My first post
Introduction and how I made this website
Introduction
Welcome to my blog! I’m not sure how much I’ll end up using this, but I’m shooting for at least once a month. If I use this blog enough I might group posts by month or year on the blog page. For my first post, I figured I’d go over how I made this website
This website was made using Jekyll, a static site generator that creates pages using Markdown files. I’m hosting it on Netlify, and I bought the domain name on Porkbun.
Creating a website with Jekyll
To get started with Jekyll, install Ruby on your machine and then install Jekyll and Bundler through the terminal
gem install jekyll bundler
Then, you’ll want to create your site and begin editing, use the following commands:
jekyll new website
cd website
While you’re working on your website, you can build the site and run on a local server using
bundle exec jekyll serve
This will make your website available at localhost:4000. Optionally, you can append –livereload to automatically see your changes as you make them. Whenever you’re finished, make sure to push your changes to GitHub. This is essential for hosting your website on Netlify.
Hosting on Netlify
If you don’t already have a Netlify account, go ahead and make one. Signing up with GitHub is definetly the easiest option, as it will allow you to connect to your repository and build your website. One notable advantage of Netlify is they have a free starter tier which is more than enough for personal websites.
From there, just follow the instructions on the site to create a new website. You’ll want to click “Add new site”, and then “Import an existing project”. From there, connect to GitHub, and then select your repository. The final screen is where you set your configurations, such as site name, branch to deploy, and more. Netlify autofills the configurations for you, but you’ll want to make sure your publish directory is set to _site and your build command is set to bundle exec jekyll build.
From there, you should be good to publish, and your site will be available at [site name].netlify.app
Optional: Connecting your own domain
If you want to have your own domain, you’ll have to buy one from a domain name registrar. The one I use is Porkbun, their prices are quite low compared to other registrars and their interface is very easy to use. To use your domain with your website, go to Domain Management on Netlify and add your new domain. From there, you’ll want to follow Netlify’s instructions. This process may differ depending on whether you want to connect the domain registrar with Netlify directly, or also use a service like Cloudflare for DNS management.
Conclusion
That’s the general gist of how I was able to create this website and host it for free. If you’re able to get a free domain (usually these only last a year before you need to pay to renew), then you can go through this whole process without spending a cent. If you’ve followed these instructions to create your own website, feel free to reach out, as I would love to check it out!