How to Build a Custom Website with Claude, GitHub, Vercel, and Squarespace
A complete, step-by-step guide to building and deploying your own website from scratch using AI—no coding experience required.
2026-03-30
Loading content...
A complete, step-by-step guide to building and deploying your own website from scratch using AI—no coding experience required.
Building a website used to require learning how to code, understanding server infrastructure, and connecting arcane tools together manually. Now, you can build a fully custom, beautifully designed website for just the cost of a domain name by letting Claude Code and Claude Cowork do the heavy lifting for you.
If you've ever wanted your own corner of the internet but felt overwhelmed by the technical hurdles, you are in luck. Today, we're going to use AI to build a custom website from scratch.
This guide will walk you through exactly what to do at each step, giving you the exact prompts you need to get Claude to build, deploy, and design your website.
The first step is buying a domain. "Buying a domain" simply means reserving an easy-to-remember URL (like nathanfennel.com) so that when people type it into their browser, they get to your website.
Usually, websites that end in ".com" cost about $20 per year. There are some domains that are cheaper for the first year (sometimes as inexpensive as $4), but I'd recommend trying to get your FirstnameLastname.com if it's available. It's easily recognized, professional, and fairly timeless.
Head over to Squarespace Domains and purchase the domain you want.
Next, you need a place to store the code for your website. GitHub is a free website that lets you save your code online. This is where a massive portion of the internet's code is stored safely.
Now that you have an account, you need to sign in to GitHub on your computer so your local files can sync up with the internet. We'll use the Terminal for this.
Open Spotlight on your Mac (press Cmd + Space), type "Terminal", and hit Enter.
Copy and paste the following commands into your terminal, pressing Enter sequentially:
brew install gh
gh auth login
mkdir -p ~/Documents/GitHub
cd ~/Documents/GitHub
After GitHub is set up, it's time to create a Vercel account. Vercel is free (with some limitations that a personal site won't hit) and will make it SUPER easy for you to deploy a website without needing to know what "Deploy" even means.
Note: Please do not use Claude Cowork for signing into accounts—that has the potential to expose your passwords. But once you are safely signed in, Claude Cowork can take care of almost everything else!
The next thing we want to do is have Claude open your /Documents/GitHub/ directory and create the initial project. It's going to be very basic just so we can wire everything together.
Open the Claude Desktop App, navigate to the Code tab, and use this exact prompt:
"Please create a new website project in the
~/Documents/GitHub/directory. For now, it should just be a basic starter page that says 'Under Construction while we build something awesome' so we can connect everything together. Once created, please commit the changes to git, create a new private repo on GitHub, push the repo to GitHub, and then create a README, commit it, and push the README file."
Let Claude Code work for a couple of minutes to set up the foundation.
Once the repository is created, head over to Claude Cowork.
In Claude Cowork, select the specific directory for your new website (e.g., ~/Documents/GitHub/YourWebsiteName/) so Claude knows where to work.
Then, copy and paste this prompt into Claude Cowork:
"Please create a new project in Vercel based on the GitHub repo we just created. Make sure the Vercel project is deployed, show me the deployed website, and then connect my domain that I just bought on Squarespace to point at the deployed Vercel website."
Note: Domain configuration relies on DNS propagation. It could take a couple of minutes or up to a couple of hours before you see your website live at your custom Squarespace domain.
While you're waiting for everything to connect, open a brand new Chat with Claude to brainstorm what your website is going to be about.
Use this prompt to kick off the conversation:
"I want to figure out what my website should be like. Can you ask me several questions in a row, one at a time, to figure out what I like, what my interests are, what the purpose of the site could be, and more? When we are done chatting and you have a good understanding of what I want, please give me a comprehensive prompt I can bring over to Claude Code to have it start building out the content of the website."
Answer Claude's questions. At the end, it will hand you a customized prompt. Take that prompt back to the Code tab and let Claude Code start building out your content.
While Claude Code is generating your content, let's make the site look amazing. We'll use Claude Skills to give it a professional design.
In your Claude interface, use this prompt to grab the right tool:
"Please install the Website Design skill from Anthropic."
Once the Website Design skill is installed, give Claude some inspiration. Find a website (or a few websites) whose design you really admire, and use this prompt:
"Using the Website Design skill, please design my website. I really like the design of [Insert Website URL 1] and [Insert Website URL 2]. Please make my site look unique in the way I want, drawing inspiration from these sites but giving it its own character."
Every great personal site should have a place to share your thoughts. Head back to Claude Code and drop in this prompt:
"Please set up a 'Blog' section on my website so I can start publishing articles."
Finally, let's make maintaining your new blog completely frictionless by creating an automated routine in Claude Cowork.
Paste this prompt into Cowork:
"Please create a routine that looks at my list of blog ideas and helps me automatically write a blog post when I have a new idea. Make sure to humanize the post so it doesn't sound like it was made by AI. The routine should take my idea, write the new blog post, commit it, and push the changes to GitHub so that it automatically publishes to my live website."
Whenever you have a stroke of inspiration, you simply provide your idea to this routine. Claude Cowork will draft it, refine it, save it, and push it live—automatically.
If you followed these steps, congratulations! You now have your own custom website. It's easily maintainable, matches your personal style, is publicly visible to the world, and the only ongoing fee you have to worry about is your annual domain registration.