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Usman Haider
Usman Haider

Posted on Originally published at sitelas.com on

Connect a Custom Domain and Set Up SEO

#ai #tutorial #seo #webdev

Subdomains are great for testing. Real sites get real domains. Here's how to attach one in Sitelas — from the dashboard or from Claude — and the SEO basics that move the needle.

Custom domains are a Pro feature

Free sites use you.sitelas.com. Upgrade to Pro ($9/mo per site) for a custom domain with auto SSL, plus the full analytics dashboard. There's no Starter or Business middle tier — just Free and Pro.

Path A: From the dashboard

  1. Open your site's Domains tab.
  2. Enter the domain you bought (e.g. yourname.com).
  3. Add the displayed DNS records at your registrar — Cloudflare, Namecheap, Google Domains, any of them.
  4. Wait 5–30 minutes for propagation. SSL provisions automatically.

Path B: From Claude

If you've installed the Sitelas connector on claude.ai, the same flow runs in chat:

"Connect midnightoven.co to my Midnight Oven site."

Claude calls set_custom_domain, then verify_custom_domain after you've added the DNS records at your registrar. Status surfaces inline in the chat. List or remove domains with list_custom_domains / delete_custom_domain.

SEO basics that actually matter

1. Set a clear page title

Descriptive beats clever. "Sarah Chen — Product Designer in San Francisco" beats "Home". The MCP tool update_seo handles this from chat.

2. Write a meta description under 160 characters

Tell visitors what they'll find before they click. This is what shows up under the title in Google.

3. One H1 per page, then H2 / H3 hierarchy

Templates ship with this already. The validate_fixture MCP tool catches violations — and auto-fixes them — when Claude does a full-fixture replacement on the connector path.

4. Alt text on every image

Describes the image to screen readers and to Google. Use real descriptions, not keyword stuffing.

5. Submit to Google Search Console

Add your domain, verify ownership, and submit the sitemap at yoursite.com/sitemap.xml. Sitelas generates the sitemap automatically.

What you don't have to do

  • Buy SSL — included on Pro, provisioned automatically.
  • Configure redirects — old subdomain URLs 301-alias to the custom domain.
  • Run a separate analytics tool — Pro includes first-party analytics that Claude can also read via get_analytics.

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