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← Make money with AI · Mission 6 of 37

Build a fast website for a local business in an afternoon, with no monthly fees

Hugo turns a few text files into a finished website: prices, opening hours, a click-to-call button and a photo gallery. It scores 100 on all four Lighthouse checks, loads in under a second on a phone, and it can be hosted for free. Build it once, then reuse it for every client.

75 minBeginnerTools: Free (the business pays for its own domain name)Step 1 free
Tested 9 Oct 2026 · Hugo 0.167.0 extended, Lighthouse 13.5, Windows 11 laptop (16GB)
A complete one-page site for a local business, plus a gallery page, that you can reuse for every client
Prices, hours and contact details in one text file, so a price change takes seconds
Phone photos shrunk automatically for the web
  • The details Google reads (LocalBusiness schema) generated from the same file, so they never go out of date
  • Real numbers: build time, page weight and Lighthouse scores
  • A free contact form, a live address on the internet, and what to offer, including the limits to mention
Before you start
  • A Windows, Mac or Linux computer and about 45 minutes
  • About 100MB of free disk space
  • Notepad is fine for editing. VS Code ↗ is nicer but optional
  • The free starter files (step 2): a sample dog groomer, so you can practise before you have a client
01/08Install Hugo0 done
STEP 01 of 08~5 min

Install Hugo

Hugo is a free, open-source program that turns text files into a website. One small download, no account.

  1. Open PowerShell and run:

    Windows
    winget install --id Hugo.Hugo.Extended -e
    Mac
    brew install hugo

  2. This installs the Extended edition, a single program of about 62MB. Most ready-made Hugo themes need Extended (it adds a converter for Sass, a way of writing styles), so it's the safe choice. The starter in this mission builds with either edition.

  3. Close PowerShell, open a new window, and check it's there:

    Terminal
    hugo version
    Output
    hugo v0.167.0-3fff6fb5c267dacb26280c78dbe8c344054249c8+extended windows/amd64 BuildDate=2026-09-28T14:50:38Z VendorInfo=gohugoio
✓
Checkpointhugo version prints a version number ending in +extended.
If it breaks'hugo' is not recognised + 1 more
'hugo' is not recognised
Close every PowerShell window and open a new one. winget adds Hugo to your PATH, but only new windows pick that up.
winget doesn't work on your PC
Download hugo_extended_0.167.0_windows-amd64.zip (or the newest version) from the official releases page ↗ and unzip it. Copy hugo.exe into your site folder in step 2, then type .\hugo.exe wherever this mission says hugo.
Still stuck? Ask the community
Next mission · Make money with AIMake it legal: tax, invoices and GDPR for your first clients (UK)
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