Which tools should you use?

This guide is tool agnostic, so you can use Claude Code, Replit or whatever tool you want like a Framer template.

I do not recommend using tools like Webflow of Framer from scratch for this, because even though they are amazing tools (I use them to create websites), they take a lot of work to understand.

Don't waste your time learning tools or design, the ROI will be terribile. Focus on getting clients or funding, then you'll be able to think about your brand and making your project look 10x bigger to get better clients. Pick something you already know and start.

What should you build as your first website?

Don't aim too high. A minimal and elegant website will give you much more credibility than all the gradient filled websites Claude generates if you don't show it a direction.

You should be going for a simple website like fluencylabs.ai or tryhattip.com. Simple websites that tell people what you do.

The more you tell Claude to be creative, the more risky it becomes, because you won't recognise when something looks super off. Bad design gives people the creeps, so they will just prefer your competitors.

Now that we have the general idea, let's start working on your website!

Can you include images?

Generally, don't. AI images tell people you didn't even bother to do something professional and they will think you will provide them with AI slop.

Real stock images are equally bad, because people usually can tell when they see something generic.

Your own images might be okay, but you need to trust your judgment on the quality. If you don't know how to recognise a professional image, don't include them on your website.

What are the things to focus on?

Two things: explaining what you do and making you look trust worthy. Your first customers will probably come from your outreach strategy or your content on social media. So the website needs to tell them you are serious about this project and needs to explain what you do, that's it. Don't expect more.

You explain what you do by writing text that's easy to understand. It doesn't matter if you are speaking to a lawyer, a tech startup founder or an electrician. They need to get what you do right away with simple words.

You look trust worthy by attention to detail. That's why your website needs to be minimal: the less you show, the less design mistakes you introduce.

Will this website bring me clients?

No, at his point your website won't bring you traffic. That's for teams that already know what they need on their website and have time to dedicate for high quality content. (Remember that even with Claude's Skills, the crawlers will be able to tell you generated articles, don't publish that stuff on your website).

Your first website is there purely to make you look more credible when you start reaching out to your first leads. They start some research about you, they see a decent website and you're set.

Can't I just generate everything with Claude?

You can, but it will be extremely obvious and you will seem to be any other vibe coded AI slop out there. You don't want to seem like a project that started yesterday when you contact people.

I generated a website that is very typical for vibe coded, lackluster websites: a vague title, some gradients in dark mode and icons that are supposed to introduce graphic interest, but are a clear sign of AI.

This website screams AI and people are already a bit tired of purely AI-generated stuff. What they see is "this project uses AI all the time, I'm not willing to waste my time if all they give me is Claude output".

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Okay, you get the idea for what we're going to create here. Now let's start with your positioning.