Your Own Website on GitHub

Are you using GitHub but Not using GitHub Pages? Maybe you should be. GitHub Pages are for you or your organization to have a front facing website. And also for providing a Page (website) for each of your GitHub projects.

This article is more of a guide to putting up a personal, or organizational, Page of your own. This is not a comprehensive tutorial. Only a simple guide with links to the same information I used to set up my Pages.

For an introduction into precisely what GitHub pages are all about, check out this article on GitHub Help: “About GitHub Pages”.

Setting Up Your Page

First off, let’s get a Page up for your GitHub account. LogIn to your GitHub account and create a new repository named username.github.io. Use your actual account name followed by .github.io.

Then, select the Settings tab, go down the page to the “Theme Chooser” and select the Choose a Theme button. Select a theme from the Theme Chooser to finish setting up your page. Change the default index page by editing the index.md file.

After changing the content of the index.md file, commit your changes. Your page is complete. To view your page go to your-username.github.io.

Your theme may be changed any time. Just remember to keep your page info up to date. For detailed instructions of this procedure, go to https://guides.github.com/features/pages/.

Editing Your Page

We have already looked at editing your index.md file. GitHub uses Markdown quite a bit on it’s site. Check out the Mastering Markdown page for a good introduction.

Editing Your Page Offline

For some additional power in editing your Pages, check out Jekyll. Jekyll is a static site generator. It has some true power and can be used for converting Markdown to HTML and integrating your Pages with templates. It is a great package for creating and editing a static file website.

And GitHub uses Jekyll for it’s Pages. So learning Jekyll can be another tool for your toolbox. Here is additional information About GitHub Pages and Jekyll.