Testing Blog Designs with Git Branches and GitHub Pages

I have a habit of tweaking my blog design and then immediately second-guessing myself. Does this colour scheme actually work? Is this layout easier to read, or just different? For a long time, the only way I could really tell was to push the change live and look at it in a real browser — which felt a bit reckless. Then I discovered that [GitHub Pages][1] lets you publish from any branch, not just main, and everything changed.

GitHub Pages branch deployment is a workflow that publishes a live preview of a Jekyll site from any Git branch you choose, so a design experiment can run on a real public URL without ever touching the branch that serves your production traffic. Here is the technique I now use whenever I want to compare two designs side by side before committing to one.

GitHub Pages Branch Deploys: Why Branches Work for Design Testing

Git branches are usually associated with software features or bug fixes, but they are genuinely useful for design experiments too. A Git branch is an independent line of development within a repository that lets you make changes without affecting the code on main. The idea is simple: your main branch holds the version of your blog that is live and working. You create a new branch for your design experiment, push it to GitHub, and then tell GitHub Pages to serve from that branch instead. You get a real, live preview of your experiment — fonts, layouts, colours, everything — without touching your production site.

When you are happy with the result, you merge the branch into main and delete it. If you decide the experiment was a bad idea, you just delete the branch and nothing has changed.

How to Preview a Design Change Using a GitHub Pages Branch Deploy

🔒 Subscribe to keep reading.

GitHub Pages Branch Testing: Best Practices and Common Pitfalls

🔒 Subscribe to keep reading.

GitHub Pages Branch Testing: Key Takeaways

🔒 Subscribe to keep reading.