Executive, Founder, Other). This is personalization only; it does not gate features. Pick the closest match and move on.

Step 3: Project Configuration (Most Important Step)

This step defines your project's identity. Pay attention here because several of these fields shape downstream AI quality.

• Project Name: your business or website name. Shown as the default SEO title suffix.
• Domain Slug: auto-generated from the name. This becomes yourslug.sites.app.pixelesq.ai. You connect a real custom domain later, but the slug stays as your internal URL. Change it now if you dislike the auto-generated version.
• Project Icon: a favicon or square logo. Can be added later, but the AI uses it for certain generations.
• Tagline: a short slogan. Used in your auto-generated llms.txt file for AI discoverability.
• Industry: 25+ options. Pick the closest match because this steers AI content generation for the life of the project.
• Site Description: up to 155 characters. Becomes your default meta description for pages that do not have their own.

Spend 3-5 minutes on this step. The time you save with generic defaults costs you in lower-quality AI output later.

Step 4: Goals and Visitor Intent

Pick your primary goal from 6 options: Lead Generation, Direct Sales, Brand Awareness, Education, Customer Support, Community. Then select visitor intents (multiple allowed): Research & Learn, Compare Options, Make a Purchase, Get Support, Find Pricing, Contact Sales, Download Resources, Join Community.

These guide the AI's CTA recommendations and content hierarchy. A Lead Gen site gets "Book a Demo" CTAs. A Community site gets "Join Us" messaging. Pick the ones that actually match your strategy, not the ones that sound most ambitious.

Step 5: Theme (Trust the Defaults for Now)

Pick an accent color from 8 presets or use the color picker. Pick a body font and a heading font from 49 Google Fonts. If you imported an existing site, the AI pre-suggests colors that match your current brand.

For your first project, the defaults are fine. Spending 20 minutes picking the perfect font here delays your real work (building pages). You can adjust all of this later in the Themes section with a live preview.

If you are stuck picking fonts, Inter for both body and heading is the safe default. Works for almost any brand.

Step 6: Feature Showcase and Optional Pages

The final step shows three Pixelesq capabilities and lets you optionally include a contact page and a blog in your initial setup. Check both if you know you will need them; skipping saves nothing and adding later takes more clicks.

Click the finish button to land on your dashboard.

What to Do in the First 30 Minutes After Onboarding

The dashboard shows a getting-started checklist. Resist the urge to do everything. Do these in order:

1. Create and publish your homepage. Even if it is rough. Publishing it unblocks every downstream step (indexing, tracking, shareable URL).
2. Connect your custom domain. Do this before you invest in content. Otherwise Google indexes the Pixelesq subdomain and you lose ranking value when you switch.
3. Add your SEO metadata (title, description, OG image) on the homepage. First publish is when these matter most.
4. Walk away for a day. Come back with fresh eyes before building more pages. First projects suffer from decision fatigue.

Pro Tips

• Do not try to perfect everything before publishing. Publish a 70% version of your homepage. Iterate against real visitor behavior, not imagined scenarios. First publish should happen within the first hour.
• Import your existing site even if you plan to rebuild. The AI still benefits from the context. You can ignore or override everything it suggests, but you lose nothing by giving it the raw material.
• Use Cmd+K from anywhere in the dashboard. The command palette is faster than the sidebar for every navigation task once you get used to it. Learn it on day one.
• Skip the "include blog" option if you are not sure. A blog you set up and never update looks worse than no blog. Add it later when you have actual posts ready.
• The Pixel Agent is your shortcut. Most things you can do through the dashboard, you can also do by asking the AI agent in plain English. For repetitive setup tasks, asking the agent is often faster than clicking through menus.

Troubleshooting

Domain slug is taken: Add a short suffix (e.g., "-app" or "-co"). The slug is just your internal URL until you connect a custom domain.

AI analysis of my imported site is stuck: Takes 30-60 seconds for most sites. If it hangs past 2 minutes, refresh and switch to "Start from scratch" with a detailed description. The import feature is helpful but not required.

Skipped onboarding accidentally: The wizard runs once per project. Configure everything manually from Settings (industry, goals, description) and Themes (colors, fonts). The AI picks up the changes but loses some context-building it does during the guided flow.

My AI-generated content feels generic: Almost always caused by vague onboarding inputs. Go back to Settings > Website and rewrite your project description and tagline to be specific. The AI uses these across the entire project.

FAQ

Do I need to connect a custom domain during onboarding, or can I wait?

You can wait, but if your site will eventually live on a custom domain, connect it before publishing much content. Google indexes the Pixelesq subdomain first, and switching to a custom domain later means setting up 301 redirects to preserve any rankings. Connecting early is the cleaner path. Custom domains are available on every plan, including Free.

What happens to my project if I do not log in for a few months?

Your project and content are preserved. Free plan projects are not automatically deleted for inactivity in most cases, but specific retention policies depend on your plan terms. Published sites remain live as long as your account is active. If you are worried about long inactive periods, set a calendar reminder to log in quarterly.

Can I have multiple projects under one Pixelesq account?

Yes. Each account supports multiple projects (the exact limit depends on your plan). Each project has its own content, theme, domain, and team members. Use one project per distinct website. Do not try to squeeze multiple sites into one project by using different pages for each; it creates conflicts.

How does the AI actually use the industry I pick during onboarding?

The industry becomes part of the system context the AI references whenever it generates content for your project. If you pick "Healthcare", the AI leans toward clinical, trust-building language. If you pick "Developer Tools", it uses more technical vocabulary and assumes a more savvy audience. The industry tag does not restrict what you can do, but it is the default style the AI defaults to unless you override with custom instructions.

Is my project private to me during the build phase, or visible to the world?

Your Pixelesq subdomain (yourslug.sites.app.pixelesq.ai) is technically public once you publish any page. It is not indexed by Google immediately and nobody finds it unless you share the URL, but it is not password-protected by default. For truly private building, use page visibility settings (hidden or locked) until you are ready to launch.

What is the difference between the wizard description and the SEO meta description?

The wizard description (up to 155 characters) becomes your project's default meta description, used automatically for pages without their own. Individual pages can override this with their own SEO meta description. Your wizard description is the fallback; per-page descriptions are the overrides. Set both: the wizard description for pages you forget to customize, and page-specific descriptions for your important pages.