# Create your site

URL: https://pro-weather.com/docs/getting-started

> Sign up, connect your station, and put your weather website online.

Getting started takes just a couple of minutes. You'll create an account, claim
a subdomain for your site, connect your station with a WeatherLink API key, and
press Publish. Then your site is live on a Pro Weather address you can share
right away.

Prefer to see it in action first? Watch the
[5-minute video tutorial on YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G1VuIG_g1EE):
it covers the whole journey, from creating an account and connecting a Davis
WeatherLink station to a published live weather website. The same steps are
written out below.

## What you'll need

- A **Davis Instruments** weather station that reports to **WeatherLink**.
- A free **WeatherLink v2 API key** (an API Key and API Secret you generate at
  weatherlink.com/account, covered in [Connect your WeatherLink station](https://pro-weather.com/docs/getting-started/connect-weatherlink)).

Not on WeatherLink? Ecowitt / Fine Offset gateways - and virtually any station
running through weewx, Meteobridge or CumulusMX - can feed your site through a
personal upload URL instead: see
[Connect other hardware](https://pro-weather.com/docs/getting-started/connect-hardware).

## 1. Create your account

Head to [pro-weather.com](https://pro-weather.com/) and choose **Get started**. Sign up with your
**email and a password** - you're signed in immediately, no confirmation email
to wait for. That's the account you'll use to manage your sites and billing,
and you'll land straight on your dashboard.

## 2. Create your site

From the dashboard, choose **New site** (or **Create your first site**) and:

- Pick a **subdomain**, your free address, like `yourname.pro-weather.com`.
  Choose something short and recognisable; it's what visitors see and what
  search engines index. Subdomains use lowercase letters, numbers and hyphens
  (3–63 characters).
- Optionally set a **site title** - you can always change it later.

Choose **Create site**. Creating your first site starts your **free 14-day
trial** with the full feature set unlocked. **No credit card required.** The
trial covers your account, so extra sites you create share the same trial
window (you can run up to 10 sites, each with
[its own plan](https://pro-weather.com/docs/account-billing/subscription)).

## 3. Connect your station

Open your site and go to **Connection**, then paste your WeatherLink v2 API key
and secret. See [Connect your WeatherLink station](https://pro-weather.com/docs/getting-started/connect-weatherlink)
for the full walkthrough.

## 4. Publish

New sites start as **drafts** so you can set everything up in private - the
dashboard's setup checklist walks you through it. When you're ready, choose
**Publish** at the top of your site's dashboard (it lights up once a station is
connected). From that moment your site is live, and **View live site** takes
you straight to it. You can **Unpublish** any time to take it offline without
losing anything.

> **That's it**
>
  Once published, your site shows live conditions automatically: current
  temperature, wind, rainfall and more, refreshed about every 5 minutes.

## Next steps

- [Customize the appearance](https://pro-weather.com/docs/customizing/appearance) with your own branding.
- [Choose which tabs and tiles appear](https://pro-weather.com/docs/customizing/panels) on your site.
- [Set up alerts and warnings](https://pro-weather.com/docs/alerts).
- [Use your own domain](https://pro-weather.com/docs/custom-domain) on the Pro plan.