Why onboarding matters
Onboarding is where Citd learns what your brand sells, which product categories it competes in, and which buyer questions it should track. The topics and prompts you confirm here become the measurement set that drives every metric — Visibility, rank, share of voice, and more. Taking a few extra minutes at this stage to clean up the suggested topics and prompts will pay off for every report you look at afterward.Step 1 — Add project details
Enter your site URL
Type your storefront address into the Site URL field — for example,
trailpeak.com. Do not include https://; Citd adds it automatically.Enter your brand name
Type the brand name as you want it to appear in your reports and tracked results — for example, “TrailPeak Gear”.
Answer the Shopify question
Tell Citd whether your store runs on Shopify. Choose Yes, No, or Not sure. If you choose Yes or Not sure, Citd will scan the site to confirm and show the Shopify connection card in the next step.
Set location, language, and time zone
Choose the market you primarily sell to. Citd uses this to run tracking queries in the right locale. You can change this later in Project Settings.
Citd may pre-fill the URL and brand name if it can infer them from your account. Check the pre-filled values before clicking Next.
Step 2 — Connect integrations
Both integrations are labeled Highly Recommended in the interface. Neither is required to continue — you can click Skip for now — but connecting them makes the analysis in the next step significantly better. See Connect Shopify & Search Console for the detailed connection steps for each integration.What each integration adds
| Integration | What it unlocks |
|---|---|
| Google Search Console | Real search-demand signals flow into prompt suggestions, so the topics and prompts Citd generates match what buyers actually search for |
| Shopify | Catalog data enriches Readiness scoring; richer product context also improves topic and prompt suggestions |
Continuing without integrations
If you prefer to skip for now, click Skip for now. Citd will still analyse your store from the public URL. You can connect integrations at any time from Project Settings.Step 3 — Analyse your store
Citd scans your storefront automatically as soon as you reach this step. You do not need to do anything. It reads:- Homepage and navigation — your brand positioning and category structure
- Product and collection pages (for Shopify stores) or offerings and service pages — what you actually sell
- Brand story and FAQs — how you describe yourself and your key claims
If the analysis fails
Click Retry analysis to try again. If it fails a second time, click Set up manually to proceed to the topics step and build your set by hand.Step 4 — Review topics
Topics are the product areas, use cases, or competitive themes you want Citd to monitor. Good topics match how buyers think about the category, not just how you categorize your catalog.Read through the suggested topics
Citd pre-fills topics based on what it found on your site. For a hiking gear store, you might see topics like “Trail Running Shoes”, “Hiking Boots”, and “Waterproof Jackets”.
Rename any topic that does not match your language
Click into any topic name to edit it inline. Use the terms buyers would say, not internal product-code names.
Remove topics that do not apply
Custom topics you added have a remove button (×). AI-suggested topics can be renamed; if a topic is completely wrong, rename it to reflect the category you actually want to track.
Add any missing topics
Use the Add topic field at the bottom to add categories that did not appear. Type a name and click Add.
You can manage topics after onboarding from the Prompt Workspace. This step is about getting a reasonable starting set — it does not need to be perfect.
Step 5 — Review prompts
Prompts are the exact buyer questions Citd submits to AI assistants on your behalf. The prompts you activate here become your initial tracking set.Browse prompts by topic
The topic dropdown at the top of the panel filters the list to one topic at a time. Click through each topic to review its prompts.
Check the prompts you want to track
Each prompt has a checkbox. Checked prompts will start active after onboarding, meaning they get tracked immediately on the first run.
Stay within the active-prompt limit
On the Free plan, up to 5 prompts can start active during onboarding. The counter in the panel shows your current selection (for example,
3/5). Prompts you do not activate become Suggested — they stay in your workspace and you can activate them later.Add a custom prompt
Use the Add custom field at the bottom to add a prompt that Citd did not suggest. It gets added to the currently selected topic.
Any prompts you do not activate now land in the Suggested tab of your Prompt Workspace. You can activate them at any time after onboarding.
Step 6 — Build your workspace
Citd now builds your workspace in the background. You will see four stages complete in sequence:- Syncing brand profile — saves your brand details and market settings
- Locking selected topics — finalizes your topic set
- Preparing prompt monitor — sets up the active tracking queue
- Composing first overview screen — runs the first tracking run so your workspace opens with real data
If the first tracking run fails, a Retry build button appears. Click it to try again — it only retries the tracking run, not the whole onboarding flow.
Next steps
Connect integrations
Connect Shopify or Google Search Console now or after onboarding for richer analysis.
Prompt Workspace
Activate more prompts, add topics, and keep the tracked set clean over time.
Overview
Learn how to read your workspace after the first tracking run completes.
Quickstart
Read the short version of setup end to end.