Lesson 1 of 6 5 min
Create your account and your first site
Sign up without a card, find your way around the Dashboard, pick a template, and choose Start from Scratch unless you are on a paid plan.
Everything in this lesson takes about ten minutes on a laptop. You will finish with an account, a site built from a template, and a link that already works — even though nobody but you knows it yet.
Sign up
Go to sitesplaced.com and click Start Building Free. Sign up with Google, or with an email address and a password. There is no card to enter; you only pay if you later choose the Starter plan for a domain. A short onboarding asks who you are and what you are building. Answer it or skip it — nothing in it is locked in. The step-by-step, including what to do if the verification email does not arrive, is in Create your account.
One rule about signing in
Sign back in with the same method you signed up with. If you used Google, use Google again. The most common where did my site go? is a second account, created by typing the same email with a new password.
Your Dashboard
After sign-up you land on the Dashboard. It is home: a card for every site you make, a New Site button, and a plan bar that shows which plan you are on and how many of your five free sites you have used. A website's card has an Edit button that opens the editor; a store's card says Manage Store. A tour of your dashboard names every button.
Create the site
- 1Click New Site. Under What do you want to create? choose Personal Website. This is the right one for a freelancer, a shop, a clinic, a creator — anyone who is not a student. Students choose Student Portfolio.
- 2Pick a template. Filter by Business, Creator or Student and choose the one closest to what you do. For a website this is not a lifelong decision: every section, colour and font stays editable, so pick something close and move on. You can browse them without an account on the templates page.
- 3Under How do you want to start? choose Start from Scratch and click Create & Customise. The template opens in the editor with its default text, ready for yours.
Start from Scratch or AI-Powered?
The other option, AI-Powered, asks for a résumé or brochure, pasted text, or a short form (your name, your role, a few highlights) and writes the whole site for you. It is part of the Starter plan and above. On the Free plan the Build My Website step stops with AI generation is a paid feature. So, plainly: if you are on Free, pick Start from Scratch. You get the same template, and the next lesson shows you how to write the words yourself — which most people should do anyway, because nobody knows your business like you do. The exact screens for both paths are in Build your first site or store; what each plan includes is on the pricing page.
It is already live
A website made from a template is published the moment it is created, on a link like yourname.sitesplaced.site. Nobody has that link yet, so there is no rush — but it does mean the template's placeholder text is technically public. Do the next lesson before you share anything.
Write down
Signed up with: Google / email. Site name: ______. Template: ______. Then open the site on a laptop — the editor is desktop only — and go to Edit sections and write your copy.
Stuck on this lesson? Ask an AI assistant — it reads our guides and answers with the exact steps.