The Most Efficient Way To Make Your Website
Educational · GuideTable of Contents
Web development is often inelegant.
The name-brand solutions are often enormous, slow, drag-and-drop editors like Wix or WordPress, and building modern and robust websites from scratch requires extensive knowledge in a framework like Node or Vue. Even a simple website, like this one, could take a lot of time to make.
These technologies exist for good reason, but for most use cases, they are completely misfitted. If you just want to do something simple like:
- Showcase a student team, business, etc.
- Make guides/documentation for your project.
- Build your portfolio.
- Sell something.
- Learn basic web development.
HUGO is your best bet.
HUGO
Hugo is a very lightweight but powerful Static Site Generator that can convert markdown to web pages.
Hugo is simple, but doesn’t sacrifice extensibility to achieve this. Also, you don’t even have to think about the visual design, you can rely on a pre-made theme as much (or as little) as you want.
You get a fully fledged website without shortcuts or pitfalls, and it lets you focus more on the content you’re adding to your website, rather than the intricate details.
Do you need to be cracked?
No.
Theoretically all you really need to know is markdown, and you can let ChatGPT or Google carry you the rest of the way. Practically, you’re probably creating more problems for yourself by going in blind.
Before using HUGO, I made a very mediocre website in HTML and CSS, using a pretty bad textbook as my reference. But from that, I was able to glide through HUGO when I first started using it for this website.
How to get started
If you’re new to web development, you should probably set aside a few hours to learn the basics. Two steps I can recommend are:
- Learn basic HTML and CSS.
- Watch This Youtube Video
After that, you should be able to make your own website with HUGO.