Build Your Site With Claude: plan, write, build and publish your business website with AI

Step 1: Decide the one job of your site

Most small business sites try to do everything and end up doing nothing. Pick one job. Mine is: turn a visitor into a contact and give them a free guide. Yours might be "get a quote request" or "book a call."

Write the answer down. Every later prompt points back to it.

A quick example. A two-person bookkeeping firm decides the job is "get small business owners to book a free 20-minute books review." Every page now ends with the same button. The services page stops listing every service and starts answering "is my mess too big for you?"

Step 2: Plan the pages

That last line matters. On my site the guides are one list. Each guide is one entry, and the library page and the guide pages are built from it. That's why adding a guide takes minutes.

Step 3: Write the copy in your voice

Give Claude real examples of how you talk. A few emails to customers or a transcript of you explaining your service is enough.

Read it out loud. If a line sounds like a brochure, tell Claude "say that the way I'd say it to a customer on the phone."

Step 4: Have Claude build it

You have two ways to do this.

• Easiest to start: ask Claude in the normal chat to build the site as HTML files. You copy each file into a folder on your computer. Fine for a small site.
• Better if you're not technical: use Claude Code. It runs on your computer, creates the files and folders for you, and can open the site so you can look at it. You describe what you want in plain words. I build my sites this way.

Look at every page on your phone. Ask for changes in plain words: "make the button bigger," "move the reviews above the price."

Step 5: Connect your form to your CRM or email tool

A static site doesn't store sign-ups itself. The form has to send them somewhere. Two common ways:

• A webhook. Your CRM gives you a web address that accepts new contacts. My forms post to a GoHighLevel inbound webhook, and a workflow there adds the contact, tags it and sends the guide email. HubSpot, Zapier, Make and others offer the same idea.
• The tool's own form. Most email tools (Mailchimp, Kit, ActiveCampaign and others) give you a form you can paste into a page. Simpler, a little less control over the look.

Submit the form yourself and check the contact shows up in your CRM. Never paste a secret key or password into the website code. A webhook address made for public forms is fine. Anything labeled "secret" or "private" is not.

Step 6: Publish it free and point your domain

Hosting a static site can be free. GitHub Pages, Netlify and Cloudflare Pages all have free tiers. Mine is on GitHub Pages. This is the part with real one-time setup: you'll create an account, upload your folder, and change a setting at the company where you bought your domain. Plan an hour the first time.

If you're using Claude Code, it can do most of the upload steps for you. You'll still log in to your accounts and change the domain settings yourself.

Step 7: Add pages without starting over (and the mistakes to avoid)

This is where the one data file pays off. A new service, guide or review is one new entry.

For bigger changes, start with the job again: "I want to add a page for [topic]. Does it help the one job of my site? If yes, plan it the same way as the others."

Common mistakes:

• Building before deciding the one job. You get a pretty site that doesn't bring in contacts.
• Letting AI invent reviews, results or numbers. Only real claims.
• Never testing the form. Send yourself a test every time you change it.
• Putting private keys or passwords in the site files.
• Too many pages on day one. Launch small, then add.