SGEN quickstart: deploy your first site in 5 minutes
Five timed steps from sign-up to a live preview URL. Every decision is pre-made on the first pass — you can change anything later.
This is a hand-held quickstart. Read top to bottom. Each step is one screen, one or two clicks, and finishes in under a minute. You do not need a domain. You do not need design assets. You do not need to know what SG-Builder is yet. At the end you have a working SGEN site at a *.sgen.com preview URL, and you know where to come back to extend it.
What you'll have at the end: a live SGEN site, served from a *.sgen.com preview URL, with one of three starter shapes already in place — blog, landing page, or ecommerce. You can keep building from there or swap the shape later.What is this for?
This page is the first thing to read after creating an SGEN account. It exists for one reason: to take you from zero to a working preview URL inside one short reading session, so you have something real on the screen before you start making product decisions.
The five steps below are deliberately narrow. Sign-up, template, naming, publish, view. Each one has exactly one right answer for the first pass. You are not picking a theme. You are not configuring SEO. You are not pointing DNS. Those happen later, on second and third passes, when you have time to think about them.
This page is a tutorial in the strict sense — it teaches by doing, with sample data, and the example you build is meant to be thrown away. Once you finish, the rest of the docs assume you have seen a working site at least once.
The five-minute target is honest, not marketing. Internal timing runs on a fresh sign-up consistently land between four and five minutes for an operator who reads carefully and between three and four for an operator who knows what they are looking for. If you go over five minutes, the most common cause is reading the template descriptions in detail — for the first pass, pick the one that looks closest and move on. The template is swappable later by creating a second site, and you can keep the first as a sandbox.
Good use cases
Reach for this page when:
- You signed up at
sgen.comand the dashboard is asking you what to do first. - You're evaluating SGEN and want to see a real site running on the platform before deciding.
- You're migrating from WordPress and want to see what the SGEN equivalent of "install + activate theme + go" feels like end-to-end.
- You're onboarding a teammate and want to give them a single link that gets them from cold to oriented in five minutes.
- You're testing whether the SGEN flow matches a workflow you have in your head — the quickstart is the shortest honest answer.
What NOT to use this for
This page is not the place to:
- Set up your real production site. The preview URL you create here is meant to be thrown away. Treat it as a sandbox.
- Pick a template for a paying client. Templates here are starters; the real template-pick happens in SG-Builder after you have time to evaluate.
- Wire a custom domain. DNS is a separate, slower step — covered in the setup guides, not here.
- Migrate content from another platform. The migration path runs through a different surface; this quickstart starts from a blank starter, not an import.
How this connects to other features
The quickstart is the entry point to the SGEN platform. Each step touches a different surface that you will return to later with more context.
- SG-Dashboard — the multi-site console you land on after sign-up. Step 1 happens here. After the quickstart, every new site you create also starts here.
- SG-Admin — the per-site editor where the template, site name, and publish action live. Steps 2 through 4 happen here.
- SG-Builder — the visual page composer, accessed from inside the admin. The quickstart does not enter the builder, but the starter template you pick is what the builder will load when you open it later.
- SG-Core — the platform essentials (users, menus, media, pages). The starter templates ship with sensible SG-Core defaults so the quickstart does not have to touch them.
- Documentation map — once you have a live site, Documentation Map is the next read. It tells you where every other answer lives.
Before you start
You need three things, all of which take under a minute to confirm:
- An email address you can receive mail on within the next five minutes (the sign-up flow sends a verification link).
- A modern browser — current Chrome, Edge, Firefox, or Safari. SGEN is browser-first; nothing is installed.
- A reliable internet connection. The quickstart involves four short page loads and one publish action.
- A custom domain
- A logo or brand assets
- Hosting credentials
- A credit card (the free trial covers everything in this quickstart)
- An existing site to migrate from
Where to find it
Every step in this quickstart starts from one of these three URLs:
| Step | URL | What lives here |
|---|---|---|
| 1 (sign-up) | https://sgen.com/signup | Account creation, email verification, first dashboard view |
| 2-4 (build) | https://dashboard.sgen.com then https:// | Per-site editor, template pick, publish action |
| 5 (view) | https:// | The live public site you created |
Steps
Five steps. Each one has a target time. If a step is taking longer than the target, you are probably reading too carefully — the first pass is meant to be fast, you can revisit decisions later.
1. Sign up at sgen.com (≤ 60 seconds)
Open https://sgen.com/signup in your browser. The sign-up form has three fields: email address, password, and a checkbox for the terms of service. Fill them in and click Create Account.
SGEN sends a verification email within ~30 seconds. Open it, click the Verify Email button, and you land directly in SG-Dashboard at https://dashboard.sgen.com. The dashboard greets you with a single primary action — Create your first site.
You are now authenticated and in the right place to start step 2. Total elapsed time so far: under one minute.
What you'll see at the end of step 1: SG-Dashboard with a single empty-state card titled "Create your first site," a teal Start Building → button, and a left sidebar showing your account name. No sites listed yet.
2. Pick a starter template (≤ 60 seconds)
Click Start Building →. SGEN shows three starter templates side by side, each with a preview thumbnail and a one-line description. For the first pass, pick the one that matches what you do most often — there is no wrong answer; you can swap templates later by creating another site.
| Template | Best for | What it includes |
|---|---|---|
| Blog Starter | Writers, agencies that ship content, anyone with a publishing cadence | Home, post archive, single-post template, About, Contact |
| Landing Starter | Product launches, founders, single-purpose conversion pages | Hero, three feature blocks, social proof, pricing, CTA, footer |
| Ecommerce Starter | Single-product or small-catalog stores | Home, product catalog, single-product page, cart, checkout, thank-you |
What you'll see at the end of step 2: the template selection screen with one card highlighted, the Continue button active, and a small caption confirming your pick. You have not yet committed — clicking back is safe.
3. Name your site and pick a preview URL (≤ 60 seconds)
SGEN asks you for two things on this screen: a Site Name and a Preview Subdomain. The site name is what shows up in your browser tab and your dashboard list — pick something you will recognize later, like "My Blog Test" or "Quickstart Throwaway." The preview subdomain is the URL you will use to view the site — SGEN suggests one based on the site name, and the suggestion is almost always fine.
Both fields validate live. The site name accepts anything from two to fifty characters. The preview subdomain accepts lowercase letters, numbers, and hyphens, between three and thirty characters, and SGEN checks availability as you type. If the suggestion is taken, SGEN appends a number and confirms in green.
Click Create Site. SGEN provisions the site in the background; the screen advances to step 4 in about three to five seconds.
What you'll see at the end of step 3: a brief "Provisioning your site..." loader with a progress indicator, then an automatic redirect to the admin editor for the new site. No action required during the loader.
4. Publish (≤ 60 seconds)
You are now inside the admin for your new site. The template you picked in step 2 is already loaded — pages exist, navigation exists, sample content fills the page bodies. Everything is in Draft status, which means it is editable but not yet visible to the public.
Click Pages in the left sidebar, then click Home in the page list. The page opens in the editor with a status pill at the top reading Draft. Click Publish in the top-right corner. The status pill switches from Draft to Published within about five seconds. A small toast at the bottom of the screen confirms: "Home published."
Repeat the publish action for any other pages the template includes. For the quickstart, publishing only the Home page is enough — that is the page step 5 will view. The other pages can stay as drafts and ship later.
What you'll see at the end of step 4: the Home page row in the page list shows a green Published badge, the editor status pill at the top reads Published, and the toast at the bottom of the screen confirms the action.
5. View your live preview URL (≤ 60 seconds)
In the top-right of SG-Admin, click View Site. SGEN opens your preview URL in a new browser tab: https://. The page that loads is your published Home page, served from the SGEN edge, with the template you picked in step 2 already in place.
Open the new tab on your phone too — the preview URL works from any device, no extra setup. Pinch-zoom, scroll, tap a navigation link. The template you picked is responsive out of the box.
You now have a live SGEN site. Total elapsed time from step 1: about five minutes.
What you'll see at the end of step 5: the public preview URL loaded in a new tab, showing your template's Home page with sample content, working navigation, working footer, and (for the Ecommerce Starter) a working sample product card.
What success looks like
You finish the quickstart with five concrete artifacts:
- A verified SGEN account at
https://dashboard.sgen.com, signed in - One site listed in your dashboard with a recognizable name and a
*.sgen.compreview subdomain - One published page (the Home page) visible at the live preview URL
- Browser tabs showing SG-Dashboard, SG-Admin, and the live preview side by side
- A clear next read: Documentation Map for where to go second
A fuller success check, if you want to confirm each step landed:
- Step 1 success — your inbox holds a verification email from
no-reply@sgen.com, the dashboard greets you by the email handle you signed up with, and the left sidebar shows your account row. - Step 2 success — the template you picked is highlighted in teal in the template grid, and the Continue button at the bottom of the screen reads "Continue with ."
- Step 3 success — the site name you entered appears in the browser tab title for SG-Admin, and the preview subdomain appears in the admin top bar in muted text next to the View Site button.
- Step 4 success — the page row in the admin page list shows a green Published badge, and the editor status pill at the top reads Published with a publish timestamp underneath.
- Step 5 success — the preview URL loads the Home page with full styling, working navigation, working footer, and (for ecommerce) a working sample product card. The browser tab title matches your site name.
What to do if it does not work
Five things go wrong most often during a first quickstart. Each has a one-step fix.
The verification email never arrives.
Check spam first. If it is not there, wait a full sixty seconds — mail providers throttle bursts. If it is still missing, open the sign-up tab again; SGEN shows a Resend verification email link below the password field. Click it. Verification emails are sent from no-reply@sgen.com; allow-list that address in your mail provider if your team uses strict filtering.
The preview subdomain says "Already taken."
Common subdomain names go quickly. Type a variation — add a hyphen and a word, or pick a less obvious noun. SGEN validates as you type; a green check confirms availability. The preview subdomain is throwaway anyway; do not spend more than fifteen seconds picking it.
The template grid in step 2 is empty.
Refresh the page once. If the grid is still empty, the dashboard cache may be stale — sign out from the top-right menu and sign back in. The grid reloads on every fresh session.
Publish in step 4 finishes but the live URL in step 5 shows the old draft.
Hard-reload the live URL (Ctrl+Shift+R on Windows, Cmd+Shift+R on Mac). SGEN serves the public site from edge caches; your browser may have a stale copy from before publish. The hard-reload bypasses the local cache and pulls the latest published version.
The live preview URL returns a "Site not ready" page instead of your template.
Provisioning sometimes takes longer than the three to five seconds shown in step 3. Wait thirty seconds and reload. If "Site not ready" persists past one minute, return to SG-Dashboard, click the site row, and check the Provisioning Status indicator at the top of the screen. If it is still spinning, give it another minute. If it is stopped with an error, contact support from the dashboard footer — the support team can resume the provisioning job.
Examples
Three different first-quickstart paths, one for each starter template. Pick the one that matches what you want to build first.
Example A — Blog Starter (your studio Notes)
Your one-person design practice wants a personal-blog presence at a memorable subdomain. You sign up with your work email, pick Blog Starter, name the site "Your Studio Notes," and accept SGEN's suggested preview subdomain your-studio-notes. The template ships with a Home page, a post archive, a single-post template, an About page, and a Contact page. The owner publishes only the Home page in step 4. The live preview at https://your-studio-notes.sgen.com shows three sample posts on the Home page, a working header, and a working footer. Total time: 4 minutes 30 seconds.
Example B — Landing Starter (Pricing Page Test)
A small SaaS team wants to A/B-test a new pricing page before committing to a redesign. The team lead signs up, picks Landing Starter, names the site "Pricing Page Test," and accepts the suggested subdomain. The template ships with a hero, three feature blocks, a social-proof strip, a pricing table, a closing CTA, and a footer. The team lead publishes the Home page in step 4 and skips the other pages (the landing starter is single-page by design). The live preview at https://pricing-page-test.sgen.com shows the full landing flow with sample copy and a sample pricing table. Total time: 4 minutes 50 seconds.
Example C — Ecommerce Starter (Wholesale Catalog Demo)
A wholesaler wants to show their sales team what an SGEN-hosted catalog would look like. The sales operations lead signs up, picks Ecommerce Starter, names the site "Wholesale Catalog Demo," and accepts the suggested subdomain. The template ships with a Home page, a product catalog page, a single-product page, a cart, a checkout, and a thank-you page. The sales lead publishes only the Home page and the catalog page in step 4. The live preview at https://wholesale-catalog-demo.sgen.com shows six sample products in a responsive grid with working "View product" links. Total time: 5 minutes 10 seconds.
After the quickstart — second and third passes
The quickstart is the first pass. The site you published in step 4 is the throwaway. The second and third passes are where the real site comes together — and they are deliberately split out so the first pass stays under five minutes.
Second pass (recommended: same day, 15-30 minutes):
- Swap the sample content for your real content. Open SG-Admin, click into each page, replace the lorem-style copy with your own. The structure stays the same; only the text changes.
- Replace the placeholder images. Open SG-Core → Media, upload your real images, then point each page's image blocks at the new uploads.
- Set the site title and tagline. the admin → Settings → Site Identity. These appear in browser tabs, search results, and social cards.
- Publish every page you want public. The quickstart published the Home page only; second pass publishes the rest.
- Point a custom domain at the site. the admin → Settings → Domains. Add the domain, copy the two DNS records, paste them at your registrar, wait for propagation.
- Set the canonical URL. the admin → Settings → SEO. Once the custom domain resolves, the canonical updates so search engines index the right URL.
- Wire the SEO basics. the admin → Settings → SEO covers meta description, OG image, sitemap, and robots.
- If the site needs a contact form, ecommerce checkout, or email capture, those live in SG-Modules — install only what you need.
What's next — pick your second read
The quickstart is over. Pick one of three second reads depending on where you want to go next:
- You want to understand the platform before going deeper. Read What is SGEN and SGEN in 90 Seconds. These define the three product pillars and explain how SG-Admin, SG-Builder, and SG-Dashboard fit together.
- You want to keep building on the site you created. Read Documentation Map to find the admin and SG-Builder pages that match your next task. The map is organized by what you want to do, not by feature name.
- You want to read these docs in the right order from here on. Read How This Documentation Works for the conventions used on every page — page types, frontmatter, and the difference between tutorials, how-to guides, and reference pages.
Related reading
- Welcome to SGEN Docs — the orientation page that sits one level above this quickstart.
- What is SGEN — platform definition, the three product pillars, and how the surfaces fit together.
- Welcome (Home) — the docs home with a routing matrix to every section.
- How This Documentation Works — conventions, page types, and navigation patterns used across docs.
- SGEN in 90 Seconds — the shortest possible product overview, designed to be read between two meetings.
Quickstart at a glance
For a printable single-screen reference, here is the whole quickstart compressed to one block:
| # | Action | Time | Where it happens |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Sign up + verify email | ≤ 60s | sgen.com/signup → dashboard.sgen.com |
| 2 | Pick a starter template (Blog · Landing · Ecommerce) | ≤ 60s | SG-Dashboard template grid |
| 3 | Name the site + accept the suggested preview subdomain | ≤ 60s | SG-Dashboard new-site form |
| 4 | Publish the Home page | ≤ 60s | the admin → Pages → Home → Publish |
| 5 | View the live preview URL | ≤ 60s | |