DEV Community: 피곤하다

How I Built a Free Pet Calculator Site With No Coding Background (Jekyll + GitHub Pages)

피곤하다 — Mon, 01 Jun 2026 13:54:43 +0000

I'm not a developer.
I can't write JavaScript from scratch. I don't use a terminal. My entire deployment workflow is drag-and-drop on GitHub's web interface.
And yet I built and launched https://petpawcalc.com — a free pet calculator site with 9 tools and 15 blog posts — entirely for free, without touching a local dev environment once.
Here's exactly how I did it, and what I'd do differently.
The Stack (All Free)

Jekyll — static site generator, handled by GitHub Pages automatically
GitHub Pages — free hosting, builds Jekyll on every push
Cloudflare — domain DNS (registrar + proxy)
Google Analytics + Search Console — traffic and SEO monitoring

Zero monthly cost. Zero server management.
How Deployment Actually Works
I never run jekyll build locally. I never open a terminal.
My workflow:

Write or edit a file
Go to the GitHub repo in the browser
Add file → Upload → Drag and drop
Commit
Wait 60–90 seconds for the Actions tab to show a green checkmark

That's it. GitHub Pages builds Jekyll automatically on every push. For someone without a dev environment, this changes everything.
The Site Structure
Every page uses one of three layouts defined in _layouts/:

default.html — about, contact, static pages
tool.html — calculator pages
post.html — blog posts

Blog posts are Markdown files in _posts/ with front matter. Tools are plain HTML files in tools/. One CSS file handles everything.
The only manual step when adding a new tool: update the card grids in index.html and tools/index.html by hand. Jekyll doesn't auto-generate those.
What's Actually Working (Search Console Data)
The site is ~6 weeks old. Current numbers:

how-often-vet-visits-dog — ranking 6.4 on Google
how-much-should-senior-dog-eat — ranking 11.5, 68 impressions
Total: 117 impressions, 0 clicks (still climbing)

The strategy: calculator-first, long-tail keywords only, avoid direct competition with PetMD and AKC. So far the niche seems to be working.
What I'd Do Differently
Start with Search Console from day one. I set it up early but didn't submit a sitemap immediately. A few weeks of indexing delay was avoidable.
Write longer content earlier. My first few posts were 500–600 words. AdSense and Google both want substance. Everything is now 900+ words.
Don't add tools just to add tools. Quality over quantity. A calculator that gives a genuinely useful, specific output is worth more than three that just spit out a generic range.
The AdSense Application
Applied yesterday. 9 tools, 15 blog posts, all content 900+ words, privacy policy and disclaimer pages in place.
Will update this post when I hear back.

If you're thinking about building a niche tool site and assuming you need to be a developer — you don't. Jekyll on GitHub Pages is genuinely usable without a terminal if you're willing to learn the file structure.
Happy to answer questions about the setup.
👉 https://petpawcalc.com

I built a niche car calculator site from scratch — 1,670 impressions, 0 clicks, and why I'm not worried

피곤하다 — Mon, 01 Jun 2026 13:49:36 +0000

I've been quietly building AutoCalcHub ( https://autocalchub.com ) — a free niche site with car calculators and buying guides targeting US English search traffic.
No framework, no CMS. Pure HTML, CSS, and vanilla JS hosted on GitHub Pages.
What it is
13 free tools covering everything from car loan payments ( https://autocalchub.com/tools/car-loan-calculator.html ) to EV charging costs ( https://autocalchub.com/tools/ev-charging-cost-calculator.html ), paired with 32 blog posts across five categories: Buying, Financing, Running Costs, EV, and Ownership.
The goal is simple: rank for long-tail car finance keywords, monetize with AdSense, and eventually add affiliate links.
Current numbers (after ~6 weeks)

38 pages submitted to Search Console
15 indexed, 23 still pending
1,670 impressions, 0 clicks
Average position: 74.5
Best page: How Much Car Can I Afford ( https://autocalchub.com/blog/how-much-car-can-i-afford.html ) — sitting at position 18.9

Why 0 clicks isn't a crisis
SEO on a brand new domain takes 3–6 months before organic traffic starts. The impressions tell me Google is finding and evaluating the pages. Position 18.9 on one page means I'm almost on page 1 — that's the one I'm focused on pushing over the line.
The technical stack

GitHub Pages for hosting (free)
Cloudflare for the domain
Google Analytics 4 + Search Console
Schema markup (JSON-LD) on every tool and blog page
llms.txt for AI crawler discoverability

What's next
Publishing 3 blog posts + 1 tool every week. AdSense pending approval. Once that's live, the plan is affiliate links for auto insurance and car loan comparisons.
Happy to answer questions about the niche site model or the SEO approach.
→ https://autocalchub.com

I built a free GPA & student loan calculator site with pure HTML/CSS/JS — here's what I learned

피곤하다 — Mon, 01 Jun 2026 13:45:43 +0000

I recently launched GPA Vault — a free tool site for US college students with 15 calculators and 16 blog guides covering GPA, student loans, and college costs. No framework, no backend, no database. Just static HTML files hosted on GitHub Pages.
Here's what the build taught me.
Why pure HTML?
The target audience is students searching Google for specific calculators. Page speed matters for SEO, and nothing beats a static HTML file served from a CDN. No hydration, no JS bundle, no render-blocking. Every tool loads in under a second.
The trade-off: no shared state, no components in the traditional sense. Header and footer are injected via a small JS partial system I wrote — components.js fetches the HTML partials and injects them into placeholder divs on load.
The SEO approach
Rather than competing on broad terms like "GPA calculator" (dominated by NerdWallet, College Board), the strategy is long-tail keywords that large sites don't bother building tools for:

"weighted GPA calculator for AP classes"
"how many A's do I need to raise my GPA"
"semester GPA calculator"
"IB GPA calculator"

Three weeks in: 117 impressions, average position 49, 8 pages indexed out of 29. Still early but the trajectory is right.
Schema markup and llms.txt
Every tool page has WebApplication JSON-LD schema. Every blog post has Article schema. I also added llms.txt to help AI search engines (Perplexity, ChatGPT) understand the site structure — this is becoming standard practice for content sites.
What I'd do differently
Honestly, not much on the technical side. Pure static HTML was the right call for this use case. The main thing I underestimated was content volume — each tool page needs a substantial explainer section (700+ words) to avoid AdSense "low value content" flags. That's more writing than I expected.
What's next
Working toward Google AdSense approval. After that, affiliate partnerships with student loan refinancing platforms.
Happy to answer questions about the static site approach or the SEO strategy.
🔗 gpavault.com

I built a free insurance calculator site to rank on Google — here's what 3 months of data looks like

피곤하다 — Mon, 01 Jun 2026 13:43:14 +0000

I got frustrated with insurance sites that make you hand over your phone number before showing any numbers. So I built My Insurance Calc — 15 free browser-based calculators. No signup, no data collected.

What I Built

Pure static HTML/CSS/JS on GitHub Pages. 15 calculators (life, auto, home, health, disability, EV, motorcycle, travel, SR-22, pet) + 23 long-form guides targeting high-intent keywords.

No framework, no backend. Calculator logic is vanilla JS. The whole thing loads under 1 second.

Keyword Strategy

Instead of "life insurance" (impossible), I targeted: "life insurance after cancer", "life insurance for pilots", "life insurance after DUI". People searching these have specific, urgent needs — and most big sites give generic answers.

3-Month Search Console Data

Impressions: 4,140
Clicks: 3
Avg position: 52.6
Top page: life-insurance-after-cancer — 1,725 impressions
EV insurance tool: position 6.8, 2 clicks
Life insurance after DUI: position 21.5 — click imminent

What's Hard

Content quality at scale. AdSense rejected my first submission for "low value content." I've since gone deep — stage-by-stage breakdowns, specific underwriting numbers, details general sites skip.

Also: the feedback loop is brutal. Write content, submit to Search Console, wait 4-8 weeks.

Stack

HTML / CSS / JS (vanilla)
GitHub Pages
Google Analytics + Search Console

Happy to answer questions about the SEO approach or static site setup. If you've been through AdSense approval or insurance affiliates, I'd love to hear what worked.

I built a free wellness calculator site with 19 tools and 33 articles — here's the tech stack and what I learned

피곤하다 — Mon, 01 Jun 2026 13:39:59 +0000

I've been building MyWellnessCalc — a free wellness tool site — for the past few months. No frameworks, no CMS, just vanilla HTML/CSS/JS deployed on GitHub Pages. Here's how it's built and what I've learned.

The stack

Frontend: Vanilla HTML, CSS, JavaScript — no React, no build step
Hosting: GitHub Pages (free, HTTPS out of the box)
Components: Shared header/footer loaded via JS fetch — keeps things DRY without a framework
Analytics: GA4
Monetisation: Google AdSense (pending approval)

What the site does

19 free health calculators covering fitness, nutrition, body composition, and lifestyle — Zone 2 heart rate, MAF, active recovery, protein, intermittent fasting, sleep cycles, BMI, TDEE, and more. Each tool comes with explanation content and FAQ, not just a number.

No signup. No paywall.

The JS fetch component pattern

Instead of duplicating header/footer HTML across 50+ pages, I load them dynamically:

fetch('/assets/partials/header.html')
  .then(r => r.text())
  .then(html => {
    document.getElementById('header-placeholder').innerHTML = html;
  });

Simple, no dependencies. Works fine for a static site at this scale.

What I learned

Content matters more than code. The calculators took time to build, but the explanatory guides alongside each tool are what keep people on the page. People don't just want a number — they want to understand what it means.

Schema markup and llms.txt are worth adding early. I added structured data to all pages and created an llms.txt file so AI search engines can index the tools properly.

Internal linking between tools and articles compounds over time. Each calculator links to related blog posts, and each post links back to the relevant tool.

Where it's at

Still early — working on organic search traffic and AdSense approval.

👉 mywellnesscalc.com

Happy to hear feedback from anyone who's built in the health or tools space.

I Built 13 Free Tools for Freelancers — No Sign-Up, No Paycheck Required

피곤하다 — Mon, 01 Jun 2026 13:35:10 +0000

I've been freelancing on the side for a while, and one thing that always annoyed me: every decent invoicing or contract tool wants a monthly subscription just to generate a basic PDF.
So I built GetSoloTools — a collection of free, browser-based tools for freelancers. No accounts, no paywalls, no data stored anywhere.
What's in it

Invoice Generator — professional PDF invoices with line items and tax
Contract Generator — basic service contract with scope, payment, and IP terms
Hourly Rate Calculator — figure out what you actually need to charge to hit your income goals
Tax Estimator — quarterly self-employment tax estimate (US-based)
Late Payment Fee Calculator — know exactly what a client owes when they're overdue
Time Tracker — log billable hours by project, export to CSV
Milestone Payment Calculator — split a project into structured payment phases
Freelance Savings Calculator — see what's actually left to save after taxes and expenses
Plus: Receipt Generator, Quote Generator, Budget Planner, Project Profit Calculator, Invoice Tracker, Client Proposal Generator

All 14 tools run entirely in the browser. Vanilla HTML/CSS/JS — no framework, no backend.
Why no framework
Kept it simple on purpose. The tools need to work instantly on any device, load fast, and never break due to a dependency update. No React, no build step, no server.
What I learned building this
The hardest part wasn't the code — it was the tax logic. Getting self-employment tax (SE tax on 92.35% of net profit, then deducting half of SE tax from taxable income before applying brackets) right took more iteration than I expected.
Also: users don't read instructions. Every tool needs to work intuitively without any explanation, which forced me to simplify inputs significantly from the first versions.
What's next
Currently working on adding more state-specific content and refining the savings calculator. AdSense approval pending — if you have thoughts on monetizing free tools without ruining the UX, I'd genuinely love to hear them.
👉 https://getsolotools.com

I Built 20 Free Financial Calculators — Here's What I Learned

피곤하다 — Mon, 01 Jun 2026 08:58:27 +0000

A few months ago I started building MoneyDecoded Tools — a collection of free financial calculators for Americans. No sign-up, no paywalls, just tools that work.
Here's what I built and what I learned along the way.
What I Built
20 tools covering the decisions that actually matter:

Mortgage calculator with full amortization schedule
Debt payoff calculator (avalanche vs snowball)
FIRE calculator — find your financial independence number
401(k) projector with employer match
Rent vs buy comparison
Paycheck calculator with federal/state tax breakdown
Inflation calculator, net worth tracker, budget planner, and more

Each tool includes a plain-English guide explaining the underlying concepts — not just the math.
What I Learned
Content matters more than code. The calculators themselves took time to build, but the explanatory guides alongside each tool are what keep people on the page. People don't just want a number — they want to understand what it means.
Schema markup and llms.txt are worth adding early. I added structured data to all 20 pages and created an llms.txt file so AI search engines can index the tools properly. Small things, but worth doing from the start.
Internal linking between tools and guides compounds over time. Each calculator links to related blog posts, and each blog post links back to the relevant tool. Building that structure early makes everything more crawlable.
Where It's At
Still early — working on organic search traffic and building out affiliate partnerships. The tools are live and free to use.
👉 https://tools.moneydecoded.net
Happy to hear feedback from anyone who's built in the fintech or tools space.