{"id":226,"date":"2018-09-08T22:46:09","date_gmt":"2018-09-08T09:46:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.wiseowls.co.nz\/?p=226"},"modified":"2026-03-08T00:44:41","modified_gmt":"2026-03-07T11:44:41","slug":"landing-pages-made-easy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.wiseowls.co.nz\/index.php\/2018\/09\/08\/landing-pages-made-easy\/","title":{"rendered":"Landing pages made easy"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Do more with less<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Every now and then customers would like us to build them a landing page with as little development and running overhead as possible.<br>First thing that pops to mind when presented with such requirements is to go for static sites. Indeed, there&#8217;s nothing easier than chucking a bunch of html into a directory and having it served.<br>Problems however start to arise when we consider maintainability and reusability of the solution as well as keeping things DRY. On top of that customers would almost certainly want a way to do periodic updates and changes without having to pay IT contractors&#8217; fees (some might argue this is job security, but we believe it&#8217;s a sneaky attempt at customer lock-in that will probably backfire).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">So how do we keep everyone happy?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Meet <a href=\"https:\/\/jekyllrb.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Jekyll<\/a>, the static site generator. To be fair Jekyll <a href=\"https:\/\/github.com\/myles\/awesome-static-generators\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">is not the only attempt<\/a> at translating templates into web pages. We however prefer it over the competition because of its adoption by <a href=\"https:\/\/github.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">GitHub <\/a> &#8211; this means Jekyll sites get free hosting on Github pages. And this is real important when talking low overheads.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Up and running<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>If you don&#8217;t normally develop on Ruby, you probably will need to install a few things to start editing with Jekyll. Luckily with Docker we don&#8217;t need to do much but pull an official image and expose a few ports:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<pre class=\"wp-block-code\"><code lang=\"yaml\" class=\"language-yaml\">#this is an example docker-compose.yml file feel free to alter as needed\nversion: \"2\"\nservices:\nsite:\ncommand: jekyll serve --force_polling # this tells the container to spin up a web server and instructs Jekyll to constantly scan working directory for changes\nimage: jekyll\/jekyll:3.8\nvolumes:\n- ${PWD}\/data:\/srv\/jekyll # this example assumes all jekyll files would go into \/data subdirectory\n- ${PWD}\/bundle:\/usr\/local\/bundle # this mapping is optional, however it helps speed up builds by caching all ruby gems outside of container\nports:\n- 4000:4000 # this is where webserver is exposed<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\n<p>Save this docker-compose.yml file somewhere and open up command prompt. First we need to init the site structure, so run <code>docker-compose run site jekyll new .<\/code><br>Finally start the server <code>docker-compose up<\/code>, open up <a rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" href=\"http:\/\/localhost:4000\" target=\"_blank\">http:\/\/localhost:4000<\/a> and start editing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Jekyll basics<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Repeating <a href=\"https:\/\/jekyllrb.com\/docs\/home\/\">official documentation<\/a> is probably not the best idea, so I&#8217;ll just mention a few points that would help to get started quickly:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ol class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Jekyll loves Markdown. Either learn it (it&#8217;s really simple and rewarding, I promise) or use online editor<\/li><li>Jekyll allows HTML. so don&#8217;t feel restricted by previous bullet point<\/li><li>You&#8217;ve got a choice of <a href=\"https:\/\/jekyllrb.com\/docs\/posts\/\">posts<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/jekyllrb.com\/docs\/pages\/\">pages<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/jekyllrb.com\/docs\/collections\/\">collections<\/a> with Jekyll. Depending on your goals one might be better suited than the others.<\/li><li>Utilise data files and collections as needed. They are really helpful when building rich content.<\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">How about a test drive?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Absolutely, check out a git demo we did for one of the training sessions: <a href=\"https:\/\/github.com\/Wiseowls\/jekyll-git-demo.git\">https:\/\/wiseowls.github.io\/jekyll-git-demo\/<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Do more with less Every now and then customers would like us to build them a landing page with as little development and running overhead as possible.First thing that pops to mind when presented with such requirements is to go for static sites. Indeed, there&#8217;s nothing easier than chucking a bunch of html into a &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.wiseowls.co.nz\/index.php\/2018\/09\/08\/landing-pages-made-easy\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Landing pages made easy&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-226","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dev"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Landing pages made easy - Timur and associates<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Static sites with Jekyll and GitHub Pages. Minimal overhead, easy updates, and no lock-in for simple landing pages.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/blog.wiseowls.co.nz\/index.php\/2018\/09\/08\/landing-pages-made-easy\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Landing pages made easy - Timur and associates\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Static sites with Jekyll and GitHub Pages. Minimal overhead, easy updates, and no lock-in for simple landing pages.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/blog.wiseowls.co.nz\/index.php\/2018\/09\/08\/landing-pages-made-easy\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Timur and associates\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2018-09-08T09:46:09+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2026-03-07T11:44:41+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"timur\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@TimurKh\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blog.wiseowls.co.nz\\\/index.php\\\/2018\\\/09\\\/08\\\/landing-pages-made-easy\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blog.wiseowls.co.nz\\\/index.php\\\/2018\\\/09\\\/08\\\/landing-pages-made-easy\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"timur\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blog.wiseowls.co.nz\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/34d0ed30d573b5bc317ea990bd2e0c59\"},\"headline\":\"Landing pages made easy\",\"datePublished\":\"2018-09-08T09:46:09+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2026-03-07T11:44:41+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blog.wiseowls.co.nz\\\/index.php\\\/2018\\\/09\\\/08\\\/landing-pages-made-easy\\\/\"},\"wordCount\":381,\"articleSection\":[\"Development\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blog.wiseowls.co.nz\\\/index.php\\\/2018\\\/09\\\/08\\\/landing-pages-made-easy\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blog.wiseowls.co.nz\\\/index.php\\\/2018\\\/09\\\/08\\\/landing-pages-made-easy\\\/\",\"name\":\"Landing pages made easy - Timur and associates\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blog.wiseowls.co.nz\\\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2018-09-08T09:46:09+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2026-03-07T11:44:41+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blog.wiseowls.co.nz\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/34d0ed30d573b5bc317ea990bd2e0c59\"},\"description\":\"Static sites with Jekyll and GitHub Pages. 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