How to Build a Static HTML Blog with squido in 10 Minutes

Static websites built using Jamstack architecture offer a way to create a modern website with incredible performance, cheap to host, and easy to maintain.

Thankfully there are many different static website generators simplifying the process. I will be using squido, which aims to be a dead-simple (no dev) generator with all the built-in tools.

Getting started

Things you will need:

Git installed.
Node.js installed.
A text editor, like Visual Studio Code.

Open your Terminal and install squido globally:

# npm i -g https://github.com/mrvautin/squido

Speed things up by cloning the example blog Git repository:

# git clone https://github.com/mrvautin/squido-blog-example my-blog

Building

Enter your new blog directory:

# cd my-blog

Build your blog:

Note: The

serve

command creates a local webserver to view your new blog. The

-b

flag is to build, the

-w

is to watch for changes and rebuild if needed and the

-c

flag is to clean old files.

# squido serve -b -w -c

You can now view your blog by opening the following URL in a browser:

http://localhost:4965

You should see:

If you open up your new blog directory in a text editor, you should see:

build: This is the generated directory that will contain your blog HTML files
source: The actual source files used to generate your blog
content: Contains the javascript, CSS, and image files for your blog
layouts: Contains the layout file which has the basic structure
posts: Contains the markdown files which contain the actual content of your blog posts/pages
404.hbs, index.hbs, page.hbs, post.hbs, tag.hbs: Are all template files used to drive the layout of those pages
config.js: Contains the config of your blog, including name, description, URL, pagination, and more

Let's clear out the old

lorem ipsum

example markdown files from the

/source/posts

folder by selecting, right-clicking and

Delete

Then create a new file called

hello-world.markdown

in the

/source/posts

folder with the following text:

---
title: Hello world
permalink: hello-world
description: Hello world
date: '2021-06-16 19:17:00'
tags: 
  - hello
  - world
---

## Hello world

Your blog will automatically rebuild and refreshing your browser will look like this:

You can now edit the templates with your custom layout, change the logo, add your CSS colors later.

Deployment

Back in your terminal, initialize your local Git repository:

# git init

Create a new Github repository to make deploying your blog even easier: Visit Github.

Jump back into your Terminal and link your new Github repository to your local one.

First, run a Git status:

# git status

You will see this:

This shows all our deletions and our new

hello-world.markdown

file.

Add the changes:

# git add .

Create your first Commit:

# git commit -m "Init"

Change the branch to

main

# git branch -M main

Add your remote Github repository:

# git remote add origin [email protected]:<username>/my-blog.git

Push your changes:

# git push -u origin main

Deploy to Netlify

Netlify is a specialty static website host which will allow you to host your blog for free in a matter of minutes. There is no server management or complicated setup.

After you have created a Netlify account, click the

New site from Git

button:

Select

Github

from the Continuous deployment section. Authorize Github, and select your

my-blog

repository. Change the

Publish directory

/build.

Click

Advanced

and set a new variable

NODE_ENV

production

. Finally, click the

Deploy site

button.

The result should look like this:

You will have to wait a few seconds to a minute for your blog to deploy. You can then view your blog by clicking the link:

You can finish here. However, by clicking "Domain settings" you can set up your own custom domain you have purchased from a domain register.

Click

Add custom domain

and follow the steps to set up your DNS records to point to your new Netlify blog.

There are other deployment options on the squido documentation. There is also other help and guides on customizing your blog over on the squido website.