This is the story of how this very site was built — and the strategy behind it.

The idea

Instead of building another AI content farm, I decided to combine two things:

1. Tutorials that teach developers how to build with AI
2. Free embedded tools that people can use right on the page

The tools drive traffic (people share useful free tools), and the tutorials build authority with Google.

The tech stack

• Astro — static site generator, perfect for SEO
• Vercel — free hosting with great performance
• Markdown/MDX — write posts in Markdown, embed interactive components
• Vanilla JS — for the embedded tools (no framework overhead)

Total cost: $0/month (plus ~$12/year for a domain).

How to replicate this

1. Set up the project

npm create astro@latest my-blog -- --template blog
cd my-blog
npm install

2. Customize for your niche

Update src/consts.ts with your site name and description. This gets used across the site for SEO meta tags.

3. Write your first tool post

The key insight: embed working tools directly in your Markdown posts using inline <script> tags. No React, no build complexity — just HTML and vanilla JS.

4. Deploy

# Push to GitHub, connect to Vercel
git add -A
git commit -m "initial commit"
git push

Vercel auto-detects Astro and deploys. Zero config.

What’s next

I’ll be publishing new tools and tutorials weekly. Each post will include:

• A working demo you can try
• The full source code
• An explanation of how it works

Follow along to see if this actually makes money. I’ll share real numbers.

Built with Astro and deployed on Vercel. See the Astro cheat sheet if you want to build something similar.