How to build a Website with Durable AI Website Builder

In this tutorial, I'll walk you through step-by-step how to create a website using Durable AI, one of the newest AI website builders on the market with some really promising features!

I believe it's one of the few AI tools that can generate a website that accurately reflects your business based on how you describe it.

Here’s what we’ll cover:

1. How to answer the AI’s onboarding questions to generate your site
2. How to edit and customize the different sections (images, text, and layout), with tips especially useful for small business owners
3. How to review and check your website before publishing
4. Additional tools you can use to promote your business and generate leads and sales

Let’s dive in!

Note: You can design and customize your site on Durable AI's free plan, but you'll need a paid plan to publish your website for public visitors

Step 1: Getting Started with Durable AI

Head over to the Durable home page and click the "Generate your website" button to get started.

It’s completely free to create and preview your site—no need to enter any payment info or a credit card.

You can build and check out your website first, and if you like what you see, they’ll ask you to sign up later to claim it.

Step 2: Creating Your Website with AI

Durable will first ask a few questions to help create your site:

1. What type of business are you building?

Type the category that best represents your business. Basically, Durable has preset templates for a variety of categories like local service businesses, portfolio sites, personal website, etc.

For example: If you type "Personal Training" as your business, it'll create a personal trainer online profile and service page for you.

2. What is the name of your business?

Type in your business name. This will be displayed on your website’s homepage and header.

If you don’t have a business name yet, no problem! Durable includes a Business Name Generator that suggests names based on the business type you selected. You can regenerate these options until you find one you like

3. Where is your business located?

If you’re creating a local business site, Durable will use this information to add your location to the website’s content and even embed a map to show where you’re located.

Side note: You can also choose to create your website in different languages. They currently support English, German, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch, and French, so you can build your site in whichever language works best for your audience.

Durable AI generating the website based on your input

Once you provide the necessary information, Durable’s AI takes over.

It will automatically select a layout, color palette, add relevant images, and create the necessary components that's relevant to how you describe your business.

The website takes about 30-45 seconds to create.

You'll be surprised to know that I find Durable's AI-generated websites to be among the most accurate in reflecting your input.

Here’s why:

• The headlines and overall copy feel unique and natural, avoiding the mechanical tone that often comes with AI-generated content.
• The stock images are highly relevant to the context. For example, if you describe your business as a photography studio, the images will include DSLRs, models posing, camera gear, and other related equipment.
• The layouts are tailored to different business types. A personal trainer's site might feature client testimonials and a gallery to showcase their skills, while a local service business would include a map to help customers find their location.

Step 3: Customizing Your Durable AI Website

After your website is generated, you can view it and start making any necessary customizations. Here are a few key features on Durable you can use to edit:

Regenerating Sections

If you’re not satisfied with any part of the website, Durable allows you to regenerate the entire section with the "Restyle" button.

Basically, the Restyle button changes the layout, background image, background color, and spacing of the section while keeping the rest of your site intact.

You can pretty much restyle any section of the site including the header and the footer.

Note that the Restyle button doesn't rewrite the copy.

Editing the headline and the rest of content on the page

Speaking of copy, to customize your website header or any text on the page (including the copy on buttons), click on the text itself and the editing panel will show.

You can either edit the text yourself or regenerate the copy with AI:

1. The editor allows you to do basic editing, like formatting the text (size, alignment, spacing, etc), add links and bullet points.
2. Or you can regenerate the copy with AI with different tone, such as authoritative, casual, inspirational, persuasive, and more.

Adding new sections

You can add pre-made sections to your page. Simply hover to any section of the page and click "Add section +" to bring up the different sections you can add.

I won’t go over every feature, but want to highlight some unique sections that are especially useful if you're a small business owner:

• Content — Pre-made sections like recent blog posts and FAQs to help customers find the information they need.
• Clients — A carousel to showcase client or partner logos, quotes, and testimonials.
• Business hours — A ready-made section to display your hours of operation.
• Team members — Premade section to present your team members and their details.
• Map Location — A local map to show your business location.
• Schedule — Let customers book meetings directly.

You can even add custom code (for tracking and ad pixels) or special sections like a timeline, restaurant menu, or comparison table, making this a versatile tool for building your website.

Editing Images

Every image on the page is customizable, to some extent. All you need to do to customize the image is click on the image, and the editing panel will show.

You can either upload your own custom image or ask Durable to regenerate one using A

While you can customize the image style, the options are limited to adjusting the aspect ratio, selecting an animation for how the image appears, modifying the spacing between the image and other sections, and adding dividers or borders.

Step 4: Viewing and publishing your Website

Once you've done customizing your site, you can preview the site by hitting the preview button from the top corner.

Durable has the option to let you view your site in desktop, table, and mobile. So be sure to check for any kinks and misalignment, and proofread your copy before publishing your site live.

Publishing your Durable site requires a paid plan, starting from $12/month. The paid plan comes with

• A free custom domain
• Access to free stock images (over 10 millions as of this writing)
• Automated marketing tools like auto generating your social posts, creating your brand kit with AI, collecting customer reviews, and more

It's worth noting that there's no traffic limit on sites that are hosted by Durable.

There are hosting companies like Bluehost where they limit your website to around 15,000 visits per month on their basic plan.

Step 5: Market your site

If you want to increase your website presence, Durable has these handy marketing tools to help you market your website and generate leads and sales for your business.

Starting with:

1. Claim and connect your custom domain —Comes with the paid plan
2. Add social links to your site — Built-in social media icons for Facebook, Youtube, Instagram, X (previously Twitter), LinkedIn, Tiktok, and more.
3. Add a blog —Generate blog post ideas and the actual article with AI

[Optional] Leverage advanced marketing tools to boost traffic and sales

Some of the more advanced tools are available on the business plan, which will unlock the ability to:

• Auto generate social posts and post it on Facebook, Instagram and X .
• Run Google Ads for your site.
• Collect reviews for your store and increase brand awareness.
• Add a CRM to manage your leads
• Create a brand kit (logo, social assets, and more) with AI
• You can also send professional invoices to clients to collect payments for your services.

Final thoughts

The AI website builder space is evolving rapidly, and Durable shows just how easy it is to whip up a relevant site in minutes. While you’ll likely need an extra hour or so to tweak it to suit your needs, the platform gets you about 80% of the way there fast.

That said, the design isn’t the most polished, and there are limitations on how much you can customize things like layout and spacing. You won’t have full creative control, but Durable makes up for it with useful tools to help you market your site right out of the box.

Overall, it’s a great value if you’re looking for a quick, affordable way to get a functional website up and running with AI.

Related articles:

• How to create a website with Hubspot AI
• AI Website builder that allow you to connect a custom domain for free

David Nge

David is the founder of MakingThatWebsite.com and started making websites for businesses back in 2014. He's a keen learner and wants to share his journey and knowledge with other business owners and freelancers. He launched MakingThatWebsite.com in 2021 to make website building more approachable and scalable for businesses.

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