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Jekyll Blog Setup Guide: From Zero to Live in 30 Minutes (2026)

A complete beginner's guide to setting up a Jekyll blog — installing Jekyll, choosing a theme, writing your first post, and deploying to GitHub Pages for free.

Updated 6 min read
Jekyll Blog Setup Guide: From Zero to Live in 30 Minutes (2026)

Jekyll is the most popular static site generator for personal blogs — and for good reason. It’s free to host on GitHub Pages, blazing fast, and once set up, publishing a new post takes under a minute. This guide takes you from zero to a live blog in 30 minutes.

What You’ll Build

By the end of this guide you will have:

  • A Jekyll blog running locally
  • A chosen theme applied
  • Your first post published
  • The site live on GitHub Pages at yourusername.github.io

Step 1: Install Ruby and Jekyll (5 minutes)

Jekyll is a Ruby gem, so you need Ruby installed first.

macOS

macOS ships with an old Ruby version. Use rbenv instead:

brew install rbenv ruby-build
rbenv install 3.2.0
rbenv global 3.2.0
gem install jekyll bundler

Windows

Download and install RubyInstaller. Then:

gem install jekyll bundler

Linux (Ubuntu/Debian)

sudo apt-get install ruby-full build-essential
gem install jekyll bundler

Verify your installation:

jekyll -v
# jekyll 4.3.x

Step 2: Create a New Jekyll Site (2 minutes)

jekyll new my-blog
cd my-blog
bundle exec jekyll serve

Visit http://localhost:4000 — you’ll see your new blog with the default Minima theme.

Step 3: Choose and Install a Theme (5 minutes)

The default Minima theme is fine to start, but here are better options depending on your goals:

Goal Recommended Theme
Developer tech blog Chirpy
Minimal writing focus Lanyon or Hyde
Feature-rich blog Minimal Mistakes
Beautiful cover images Huxpro
Beginner-friendly Jekyll Now

Installing Chirpy (example)

# Option 1: Use the Chirpy starter template
git clone https://github.com/cotes2020/chirpy-starter my-blog
cd my-blog
bundle install
bundle exec jekyll serve

Step 4: Configure Your Blog (5 minutes)

Open _config.yml and update the key settings:

title: "My Blog"
tagline: "Writing about code, design, and ideas"
description: "A personal blog by Your Name"

url: "https://yourusername.github.io"
baseurl: ""

author:
  name: "Your Name"
  email: "you@example.com"

# Social links
github_username: yourusername
twitter_username: yourusername

# Build settings
lang: en
timezone: America/New_York

Save the file and your local preview updates automatically.

Step 5: Write Your First Post (5 minutes)

Jekyll posts live in the _posts/ directory. Create a new file named YYYY-MM-DD-your-post-title.md:

touch _posts/2026-06-01-my-first-post.md

Open the file and add:

---
title: "My First Jekyll Post"
date: 2026-06-01
categories: [Blogging]
tags: [jekyll, first-post]
---

Welcome to my blog! This is my first post written in Markdown.

## Why I Started This Blog

Here's my story...

## What I'll Write About

- Code and development
- Design tips
- Things I'm learning

Save it — your post appears at http://localhost:4000 immediately.

Step 6: Add Pages (2 minutes)

Create an About page:

touch _pages/about.md

---
title: "About"
permalink: /about/
---

Hi, I'm Your Name. I write about code, design, and ideas.

Step 7: Deploy to GitHub Pages (5 minutes)

Step 7a: Create a GitHub repository

Go to github.com/new and create a repository named yourusername.github.io.

Step 7b: Push your blog

cd my-blog
git init
git add .
git commit -m "Initial commit"
git branch -M main
git remote add origin https://github.com/yourusername/yourusername.github.io.git
git push -u origin main

Step 7c: Enable GitHub Pages

Go to your repository → Settings → Pages → set source to Deploy from branch → select main → save.

Your blog is live at https://yourusername.github.io within 2 minutes.

Publishing New Posts

From now on, publishing is simple:

  1. Create a new file in _posts/ with today’s date in the filename
  2. Write in Markdown
  3. Commit and push:
git add _posts/2026-06-02-my-second-post.md
git commit -m "Add second post"
git push

GitHub Pages rebuilds your site automatically. Your post is live within 60 seconds.

Once your blog is live:

  • Add Google Analytics — track your traffic from day one
  • Set up a custom domain — yourblog.com instead of yourusername.github.io
  • Add comments — Giscus (GitHub Discussions) is the most popular free option for Jekyll
  • Submit your sitemap — go to Google Search Console and submit https://yourusername.github.io/sitemap.xml
  • Write consistently — even one post per week compounds significantly over a year

Browse Jekyll Blog Themes

Need a better theme for your blog? Browse our full collection of Jekyll blog themes — with live demos, GitHub star counts, and free vs premium filters.

References

jekyll blog jekyll setup github pages beginner guide
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