How I Built This Blog with GitHub Pages & Jekyll

Setting up this blog was simpler than you’d think — and completely free. Here’s how I did it:

🍥 The Stack

  • GitHub Pages for free static hosting
  • Jekyll (via jekyll-now)
  • Markdown for writing posts
  • Custom domain via is-a.dev

🗺️ Step-by-Step Setup

  1. Forked a Jekyll template repo
    Used barryclark/jekyll-now
  2. Renamed the repo to dev-blog
  3. Enabled GitHub Pages under Settings → Pages
  4. Edited _config.yml for name, description, links

  5. Created this post using Markdown in _posts/

  6. Wait for the PR to be approved and merged.
    → The subdomain will then point to your GitHub Pages site.

🔒 Enabling HTTPS/SSL

After your CNAME is active:

  1. Go to Settings > Pages in your repo.
  2. Scroll to Custom domain and make sure davedevops.is-a.dev is filled in.
  3. Check the box for “Enforce HTTPS”.

GitHub will issue a free SSL certificate (via Let’s Encrypt), and HTTPS should activate within minutes.

✅ Done!

Now you have:

  • A personal blog
  • Running on GitHub Pages
  • With your own domain
  • Fully secured with HTTPS
  • And easily extensible with Markdown

🧠 Next up: Adding more posts and customizing styles!

Written on June 15, 2025