How to make a personal website

To make a personal website, decide what it’s for, choose a builder, pick your web address, write a one-line introduction and a short bio, add three to six examples of your work, add a way to contact you, then publish and share the link. With a one-page builder you can do all of it in an afternoon.

1. Decide what the site is for.
2. Choose how to build it.
3. Pick your address.
4. Write the top of the page: a headline and a short bio.
5. Add your best work.
6. Make it easy to contact you.
7. Publish, check it on your phone, and share the link.

1. Decide what the site is for

A personal website does one job well when you know who’s visiting. Job hunting means recruiters skimming for samples. Freelancing means clients checking your work and how to hire you. If you’re a creator, it’s a hub for followers. And sometimes it’s simply the page people find when they search your name. Pick the main one. It decides what goes at the top.

2. Choose how to build it

• A one-page builder such as SayHi or Carrd. Quickest to set up and easy to keep current. Best when one page says everything you need.
• A full website builder such as Squarespace, Wix, or WordPress.com. Better if you need several pages, a blog, or a shop, at the cost of more setup and usually a monthly fee.
• Code it yourself, for example on GitHub Pages. Free and fully flexible if you’re comfortable with HTML or a static site generator.

Most people overestimate how much site they need. Start with one page; you can always grow it later.

3. Pick your address

Your own domain, like yourname.com, looks the most permanent and usually costs around $10 to $20 a year. Builders also give you a free address on their domain. Whichever you choose, keep it short, lowercase, and easy to say out loud. On SayHi your address is sayhi.page/yourname, so choose a username you’d be happy to print on a business card.

4. Write the top of the page first

Before you touch a template, write one sentence that says what you do and for whom. It’s the first thing visitors read, and the hardest part to get right.

• “I design packaging for small food brands.”
• “Backend engineer working on payments infrastructure.”
• “Wedding and portrait photographer in Lisbon.”

Then write a short bio of two or three sentences: what you’re working on now, one thing you’re proud of, and what you’re looking for next. If the sentence could introduce anyone in your field, make it more specific.

5. Add your best work

Three to six pieces is the sweet spot. For each one, add a title, a sentence on what it was and what you did, and a link or image. Developers can feature projects and repositories, designers and photographers lead with images, and writers link to published pieces. If you have a lot of work, the portfolio guide covers how to choose.

Pick a layout that suits the work. On SayHi, Minimal suits pages that are mostly words and projects, Portfolio and Editorial put pictures first, and Bento arranges mixed pieces in a grid. You can switch templates later without losing your content.

6. Make it easy to contact you

Add an email link or a contact form, and put it where people expect it: near the top or at the very end. Your social profiles can go underneath. If you don’t want messages, leave the form off rather than adding one you won’t answer.

7. Publish, check it on your phone, and share it

Open the published page on your phone and tap every link. Then put the address everywhere people already look for you: your social bios, email signature, résumé, LinkedIn, and GitHub. One address used everywhere is better than several half-maintained ones.

An example

Here’s a developer’s page on the Minimal template: a headline, current work, two projects described in plain words, a note, and a contact form.

Alex Chen

Languages, tools, and the notes between them

I design small languages and the CLIs that keep them honest. Currently at Harbor Labs, previously on the typechecker for a research notebook that got out of hand in the best way.

San Francisco

Now

Building Ink, a typed notebook format for people who write with code sitting next to the sentence. Harbor is the CLI around it — evals, snapshots, and a boringly reliable local workflow.

GitHub

harbor-labs/ink

A typed notebook format. Prose, code, and tests in one file that still diffs like a human wrote it.

TypeScript · local-first

GitHub

harbor-labs/harbor

The CLI for Ink: run, snapshot, and compare notebooks without standing up a service.

Rust · CLITypes as documentation — Northshore ConfTalk notes and slides

Writing

Occasional notes on type systems that stay out of the way, local-first tools, and why most developer portfolios look like résumé PDFs with extra steps.

Write to AlexSlow email, real replies.

Work with me

Tell me about the project. I read every note.

NameEmailCompanyMessageSend

For more, browse the personal website examples and the writer website examples, or the full set of website and bio page examples. If you’re job hunting, the job seeker page shows a layout built for a quick recruiter read.

What to leave out

• A blog section with no posts in it.
• A wall of client logos with no work behind them.
• Skill bars and percentages. Show a project instead.
• Pages you won’t keep up to date.
• An opening line about how important the internet is.

Make yours with SayHi

SayHi is a free personal website builder for one-page sites. You can try the editor in the playground without an account, then sign in to claim sayhi.page/yourname and publish.

Start your personal website

Questions