Onboarding & First Steps

This guide takes you from creating a theStacc account to finishing onboarding for your first module. Onboarding is a short, guided flow - you answer a few questions, theStacc's AI does the heavy lifting (audience research, business context, brand colors), and your first content is generated automatically.

Create your account#

Sign up at app.thestacc.com/signup. You have two options:

• Email and password - Enter your email and a password.
• Continue with Google - Sign in with your Google account (one click, no password to remember).

Verify your email first#

If you sign up with email and password, theStacc sends a confirmation email. You must click the link in that email before you can reach your dashboard. Signing up with Google skips this step, since Google has already verified your address.

If you don't see the email, check your spam folder.

Your account and your first project#

theStacc organizes everything under an account (your workspace) and projects (one per website or business you're marketing).

• Account - The first time you sign in, theStacc creates your account automatically using your name (or the first part of your email). You don't have to set anything up.
• Project - A project is created for you during onboarding - when you enter your website (Content SEO and Social Media) or pick your business (Local SEO). You can add more projects later from your dashboard.

You don't choose a plan to get started. You go straight into onboarding for whichever module you want, and you only pay when you start a trial at the end.

Starting your first trial#

Every module starts with a $1 trial for 3 days. After the trial, the plan continues at its regular price, and you can cancel anytime.

You start a trial in one of two places:

1. At the end of onboarding - The last step of each module's onboarding is a Start Your Trial screen. Pick how many posts or articles you want per month, choose monthly or yearly billing, and click Start Free Trial.
2. From the pricing page - Open the pricing page in the app, find the module you want, and click its Start Free Trial button. This drops you into that module's onboarding.

Choosing yearly billing saves about 17% compared to paying monthly. You can switch the billing toggle on the trial screen before you start.

Each module (Content SEO, Local SEO, Social Media) has its own trial and its own subscription - starting one doesn't start the others.

Content SEO onboarding#

Content SEO writes and publishes SEO blog posts for your website. The setup has six steps:

1. Enter your website URL - Type your domain (for example, example.com). theStacc scans your site and analyzes your content and SEO. You don't need to add https:// - it's added for you.
2. Review the website analysis - theStacc shows what it found: your business category and a description. You can edit the category and description if anything's off.
3. Review your target audiences (ICPs) - From your website, theStacc generates a set of ideal customer profiles - audience segments with a name and description. They're all pre-selected for you. You can deselect ones that don't fit, edit any of them, or click Add to write your own. You can select up to 6 audiences, and you need at least one to continue.
4. Set target locations (optional) - Add specific cities or areas if you serve particular places. This step is optional - click Skip if you market nationally or globally.
5. Publishing integrations - This step shows the platforms you can publish to: WordPress, Custom Webhook, Ghost CMS, and Webflow. It's informational during onboarding - you connect your actual site later from Content SEO > Settings > Publishing. Click Continue.
6. Start your trial - Choose your monthly article volume and billing, then click Start Free Trial.

When your trial activates, theStacc generates your first content plan - a 30-day calendar of blog topics, with the first posts written and the rest ready to generate. You land on your Content dashboard with work already in progress.

For what happens next, see Content SEO overview.

Local SEO onboarding#

Local SEO optimizes your Google Business Profile and publishes local posts. The setup has four steps:

1. Search for your business - Enter your business name and location. theStacc looks it up on Google.
2. Confirm your listing - Pick the correct business from the search results so theStacc connects to the right Google listing.
3. Add business context - theStacc generates a business description, a list of services, and common customer pain points for you. Review and edit anything that's not accurate - remove items, add your own, or rewrite the description. You can also fill in your business hours for each day. Everything here is editable and optional to change; the AI suggestions are a starting point.
4. Start your trial - Click Start Free Trial.

When your trial activates, theStacc sets up your location and automatically generates 30 post titles for the month, plus the full content for the first 3 posts. The remaining posts keep their titles and are written on demand when you're ready. A short setup screen runs this before dropping you on your Local SEO dashboard.

For what happens next, see Local SEO overview.

Social Media onboarding#

Social Media creates and posts AI-generated content across your channels. The setup has six steps:

1. Enter your website - theStacc scans your site to learn about your business (this also detects your brand colors).
2. Review your business profile - Confirm your business identity, positioning, and competitors that theStacc found.
3. Choose your audiences - Select the customer segments you want to reach (the same ICP-style picker as Content SEO).
4. Set up your brand kit - Define how your posts look:

- Brand colors - theStacc auto-fills colors detected from your website. You can add up to 5 colors, edit them, or click the detected swatches to add them.

- Logo - Upload your logo (PNG, JPG, or SVG, up to 5MB) to appear in generated images.

- Image style and font pairing - Pick a visual style and font combo for your graphics.

These are all optional - skip what you don't have and theStacc uses sensible defaults.

1. Set your content preferences - This is where you shape what gets posted:

- Content pillars - Choose the themes your posts revolve around. Select between 2 and 6.

- Publishing platforms - Pick where you'll post: Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, X, and more. Select at least one. (You connect the actual accounts after onboarding - see below.)

- Brand voice - Choose how your brand should sound. This is required.

- Content language - The language your captions and plan are written in.

- Optional fine-tuning: hashtag strategy, emoji usage, carousels on/off, and a default call-to-action.

1. Start your trial - Click Start Free Trial.

When onboarding finishes, theStacc creates your first content plan of social posts and opens your Social dashboard.

Connecting your social accounts#

Selecting platforms during onboarding tells theStacc what to create for - it does not connect your accounts. After onboarding, go to Social Media > Settings > Connections to securely link each platform with OAuth so theStacc can publish for you.

For what happens next, see Social Media overview.

Required vs optional, and what theStacc fills in#

theStacc does most of the work so onboarding stays short. Here's what you must provide versus what's suggested for you.

You provide:

• Content SEO and Social Media: your website URL.
• Local SEO: your business name and location (to find your Google listing).
• Social Media: at least one platform, 2-6 content pillars, and a brand voice.

theStacc suggests automatically (you can edit or override all of it):

• Your business category and description.
• Ideal customer profiles (audiences) detected from your website.
• Services and customer pain points (Local SEO).
• Brand colors detected from your website (Social Media).

Optional - skip if it doesn't apply:

• Content SEO target locations (skippable).
• Social Media logo, image style, and font pairing.
• Business hours (Local SEO).

Keywords#

Keywords are not something you enter during onboarding. theStacc researches and assigns keywords automatically when it builds your content plan, based on your website analysis and the audiences you selected. You can review and manage keywords afterward in Content SEO > Settings.

Teaching the AI your writing voice#

Matching your personal writing style isn't part of onboarding - it's a setting you can add later. In Content SEO > Settings > Sources > Brand voice, paste or upload a few of your own articles and click Analyze my writing. theStacc learns your tone and the words you favor (and avoid) so new blogs sound like you. We recommend providing 2-3 writing samples for a solid voice profile - one is enough to start, but more samples produce a more accurate match.

What finishing onboarding triggers#

Completing onboarding does the backend setup that turns your project on:

• Marks your project's onboarding as completed and enables the module you set up (so its dashboard and sidebar appear).
• Generates your first content - a 30-day blog plan (Content SEO), 30 post titles plus the first 3 written posts (Local SEO), or your first batch of social posts (Social Media).
• Drops you onto that module's dashboard with content already being created.

If you leave in the middle#

You don't lose your progress. theStacc saves your onboarding step and answers both on our servers (per project) and in your browser. When you come back and open onboarding again, you'll resume at the step you left off - your website analysis, selected audiences, business context, and other choices are restored.

Next steps#

• Quick Start - a condensed version of this flow.
• Content SEO overview, Local SEO overview, Social Media overview - what each module does after setup.
• Billing & Plans - how trials, tiers, and subscriptions work.