How You Can Easily Build Your Own Site with Jekyll

Building your own website doesn’t have to be complicated or expensive. With Jekyll, you can create a beautiful, fast, and maintainable site that’s perfect for blogs, portfolios, or documentation. Let’s explore how you can get started with this powerful static site generator.

Create Your Own Sites

What is Jekyll?

Jekyll is a static site generator written in Ruby that transforms your plain text files into a complete website. It’s the engine behind GitHub Pages, which means you can host your site for free directly from your GitHub repository.

Why Choose Jekyll?

Fast Performance: Static sites load incredibly quickly
Free Hosting: Deploy to GitHub Pages at no cost
Markdown Support: Write content in simple markdown format
Customizable: Full control over design and functionality
SEO Friendly: Clean URLs and optimized structure

Getting Started

Prerequisites

Before diving in, you’ll need:

Basic knowledge of HTML/CSS
Git installed on your computer
A GitHub account
Ruby installed (for local development)

Installation

# Install Jekyll
gem install jekyll bundler

# Create a new Jekyll site
jekyll new my-awesome-site

# Navigate to your site directory
cd my-awesome-site

# Start the local server
bundle exec jekyll serve

Your site will be available at http://localhost:4000!

Project Structure

A typical Jekyll site looks like this:

my-site/
├── _posts/          # Blog posts go here
├── _layouts/        # HTML templates
├── _includes/       # Reusable components
├── _sass/           # Sass stylesheets
├── assets/          # Images, CSS, JavaScript
├── _config.yml      # Site configuration
└── index.md         # Homepage content

Writing Your First Post

Create a new file in the _posts directory with the naming convention YYYY-MM-DD-title.md:

---
layout: post
title: "My First Jekyll Post"
date: 2025-08-30
categories: [blogging, jekyll]
---

Welcome to my Jekyll blog! This is my first post.

## Getting Started

Jekyll makes it easy to write in Markdown and have it 
converted to beautiful HTML automatically.

### Features I Love

- Simple markdown syntax
- Automatic syntax highlighting
- Built-in pagination
- Theme support

Customizing Your Site

Configuration

Edit _config.yml to customize your site:

title: My Awesome Site
description: A blog about web development and life
author: Your Name
email: your-email@example.com
url: "https://yourusername.github.io"

# Build settings
markdown: kramdown
highlighter: rouge
permalink: /posts/:title/

# Plugins
plugins:
  - jekyll-feed
  - jekyll-sitemap
  - jekyll-seo-tag

Layouts and Includes

Create reusable templates in _layouts and components in _includes:

<!-- _layouts/default.html -->
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
  <title>{{ page.title }} - {{ site.title }}</title>
  <meta name="description" content="{{ page.excerpt | strip_html }}">
</head>
<body>
  {% include header.html %}
  
  <main>
    {{ content }}
  </main>
  
  {% include footer.html %}
</body>
</html>

Styling with Sass

Jekyll has built-in Sass support. Create a _sass directory and import your stylesheets:

// assets/css/main.scss
---
---
@import "base";
@import "layout";
@import "components";

Adding Features

Search Functionality

// assets/js/search.js
function performSearch() {
  const query = document.getElementById('search-input').value.toLowerCase();
  const posts = document.querySelectorAll('.post');
  
  posts.forEach(post => {
    const title = post.querySelector('h2').textContent.toLowerCase();
    const content = post.querySelector('.excerpt').textContent.toLowerCase();
    
    if (title.includes(query) || content.includes(query)) {
      post.style.display = 'block';
    } else {
      post.style.display = 'none';
    }
  });
}

Contact Form

<!-- _includes/contact-form.html -->
<form action="https://formspree.io/f/your-form-id" method="POST">
  <label for="name">Name:</label>
  <input type="text" name="name" required>
  
  <label for="email">Email:</label>
  <input type="email" name="email" required>
  
  <label for="message">Message:</label>
  <textarea name="message" required></textarea>
  
  <button type="submit">Send</button>
</form>

Deployment to GitHub Pages

Create a GitHub repository named username.github.io
Push your Jekyll site to the repository
Enable GitHub Pages in repository settings
Your site is live at https://username.github.io

Custom Domain (Optional)

To use a custom domain:

Add a CNAME file to your repository root
Configure DNS settings with your domain provider
Enable HTTPS in GitHub Pages settings

# CNAME file content
www.yourdomain.com

Performance Optimization

Image Optimization

<!-- Responsive images -->
<picture>
  <source media="(max-width: 768px)" srcset="{{ '/assets/images/mobile-image.jpg' | relative_url }}">
  <img src="{{ '/assets/images/desktop-image.jpg' | relative_url }}" alt="Description">
</picture>

Minification

Add to your _config.yml:

sass:
  style: compressed

plugins:
  - jekyll-minifier

Advanced Tips

Collections

Create custom content types beyond posts:

# _config.yml
collections:
  projects:
    output: true
    permalink: /projects/:name/

Data Files

Store structured data in _data directory:

# _data/team.yml
- name: John Doe
  role: Developer
  image: john.jpg

- name: Jane Smith
  role: Designer
  image: jane.jpg

Liquid Templating

Use Jekyll’s templating language for dynamic content:

{% for post in site.posts limit:5 %}
  <article>
    <h2><a href="{{ post.url }}">{{ post.title }}</a></h2>
    <time>{{ post.date | date: "%B %d, %Y" }}</time>
    <p>{{ post.excerpt }}</p>
  </article>
{% endfor %}

Common Pitfalls to Avoid

Not testing locally before deploying
Forgetting to update gems regularly
Not optimizing images before uploading
Ignoring SEO basics like meta tags and alt text
Not backing up your content regularly

Useful Plugins

Extend Jekyll’s functionality with these popular plugins:

jekyll-sitemap - Generate XML sitemap
jekyll-feed - Create RSS/Atom feeds
jekyll-seo-tag - Add SEO meta tags
jekyll-paginate - Paginate blog posts
jekyll-archives - Generate archive pages

Conclusion

Jekyll offers a perfect balance of simplicity and power for building modern websites. Whether you’re creating a personal blog, portfolio, or documentation site, Jekyll’s static site generation approach ensures fast performance and easy maintenance.

The best part? Once you understand the basics, you can focus on what matters most: creating great content. Your readers will thank you for the fast loading times, and you’ll appreciate the simple workflow.

Ready to start building? Head over to Jekyll’s official documentation and begin your journey into static site generation today!