What Is Vibe Coding and How to Use It to Build Websites

A couple of years ago, building a website meant learning to code, wrestling with a template or paying a developer. Today, you can describe the website you want in plain English and watch an AI build it in front of you. That's vibe coding, and it's changing how websites and apps get made.

I'm not a developer by background, and I've spent a lot of time testing vibe coding tools, building test sites and working out where they shine and where they fall down. In this guide I'll explain what vibe coding is, how it works, which tools to use, and how to build a website with it step by step. I'll also cover the part most guides skip: why so many vibe-coded websites struggle to appear on Google, and how to fix it. If you'd rather have a professional handle it, see our web design services.

What Is Vibe Coding?

Vibe coding is building software by describing what you want in natural language and letting AI write the code. Instead of typing HTML, CSS and JavaScript yourself, you tell an AI tool something like "Create a homepage for a Sheffield plumbing business with a quote form and customer reviews", and it generates a working page.

The term was coined by AI researcher Andrej Karpathy, a founding member of OpenAI and former director of AI at Tesla, in February 2025. He described a new way of coding where you "fully give in to the vibes" and forget the code even exists. The idea caught on so quickly that Collins Dictionary named "vibe coding" its Word of the Year for 2025.

In simple terms: vibe coding means telling an AI what you want built, reviewing what it produces, and refining it through conversation, rather than writing the code yourself.

How Does Vibe Coding Work?

Vibe coding tools are powered by large language models that have learned the patterns of millions of websites and applications. The process usually looks like this:

1. You describe what you want in plain English, sometimes with screenshots or design references
2. The AI interprets your request and decides which pages, components and features are needed
3. It generates the code and usually shows you a live preview
4. You review and give feedback, such as "make the header sticky" or "add a pricing section"
5. The AI updates the code, and you repeat until you're happy
6. You publish, often with one click on the tool's own hosting

The skill shifts from writing code to communicating clearly: describing what you want, spotting what's wrong and asking for the right fix.

Vibe Coding vs Traditional Coding vs Website Builders

Vibe coding sits in an interesting middle ground: far more flexible than a template builder, and far faster than traditional coding. But as we'll see, speed comes with trade-offs. For a comparison with template builders, read our guide to website builders vs professional web design.

The Main Types of Vibe Coding Tools

There are now well over a hundred vibe coding tools, but they fall into a few clear groups. Pricing changes often, so treat the notes below as a guide and check each tool's current plans before you commit.

For complete beginners, prompt-to-app builders like Lovable and Bolt.new are the easiest starting point. You describe your site, see it instantly and publish without touching any code.

For people who want to learn as they go, Replit shows you more of what's happening behind the scenes.

For technical users, AI code editors like Cursor give you full control of the code while the AI does much of the typing.

Many experienced builders use two tools together: a prompt-to-app builder to get a prototype up fast, then an AI code editor to refine it into something production-ready.

How to Build a Website With Vibe Coding: Step by Step

Step 1: Plan before you prompt

The biggest mistake beginners make is opening a tool and typing "build me a website". Decide first: who is the site for, what should visitors do (call, book, buy), and which pages do you need? A simple sitemap on paper saves hours of back-and-forth later. Our guide to designing a website from scratch covers this planning stage.

Step 2: Choose your tool

Pick a tool that matches your skill level and project. For a business website or landing page, a prompt-to-app builder is usually the right place to start.

Step 3: Write a detailed first prompt

Your first prompt sets the foundations. Be specific about the business, audience, pages, style, colours and functionality.

Weak prompt: "Make a website for my plumbing business."

Strong prompt: "Create a professional, mobile-first website for a plumbing business in Sheffield. Include a homepage, separate pages for boiler repair, emergency plumbing and bathroom installation, an about page, a reviews page and a contact page with a quote form. Use navy and white with orange call-to-action buttons. Put a click-to-call button in the header. Keep it fast and clean."

Step 4: Build the SEO foundations in from the start

This is the step almost everyone skips, and it's the one that decides whether anyone ever finds your site. Include SEO requirements in your first prompt rather than trying to bolt them on later. I've included a starter prompt further down this guide.

Step 5: Build one section at a time

Once the foundations are in place, refine the site piece by piece. Ask for one change at a time, so it's easy to see what worked and roll back what didn't.

Step 6: Use screenshots

Most tools accept images. Upload a screenshot of a design you like for inspiration, or a screenshot of a problem, such as a menu breaking on mobile, with a short description of the fix you want. It's often quicker than describing the issue in words.

Step 7: Write real content

AI-generated placeholder text is generic and does nothing for your rankings. Replace it with genuine content about your services, your area and your customers' questions. Add real photos and reviews.

Step 8: Test everything

Check every page on your phone and desktop. Test forms, buttons, links and load speed. Ask someone else to try the site and watch where they get stuck.

Step 9: Connect your domain and publish

Most tools offer built-in hosting and let you connect your own domain. Make sure you own the domain and can export your code if you ever want to move.

Step 10: Set up Google Search Console

Add your site to Google Search Console, submit your sitemap and check that your pages are being indexed. Don't assume Google can see your site just because it's live.

A Starter SEO Prompt for Vibe Coding Tools

Use this as part of your first prompt, adapted to your business. It won't fix everything, but it gives the AI clear SEO requirements from day one.

Build this website to be fully search-engine friendly:
- Make every page's main content visible in the initial HTML, using pre-rendering or server-side rendering, so search engines and AI crawlers can read it without running JavaScript.
- Give every page a unique title (under 60 characters), meta description (under 160 characters) and canonical tag.
- Use one H1 per page and a logical H2/H3 structure.
- Use clean, descriptive URLs for every page, e.g. /services/boiler-repair.
- Create an XML sitemap and a robots.txt that allows crawling of all important pages.
- Add LocalBusiness schema on the homepage and FAQPage schema where FAQs appear.
- Add descriptive alt text to every image and compress all images.
- Make the site fully responsive and fast on mobile.
- Add Open Graph and Twitter tags for social sharing.
- Link related pages together with descriptive anchor text.

The SEO Problem With Vibe-Coded Websites

Here's the part the tool demos don't show you. When I launched my first vibe-coded test sites, they looked great, but Google barely indexed them. I've since seen the same problem on many AI-built websites.

Why it happens

Many vibe coding tools build websites as single-page applications using JavaScript frameworks like React. The browser downloads a nearly empty HTML page, then JavaScript builds the content on the fly. Visitors see a finished page, but search engines initially see very little.

Google can render JavaScript, but it isn't always quick or reliable, particularly for new sites. Many AI crawlers, the bots that feed tools like ChatGPT, don't render JavaScript at all, which means your content may be invisible to AI search entirely.

Other common SEO issues

• The same title and meta description on every page, or none at all
• No XML sitemap or a missing robots.txt
• No schema markup
• Thin, generic AI-written content
• Every service crammed onto one long page
• Broken or JavaScript-only links that crawlers can't follow
• Slow loading caused by heavy scripts and uncompressed images

How to fix it

• Pre-render or server-side render your pages, so the full content is in the HTML
• Set unique metadata for every page, not just the homepage
• Generate an XML sitemap and submit it to Google Search Console
• Add schema markup for your business, services and FAQs
• Create a separate page for each service and location
• Write genuine, detailed content for each page
• Check indexing in Search Console using the URL Inspection tool

If your vibe-coded website isn't appearing on Google, a technical SEO audit will pinpoint exactly why. Our guide to choosing a technical SEO agency explains what to look for.

Other Limitations of Vibe Coding

Security

AI-generated code can contain security weaknesses, such as exposed keys, weak database rules or missing input validation, especially in apps with logins, payments or customer data. If your site handles personal information, have the code reviewed before launch.

Complex backends

Attractive front ends are easy. Robust databases, user accounts, payments and complex business logic are much harder, and this is where many vibe coding projects stall.

Unpredictable costs

Many tools charge in credits or tokens. Simple edits are cheap, but long debugging sessions can burn through your allowance quickly, so costs can be hard to predict.

Debugging

When something breaks and the AI can't fix it, you may need technical knowledge to work out what's wrong. It's common to get stuck in a loop of the AI "fixing" one problem and creating another.

Content management

Traditional platforms like WordPress make it easy for non-technical staff to update content. Some vibe-coded sites need a prompt, or a developer, for every change.

Lock-in

Check whether you can export your code and host it elsewhere. Most major tools now support exporting to GitHub, but it's worth confirming before you build.

How Much Does Vibe Coding Cost?

Most vibe coding tools offer a free tier that's enough to experiment with. Paid plans for individuals typically start somewhere around £15–£40 a month, with higher tiers for heavy usage and teams. Remember to budget for extras too: your domain, any premium hosting, third-party services, and your own time.

My advice is the same as it's always been: try the free tiers of two or three tools on the same small project before paying for anything. You'll quickly see which one suits the way you work.

When Vibe Coding Makes Sense, and When It Doesn't

Vibe coding is a great fit for

• Prototypes and MVPs to test an idea
• Landing pages and simple brochure websites
• Internal tools and dashboards
• Personal projects and portfolios
• Quickly visualising a design before a full build

A professional build is usually better for

• Business websites that need to rank on Google and generate leads
• Ecommerce stores handling payments and customer data
• Sites with complex functionality or integrations
• Projects with security or compliance requirements
• Businesses that don't have time to learn, test and troubleshoot

There's also a middle path: vibe code a prototype yourself to work out what you want, then hand it to a professional to make it fast, secure and search-ready.

How We Use Vibe Coding at SERPentity

We use AI-assisted development in our own workflow. It's brilliant for prototyping layouts quickly, testing ideas and speeding up routine work. But every site we deliver for a client is checked and finished by hand: fast, secure, mobile-first and built with SEO from day one.

We also help businesses that have built their own websites with vibe coding tools and can't work out why they're not showing up on Google. Usually the fix is technical, involving rendering, metadata, sitemaps and structure, plus better content. Our SEO services and web design team can take a vibe-coded site and make it search-ready, or rebuild it properly if that's the better option.

The Future of Vibe Coding

Vibe coding has moved from novelty to mainstream remarkably quickly. The tools are getting better at back-end logic, security checks and deployment, and AI agents can now take on bigger chunks of a project with less guidance.

But the fundamentals of a successful website haven't changed. It still needs to be fast, trustworthy, easy to use and easy for search engines to understand. The businesses that do best will be the ones that combine the speed of AI tools with the judgement to get those fundamentals right.

Final Thoughts

Vibe coding has made building a website more accessible than ever. With a clear plan and good prompts, anyone can create something impressive in hours rather than weeks. But a website that looks great and can't be found on Google won't grow your business.

Build with SEO in from the first prompt, check your site in Search Console, and get expert help when you hit the limits. If you've built a site with AI and it isn't ranking, get a free audit and we'll show you exactly what's holding it back.