Next.js and Tailwind CSS blog in 10 Minutes

Overview

Whether you already have a static blog (like Gatsby) and want to migrate to Next.js and Tailwind, or you're looking to create your very first blog with minimal effort, you've come to the right place.

Recently, Next.js and Tailwind CSS have gained substantial popularity. I personally decided to migrate my existing blog to Next.js. As I was exploring how to get started, I stumbled upon a starter template that had everything I needed for my blog.

Prerequisites

Node.js - Latest LTS Version: 18.17.1 (includes npm 9.6.7)
Git Tool
(VS Code) or any other Code editor

Next.js & Tailwind Blog Features

Day and night mode
Pagination
Giscus (Blog post comments)
Tailwind CSS
Newsletter
RSS feed
Tags
Search box
Author page
Project Page

Step 1: Download the Next.js and Tailwind Starter

The first and simplest step is to choose the location where you want to clone your new blog. Open a command line or terminal window and navigate to the desired location. Then, run the following command:

git clone https://github.com/timlrx/tailwind-nextjs-starter-blog.git

Step 2: Personalize

Change your working directory to tailwind-nextjs-starter-blog. Open this folder in your favorite code editor. If you are using Visual Studio Code, you can also open it by running the following command in the terminal window:

cd tailwind-nextjs-starter-blog
code .

You can personalize by changing fields such as title, author, headerTitle, description, and and social media URLs like twitter, facebook, youtube, etc.

Personalize the top-right menu items and remove the "Projects" item from headerNavLinks.ts.

Step 3: First Blog Post

Now it's time to write your own blog post. All the example posts are located inside the data/blog directory.

You can delete all the example blog markdown (.mdx) files inside the blog directory and create a new file named my-first-blog.mdx.

Copy and paste the following markdown syntax into the file:


---
title: My first blog
date: '2023-09-01T22:12:03.284'
---

Hello, everyone! This is my first blog post—how exciting!

If you are in the process of migrating, please copy and paste all the markdown files into the data/blog/ directory and the images into the public/static/images/ directory. Be sure to correct and update all the image paths accordingly. Step 4: View in Browser

Go back to your command/terminal window and run the following command:

npm run dev

After successfully running the Next.js server, you can view your blog post by opening http://localhost:3000 in your web browser.

Next Step

In the next post, we will explore how to host our blog using Vercel.