For broke students, by a once-broke student 😅
Let me guess — you just wrapped up your first HTML project. It might be a university assignment, your personal portfolio, or even a “just-for-fun” website you're proud of. You’re feeling good, maybe even a little hyped… until you realize one important thing: your code is stuck on your laptop.
Now you're Googling things like “how to upload a website for free” or “free hosting for HTML projects” and running into a wall of jargon, paid services, or confusing instructions. Been there. More times than I can count.
This guide isn’t for developers who already know how DNS, FTP, and servers work. This is for students — especially broke ones like I was — who need a real way to get a working site online, without spending a cent or knowing everything about the web.
GitHub Pages is your ticket. It's 100% free, supports simple HTML/CSS/JS websites, and gives you a clean, shareable link you can submit in an assignment, post in your CV, or show off to your friends. The best part? You don’t need to install anything complicated or learn new programming languages. If you can follow basic steps and copy files, you can do this.
This post will walk you through every step in plain language — from prepping your files to going live and fixing common errors. And I’ll throw in real talk, personal tips, and advice I wish someone gave me when I was in your shoes.
https://yourname.github.io/project-name/)| Item | Description |
|---|---|
| 1. GitHub Account | Sign up free at github.com |
| 2. Finished HTML Project | Make sure it's neat and has an index.html file. |
| 3. Stable Internet | Even mobile data works, just be patient. |
| 4. Laptop/Desktop | Mobile uploads are tricky and frustrating. |
| 5. (Optional) VS Code | A free text/code editor that makes life easier. |
💡 Quick Tip: Avoid spaces in your file names. about me.html will break things. Use about-me.html or about_me.html instead.
Make sure your folder has:
MyWebsite/
├── index.html
├── style.css
└── images/
└── logo.png+ icon > New Repositorymy-html-site, keep it Public, and don’t initialize with READMEmain branch and root folderYour site will appear at:
https://yourusername.github.io/my-html-site/
| Problem | Solution |
|---|---|
1. No index.html |
Make sure it's uploaded |
| 2. Wrong folder structure | Upload files directly, not in a folder |
| 3. Browser cache | Force refresh with CTRL + F5 |
| 4. Wrong file name casing | Index.html ≠ index.html |
home.html instead of index.html. Don’t be me.”
✅ Works great for small fixes. For major changes, re-upload the file.
Yes. You can point a domain (like myportfolio.com) to your GitHub site by:
CNAME file in your repoIt’s more advanced, but doable if you're building a professional site.
Perfect for:
Not ideal for:
🎯 Always keep index.html present, and test your live link after updating.
Take a second and let it sink in: you just put a website on the internet. A real one. Something you built from scratch — with code, structure, and maybe even some style — is now available for anyone in the world to see. And you did it for free. No complicated hosting plans. No “free trial” traps. No begging someone else to help you. That’s something to be seriously proud of.
I know how easy it is to feel overwhelmed by tech stuff, especially if you're just starting out. But if you made it to the end of this guide, you're already ahead of the game. You’ve dipped your toes into version control, static hosting, and the kind of workflow real developers use every day. That’s not small. That’s foundational.
Whether this was your first site or your fifteenth, remember this: launching something publicly is always a win. Every time you do it, you learn something. You gain confidence. You feel a little more legit.
So where do you go from here? Keep experimenting. Keep tweaking. Use your GitHub Page to build a personal portfolio, a resumé site, or a collection of your university projects. Put that link on your CV, your LinkedIn, or your WhatsApp bio if you want. You earned it.
And if anything breaks, don’t stress — that’s part of the journey. Bookmark this post, come back when needed, and trust that you’ve got what it takes to figure it out. We’ve all started somewhere. The important thing is that you started.
If you want more guides like this, stick around. Student Lodge is here to make tech a little less scary, a little more doable, and a lot more human.
Keep building. Keep breaking things. Keep learning. 👊