I've always wanted a website, but never had a reason to fully commit, especially if it meant a monthly subscription fee. I've been on a mission to experiment with AI, so I asked Claude:
My prompt
"What's the cheapest way for me to host a website? I would want a contact form that sends to email, and a blog function, and a landing page"
I was surprised to learn that there is a free way to host my website using Github Pages, with a free form powered by Formspree. I was skeptical that the sites would look too basic, so I asked Claude for examples and was given these two links:
Happy with what I saw, I asked Claude to create a personal site using a neo brutalist or maximalist theme. Here's the first version:
Version 1 — neo brutalist. Bold, but a little too harsh.
This ended up being too harsh for me, so I asked Claude for "a more feminine, girly" approach, and mentioned my apartment design style is dopamine decor. The second round was exactly what I wanted, and is what I'm currently using!
Claude already had a good sense of my background and career aspirations, so the site already included some baseline copy, which only required a few tweaks. I requested a few adjustments and fixes to the layout, and then asked Claude for instructions on how to publish.
Claude gave me step-by-step guides for: how to purchase my domain, how to upload everything into GitHub, and how to point my domain to the GitHub page.
The site is now live! After years of reluctance, I'm so amazed that I'm able to host the site for free, and that I could build it (and edit it) with just a few quick prompts*. It feels very MySpace, where making a few small changes can create a page that lets the world know who you are!
* "A few quick prompts" — what that actually means
While it may only take a few prompts to build your own site using Claude, it may also feel really overwhelming. I want to acknowledge my background and how it made this feel quick for me:
- I've used GitHub before and understand how file structure and workflows operate
- I've built HTML sites, debugged head tag issues, and have a working knowledge of CSS, Markdown, and basic SEO structure
- I've QA'd responsive websites and know what to look for across mobile and desktop
- I know what a DNS record is and understand how domain routing works
If any of those things are unfamiliar, you may need some extra prompts. That's okay, you can ask Claude for help!
