A hands-on review of turning Notion into a public website with Oopy, covering design, domains, analytics, pricing, and tradeoffs.
A hands-on review of Oopy's Notion-site customization, including HTML, typography, domains, routes, favicons, analytics, chat, monetization, pricing, and the tradeoffs of running a public Notion site through a third-party service.
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That is Oopy's one-line description. Oopy lets people customize a Notion page they have already built. This article summarizes the strengths and weaknesses I found while using it.
(If you are unfamiliar with Notion, see this page.)
I run my portfolio site through Notion for three reasons:
Over several years, I actively used those strengths to create and operate content, but I also found limitations:
I investigated several ways to preserve Notion's powerful writing experience while addressing these gaps. I managed to apply some external services, including a custom domain and Google Analytics, but the methods were unofficial and came from different providers. The result never felt fully satisfying.
Oopy was appealing because it gathered these Notion customization needs in one place.
As shown above, Oopy can add HTML blocks to a Notion page. I am not especially comfortable with HTML, but an example block from Oopy let me add a fade-in animation.
Other options include a dark-mode toggle, font changes, and hiding UI such as search or breadcrumbs. Most style changes require no code.
I connected the domain I was already using, www.sanghyo.xyz. Oopy handles details such as the security certificate.
Notion generates a URL for every page. Although it follows rules, the author cannot normally edit it directly, and the result is often long and complex. Oopy's URL customization can make a page easier for visitors to remember and even type directly, which may improve the funnel. It is easier for the author to remember and manage too.
Adding my logo as the favicon keeps it consistent across internal navigation. The uploaded favicon applies whether an individual page has its own icon or none at all.
A default Open Graph image, the image shown when a URL is shared, also gives pages without their own image a visual preview.
Oopy can exclude the administrator's IP for more accurate results and shows the share of views across child pages. That may reveal secondary effects of specific content, such as visitors arriving through a new article and then browsing other pages.
The available information seems more limited than on a conventional website, but it should still be useful. I had only just connected it, so I planned to observe the results over time.
Notion does not natively support communication with visitors who are not signed in. Oopy makes it easy to connect Facebook Messenger, Channel Talk, or Disqus. Oopy itself uses Facebook Messenger, which made it easy to ask questions.
Advertising is very difficult to add to Notion. Oopy can connect Google AdSense, so people interested in monetization may want to explore it. Connecting Notion to Oopy does not automatically qualify a site, however; it still appears to require Google's review (link).
Opening a Notion link in mobile Instagram can show a desktop view on the first visit. I do not know why, but the bug disappeared with Oopy.
Oopy describes this as a technical decision needed to operate the service smoothly (link). It is not a major inconvenience, but it is useful to remember when editing HTML or content and sharing a page.
The first week is free, followed by a paid subscription. The base price is KRW 5,900 per month, with discounts for connecting several domains to one account (link). I use one domain, so my price is KRW 5,900. It had risen from KRW 3,900, but given the features, I still considered it reasonable.
Oopy says that both a new user and the person referring them can receive a 50% coupon. If this article makes you want to try it, paste https://app.oopy.io?referrer=www.sanghyo.xyz into the field shown above. Then we can both use it at a discount.
For people who want to keep operating a public Notion site, Oopy may solve a real set of problems. Put differently, it may offer less value when Notion is only for personal work. I already ran a page that fit its ideal use case, so despite the subscription, I expected to continue using it for the time being. I hope this article helps.
ⓒ 2021. SangHyo Yee, All Rights Reserved.