Tutorial: publish your first site for free with Netlify

Your page only lives on your computer until you publish it. Today you'll put it on the actual internet, with a real URL you can send to your mom, for free, in minutes.

Step 1: make sure your project is on GitHub

If you followed the "push your first project to GitHub" tutorial, this part is already done. If not, do that first: Netlify needs to connect to a repository.

Step 2: create a Netlify account

Go to netlify.com and sign up using your GitHub account (the "Sign up with GitHub" button saves you a step).

Step 3: connect your repository

1. Click "Add new site" → "Import an existing project".
2. Choose GitHub and authorize access.
3. Select your repository from the list.

Step 4: configure the build (for a simple HTML site, there's barely anything to configure)

If your project is just static HTML/CSS/JS, leave the "Publish directory" as . (the root) or public if that's where you organized your files, and leave the build command empty. Click "Deploy site".

Step 5: wait for the deploy and visit your site

In under a minute, Netlify will give you a URL like random-name-123.netlify.app. Open it: your page is now public, on the internet, for anyone with a connection.

Bonus: automatic republishing

From now on, every time you git push to your main branch, Netlify will detect the change and republish your site automatically. No clicking anything again. It's basically magic, but with logs.

What did you just learn?

• How to connect a GitHub repository to Netlify.
• How to publish a static site for free in minutes.
• That every git push can automatically republish your site.