Tutorial: Let's create a basic Silk site

This tutorial covers everything you need to know to create a basic Silk site. You will claim a Silk domain, create content, and add meaning and structure to that content. After this you can use Silk to look at your structured data in clever and unexpected ways.

To make everything a bit more tangible, we use examples from an existing Silk domain called A tiny guide to Madrid. Our designer Laszlito made this site for a friend who came to visit. The site features Laszlito's reviews and facts about restaurants, bars, and sights he recommends.

You can also watch a video of the steps at the end of this tutorial.

Step 1Create your Silk site

First of all, create a Silk site if you haven't done so already. Do you know what your site is about? If you're not sure, keep in mind that Silk shines with collections that have some structure. Checkout the ever growing page with examples of great Silk sites for inspiration.

Laszlito claimed madrid.silkapp.com

Step 2Add a collection and pages

After you created your site, add a collection in your dashboard. It's perfectly fine to create just one collection for now. Just give a simple description of what the things in your collection are. Next, you can create a few pages to go in your collection. As you can see below, Laszlito added a page for one of his favorite restaurants.

Laszlito added a page for Santa Bárbara in his *Restaurant* collection

Step 3Add content to your pages

When you edit a page, you can find an 'add your first tag' button on top. Hit that button to enter important bits of information about the subject of your page. Try to use the same tags across your pages: it lets you so cool stuff in the next step.

The rest of your page can be filled with media just like you would create a normal web page. Just click the + icon anywhere on the page and choose a text, image, or media block.

Laszlito filled the fact sheet with a description, the address, and more

Step 4Insert some Silk magic

If you have a few pages with filled in fact sheets in your collection, the real fun can begin. Silk lets you create charts, tables, and maps using your tagged information.

Your homepage is a suitable place for these widgets, as they give an overview of your data. To add them click the + symbol, and pick a table, map, chart, or other widget. You can pick which tags you want to show and filter by in the edit window.

Laszlito inserted a map on top of his homepage which shows all addresses in his collections

Step 5Spread the word and invite people to collaborate

Now your Silk site is up and running, it's time to spread the word! You can invite anyone to become an editor of your site by hitting 'manage this site' in your dashboard. People with a Silk account can also get a daily or weekly digest by hitting the 'follow' button on top of your page.

This concludes our tutorial. We hope this clears up most questions you might have regarding making basic Silk sites. Please don't hesitate to reach out if you need some further assistance, or if want to share a thought. Other than that: good luck, and have fun discovering hidden gems in your data!

Watch a video of this tutorial

This video demonstrates all the steps in this tutorial. Watch in full screen for best effect.