How I Finally Built My Portfolio Website (and You Can Too)
Let me be honest: I’m a software engineer, and yet for years, I couldn’t get myself to build a personal portfolio website.
And I had plenty of excuses — valid ones too.
- I’m not good at UI/UX design.
- CSS? Ugh. Fonts, colors, spacing, padding — never my strong suit.
- I didn’t want to pay for premium templates. Customizing them felt more painful than starting from scratch.
- Hosting fees seemed silly when I knew it could be free.
- And on top of that? I’m a mom, with about 100 other things constantly on my plate.
I tried a few times over the years. Started a repo. Tweaked a theme. Then dropped it. Back to the backlog it went.
What Changed?
Recently, I got to work with a static site generator called Jekyll. That opened a door.
I started learning about:
- GitHub Pages (free hosting!)
- Minimal Mistakes theme (clean and customizable)
- Liquid templates (not scary at all!)
- Writing content in simple
.mdfiles
And the game-changer? ChatGPT.
I didn’t spend more than 4 hours total. Whenever I got stuck, I’d just ask:
“How do I hide the sidebar on this page?” or
“Where do I change the font size in this theme?”
Little by little, my website came to life: https://aarti.life
It’s not the fanciest site out there, but it’s mine. And now I have an easy, repeatable way to publish blogs and projects — without touching a single CSS file unless I really want to.
What Goes Into a Website, Really?
I used to think I needed to learn everything to build a site. But you don’t. Here are the core components that bring a website together:
| Component | What I Used | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
| Hosting Platform | GitHub Pages | Free static site hosting, integrated with Jekyll |
| Domain Purchase | Namecheap | Bought aarti.life |
| Domain Registration | Also handled via Namecheap | They register and manage the domain for me |
| SSL Certificate | Provided automatically by GitHub Pages | Enables https:// without any manual work |
| UI Template | Minimal Mistakes Jekyll Theme | A beautiful, responsive layout that’s ready to go |
| Customization | Markdown files + Liquid layout edits | Personalized content, menus, and look |
| Your Content | Markdown blog posts, project pages | The heart of your website – your voice and ideas |
You don’t need to be a designer. You don’t need to pay for hosting. You just need the right tools that work with you, not against you.
How Jekyll + GitHub Pages + Namecheap All Fit Together
- Jekyll: Converts your simple Markdown files into a fully working website using themes and layouts.
- Minimal Mistakes Theme: A popular Jekyll theme that looks beautiful out of the box and is easy to tweak.
- GitHub Pages: Hosts your website for free and understands Jekyll natively — so no build pipeline or deployment scripts needed.
- Namecheap: I bought my domain
aarti.lifefrom here. I updated my domain’s DNS to point to GitHub Pages, and it just works.
And that’s it! With just these tools, I had a custom domain, secure HTTPS, and a live site — without a single server or hosting bill.
Why I’m Sharing This
If you’re a developer (especially a woman juggling work and life) who’s been meaning to create your own site but just… never did — I see you.
You don’t need to master UI/UX.
You don’t need to spend money.
You don’t need a free weekend (what’s that anyway? 😄)
All you need is:
- A bit of curiosity
- A few Markdown files
- Some help from tools like ChatGPT
- And maybe this little nudge from someone who’s been there
Want to Try It Yourself?
I’m writing a follow-up tutorial that walks through:
- How Jekyll works (and what a static site generator even is)
- What folders like
_layouts,_posts, and_config.ymldo - How I customized the Minimal Mistakes theme
- Step-by-step setup using GitHub Pages and a custom domain
- How everything fits together to make a live, working site
If that sounds interesting, stay tuned here or drop me a message through aarti.life.
You can do this. Even if you’ve been telling yourself you can’t. 💻❤️