How to Build a Web3 Website [Step-by-Step Guide]

Modern Web3 websites don’t look much different from their Web2 counterparts at first glance. Users still load a page in their browser, click buttons, and expect immediate feedback. The real change happens behind the scenes, instead of talking only to application servers and databases, Web3 frontends interact with smart contracts, blockchain nodes, and often decentralized storage.

In this tutorial, I’ll show you how to build a web3 website from scratch. You’ll learn about web2 and web3 website differences, smart contracts, development and testing, and decentralized storage. At the end, I’ll also show how to connect your newly created web3 website to a blockchain node.

#How to Create a Web3 Website?

To create a Web3 website, you should have an understanding of web technologies such as React, Node.js, and REST and also newer components like Solidity, Hardhat, IPFS, and RPC providers such as Alchemy or self-hosted nodes. The goal is to design a system that feels as responsive as a Web2 application, while benefiting from transparency, verifiability, and decentralization.

In a typical Web2 stack, most of the application logic is implemented in backend services and exposed over HTTP APIs. Data is stored in centralized databases, and authentication is handled through sessions, cookies, and tokens.

By contrast, a Web3 application pushes critical logic and state into smart contracts deployed on a blockchain. The website becomes a client to a decentralized backend, coordinating between the user’s wallet, blockchain nodes, and any off-chain services that still exist.

#What Makes a Web3 Website Different from Web2?

At a high level, a Web3 website is still a standard web application:

• HTML, CSS, JavaScript or TypeScript

• a frontend framework like React, Next.js, or Vue

• deployment on traditional hosting, containers, or dedicated servers

The difference is what it connects to and where the backend lives. Instead of only calling your own HTTP APIs, the frontend also talks directly to:

• wallets in the user’s browser (for example, MetaMask),

• smart contracts deployed on a blockchain,

• JSON-RPC endpoints exposed by providers like Alchemy or self-hosted nodes,

• and sometimes decentralized storage networks such as IPFS.

In practical terms, you can think in terms of how key concerns shift between Web2 and Web3:

Two consequences follow from this.

First, not everything belongs on-chain. Gas costs, latency, and immutability make you selective. Critical logic that benefits from transparency and shared state such as balances, ownership, voting, protocol rules tends to go into smart contracts. Everything else from logs, analytics, search indices, large media files usually remains off-chain.

Second, the frontend often talks to more than one backend. A Web2 frontend normally talks to a small set of HTTP APIs. A Web3 frontend may talk to:

• one or more smart contracts through an RPC provider (Alchemy, Infura, or a self-hosted node),

• decentralized storage (IPFS gateways),

• and still your own REST/GraphQL APIs for features that don’t need to be on-chain.

#Web3 Website Examples

A simple NFT gallery illustrates how this looks in practice:

• The ownership data (who owns which token) lives in an ERC-721 smart contract.

• The metadata URIs are stored on-chain as part of the token data.

• The actual images and JSON metadata live on IPFS.

• The website is a React or Next.js app that:

  • reads token ownership and metadata URIs from the contract,

  • fetches the metadata and images from IPFS,

  • optionally calls your own backend for things like user profiles, comments, or analytics.

From the frontend’s perspective, reading from a contract still feels similar to calling a backend, but it goes through a provider and ABI instead of a REST endpoint:

import { ethers } from "ethers";
import nftAbi from "./nftAbi.json";

const provider = new ethers.JsonRpcProvider(process.env.NEXT_PUBLIC_RPC_URL);

const nftContract = new ethers.Contract(
  process.env.NEXT_PUBLIC_NFT_ADDRESS!,
  nftAbi,
  provider
);

export async function getTokenOwner(tokenId: number) {
  const owner = await nftContract.ownerOf(tokenId);
  return owner;
}

The rest of the UI from routing, styling, component structure, remains standard frontend work. The main difference is that the source of truth being read is a blockchain node rather than only a centralized application server you control.

#How to Build a Web3 Website: Key Steps

Below, I’ll go through all the key technologies, concepts, and tools you need to understand how to build a web3 website. Let’s dive right in.

#Key Technologies Behind a Web3 Website

Once you understand how a Web3 website differs from a traditional Web2 app, the next step is to look at the building blocks that typically appear in the stack. Different projects mix and match tools, but the same categories tend to show up:

• smart contracts written in Solidity,

• development tooling such as Hardhat,

• access to a blockchain node via providers like Alchemy or a self-hosted client,

• decentralized storage using IPFS,

• and a frontend in React or another modern framework, usually talking to contracts through ethers.js or viem.

#Smart Contracts with Solidity

In Web3, the most important business rules are often encoded as smart contracts. On Ethereum and other EVM-compatible chains, those contracts are usually written in Solidity.

A contract defines:

• the data you want to store on-chain,

• the functions users and other contracts can call,

• and the events emitted when something important happens.

A minimal example might look like this:

// SPDX-License-Identifier: MIT
pragma solidity ^0.8.20;

contract MessageBoard {
    string public message;

    event MessageUpdated(address indexed sender, string newMessage);

    function setMessage(string calldata _message) external {
        message = _message;
        emit MessageUpdated(msg.sender, _message);
    }
}

From a Web3 website’s perspective, this contract exposes:

• a public message variable your frontend can read,

• a setMessage function your frontend can call via a wallet,

• and an event you can listen to for updates.

The details of Solidity can get complex, but the important part for the website is: contract address + ABI form the “API” you consume from the UI.

#Development and Testing with Hardhat

Tools like Hardhat make it easier to work with Solidity contracts:

• compile contracts,

• run unit tests,

• spin up a local Ethereum network,

• and deploy to testnets or mainnet.

A typical Hardhat workflow for a Web3 website includes:

1. Writing contracts in contracts/.

2. Running npx hardhat compile to build them.

3. Writing tests in JavaScript/TypeScript under test/.

4. Using a deployment script to push contracts to a network and recording:

   • the deployed address,

   • the ABI file your frontend will later import.

Once deployed, the website doesn’t talk to Hardhat directly, but it relies on the artifacts Hardhat produces.

#Connecting Through a Node or RPC Provider

To interact with a blockchain, your website needs access to a node. Instead of running a full node, you can connect to one through a JSON-RPC endpoint.

There are two common approaches:

• Use a managed provider like Alchemy, Infura, or similar:

  • quick setup,

  • handles scaling and node maintenance,

  • usually enough for prototypes and many production apps.

• Run your own node on a server or dedicated Web3 infrastructure:

  • full control over configuration and performance,

  • no shared rate limits or noisy neighbors,

  • predictable costs at higher scale.

In both cases, the frontend just receives an RPC URL, which it passes to a provider library:

import { ethers } from "ethers";

export const provider = new ethers.JsonRpcProvider(
  process.env.NEXT_PUBLIC_RPC_URL
);

Behind that URL lives either an Alchemy endpoint or a self-hosted node.

#Decentralized Storage with IPFS

Not all data fits well into smart contracts. Large files, images, videos, and even JSON metadata can be expensive or impractical to store on-chain. That’s where IPFS (InterPlanetary File System) comes in.

Typical patterns include:

• Storing NFT metadata and images on IPFS.

• Referencing IPFS content hashes (CIDs) in smart contracts.

• Loading content through an IPFS gateway from the website.

The flow is often:

1. Upload a file to IPFS via a node or pinning service.

2. Receive a CID that uniquely identifies the content.

3. Store that CID in a smart contract or database.

4. From the frontend, resolve the CID through an IPFS gateway URL.

This keeps on-chain state small while still giving you verifiable, content-addressed storage.

#Frontend with React and ethers.js (or viem)

On the frontend, you can keep using the tools you already know:

• React, Next.js or any other frontend framework for the UI,

• component libraries, routing, and styling as usual,

• plus a Web3-specific layer for wallets and contracts.

Libraries like ethers.js or viem wrap JSON-RPC calls and contract interactions so your React code can stay relatively clean:

import { ethers } from "ethers";
import contractAbi from "./abi.json";

declare global {
  interface Window {
    ethereum?: any;
  }
}

export async function getSignerContract() {
  if (!window.ethereum) throw new Error("No wallet found");

  const provider = new ethers.BrowserProvider(window.ethereum);
  const signer = await provider.getSigner();

  return new ethers.Contract(
    process.env.NEXT_PUBLIC_CONTRACT_ADDRESS!,
    contractAbi,
    signer
  );
}

With a helper like this, UI components can request wallet access, call read functions, and send transactions when the user performs state-changing actions.

#Higher-level frontend tooling: wagmi, RainbowKit

In production applications, most teams don’t build all the wallet and connector logic from scratch. Libraries such as wagmi, RainbowKit, and Web3Modal sit on top of ethers/viem and provide:

• prebuilt wallet connectors,

• React hooks for reading and writing to contracts,

• network and account status management,

• and polished wallet connection UIs.

A minimal wagmi configuration might look like this:

import { WagmiProvider, createConfig, http } from "wagmi";
import { mainnet, sepolia } from "wagmi/chains";

const config = createConfig({
  chains: [mainnet, sepolia],
  transports: {
    [mainnet.id]: http(process.env.NEXT_PUBLIC_MAINNET_RPC_URL),
    [sepolia.id]: http(process.env.NEXT_PUBLIC_SEPOLIA_RPC_URL),
  },
});

export function App({ children }: { children: React.ReactNode }) {
  return <WagmiProvider config={config}>{children}</WagmiProvider>;
}

Once this is in place, components can use hooks like useAccount, useReadContract, or useWriteContract instead of manually wiring providers and signers. RainbowKit or Web3Modal can then sit on top of wagmi to handle wallet selection and connection UI with minimal effort.

#Designing Your Web3 Application: What Goes On-Chain?

Before writing any Solidity or wiring up a wallet, it helps to be explicit about what your application should do and which parts actually need to live on a blockchain.

A Web3 website usually combines three layers:

1. On-chain logic – smart contracts that hold value or enforce shared rules.

2. Off-chain services – APIs, databases, indexing, background jobs.

3. Frontend – the website that orchestrates interactions between the user, contracts, and any supporting services.

A simple way to start is to write down your core features and tag them as on-chain or off-chain. For example, imagine you’re building a basic voting dApp:

• Creating a proposal

• Casting a vote

• Showing current vote counts

• Displaying user profiles and avatars

• Recording analytics and page views

You might end up with a split like this:

• On-chain

  • proposal creation rules (who can create, when, constraints),

  • voting logic and eligibility,

  • current vote counts and final results,

  • events emitted for proposals and votes.

• Off-chain

  • user profiles (names, avatars, bios),

  • full-text search over proposals,

  • analytics and logs,

  • cached aggregates for faster UI.

The on-chain part becomes one or more smart contracts. Everything else can live in familiar Web2 components: databases, REST/GraphQL APIs, and background workers.

You can think of the contract interface as a very strict API surface that your website will consume. For the voting example, that might look something like:

Functions:
- createProposal(string title, string description)
- vote(uint256 proposalId, bool support)
- getProposal(uint256 proposalId) returns (Proposal)
- getVoteCount(uint256 proposalId) returns (uint256 for, uint256 against)

Events:
- ProposalCreated(uint256 id, address creator, string title)
- VoteCast(uint256 proposalId, address voter, bool support)

From here, the rest of the build tends to follow a predictable pattern:

• design and implement these functions as Solidity contracts,

• test and deploy them with Hardhat to a testnet or mainnet,

• expose the network and RPC details via a provider such as Alchemy or a self-hosted node,

• and connect the frontend to those contracts using ethers/viem or higher-level tooling like wagmi.

This planning step is where most of the important trade-offs are decided. The more logic you move on-chain, the more transparent and verifiable your application becomes but also the more you have to think about gas costs, upgrade strategy, and long-term maintenance. Keeping the split clear up front makes the rest of the implementation much smoother.

#Implementing and Deploying Smart Contracts

Once you know what should live on-chain, the next step is to implement it as a Solidity contract and deploy it to a network your website can talk to.

On Ethereum and other EVM chains, a common approach is to use Hardhat for development and Ignition for deployments.

A minimal setup looks like this:

mkdir voting-dapp && cd voting-dapp
npm init -y

# Install Hardhat as a dev dependency
npm install --save-dev hardhat

# Initialize a Hardhat project
npx hardhat --init

Hardhat will scaffold a backend structure similar to:

backend/
  contracts/
  ignition/modules/
  test/
  artifacts/
  cache/
  hardhat.config.ts

You write your contract code in contracts/, describe how it should be deployed in ignition/modules/, and use Hardhat to handle compilation, testing, and deployment.

#Writing the Solidity contract

Continuing with the voting example, a simple contract might look like this:

// SPDX-License-Identifier: MIT
pragma solidity ^0.8.20;

contract SimpleVoting {
    struct Proposal {
        string title;
        uint256 forVotes;
        uint256 againstVotes;
        bool exists;
    }

    mapping(uint256 => Proposal) public proposals;
    uint256 public proposalCount;

    event ProposalCreated(uint256 indexed id, string title);
    event VoteCast(uint256 indexed id, address indexed voter, bool support);

    function createProposal(string calldata _title) external {
        proposalCount += 1;

        proposals[proposalCount] = Proposal({
            title: _title,
            forVotes: 0,
            againstVotes: 0,
            exists: true
        });

        emit ProposalCreated(proposalCount, _title);
    }

    function vote(uint256 _id, bool _support) external {
        Proposal storage proposal = proposals[_id];
        require(proposal.exists, "Proposal does not exist");

        if (_support) {
            proposal.forVotes += 1;
        } else {
            proposal.againstVotes += 1;
        }

        emit VoteCast(_id, msg.sender, _support);
    }
}

From the website’s point of view, this contract exposes:

• read-only getters (proposalCount, proposals(id)),

• state-changing functions (createProposal, vote),

• and events that can be indexed or listened to.

Recent Hardhat versions use Ignition to describe deployments. A minimal module for SimpleVoting under ignition/modules/SimpleVoting.ts could look like this:

import { buildModule } from "@nomicfoundation/hardhat-ignition/modules";

export default buildModule("SimpleVotingModule", (m) => {
  const voting = m.contract("SimpleVoting");
  return { voting };
});

This tells Hardhat how to deploy the contract. With the module in place and a network configured (for example, Sepolia via Alchemy or a self-hosted node), deployment is a single command:

npx hardhat ignition deploy ignition/modules/SimpleVoting.ts --network sepolia

The deployment gives you two things your Web3 website cares about:

• the contract address on the chosen network,

• and the ABI generated by Hardhat in artifacts/

Those values become part of your frontend configuration. In the next step, the website will use them together with an RPC URL to read data from the contract and send transactions from the browser.

#Connecting Your Web3 Website to a Blockchain Node

With a contract deployed, your website needs a way to talk to the blockchain. That happens through a node exposed via a JSON-RPC endpoint. The frontend never runs a full node itself; it just sends RPC calls to one.

In practice you have two main options:

• use a managed RPC provider such as Alchemy, Infura, QuickNode, etc.

• or run your own node on a server or dedicated Web3-optimised machine.

For a first project, a managed provider is usually enough. You sign up, create an app, and receive an HTTPS endpoint such as:

https://eth-sepolia.g.alchemy.com/v2/YOUR_API_KEY

In production, teams often move critical workloads to self-hosted nodes to avoid shared limits and to gain more control over performance and costs. From the website’s perspective, both approaches look the same: they expose an RPC URL.

A common pattern is to keep that URL in an environment variable and pass it into your frontend:

# .env.local
NEXT_PUBLIC_RPC_URL="https://eth-sepolia.g.alchemy.com/v2/YOUR_API_KEY"
NEXT_PUBLIC_VOTING_ADDRESS="0xYourDeployedContractAddress"

Then, in a small utility module, you create a provider and a contract instance using ethers or viem:

// lib/votingContract.ts
import { ethers } from "ethers";
import votingAbi from "../abi/SimpleVoting.json";

const provider = new ethers.JsonRpcProvider(process.env.NEXT_PUBLIC_RPC_URL);

export const votingContract = new ethers.Contract(
  process.env.NEXT_PUBLIC_VOTING_ADDRESS!,
  votingAbi,
  provider
);

This module becomes the single place where your frontend knows about:

• which network it is using (via the RPC URL),

• which contract instance it should talk to (via address + ABI).

Components and hooks can then import votingContract to read data, or wrap it with a signer (via BrowserProvider or wagmi) when they need to send transactions from the user’s wallet.

#Building the Frontend: Reading and Writing On-Chain Data

With a contract deployed and an RPC URL available, the frontend’s job is to:

• read data from the contract to render the UI,

• connect a wallet,

• and send transactions for any state-changing actions.

You can do this with any modern framework; React or Next.js is a common choice.

#Reading data from the contract

Using the votingContract helper you wired to the RPC URL, a simple function to fetch proposals might look like this:

// lib/votingApi.ts
import { votingContract } from "./votingContract";

export async function getProposal(id: number) {
  const proposal = await votingContract.proposals(id);
  return {
    id,
    title: proposal.title as string,
    forVotes: Number(proposal.forVotes),
    againstVotes: Number(proposal.againstVotes),
  };
}

export async function getProposalCount() {
  const count = await votingContract.proposalCount();
  return Number(count);
}

A React component can then call these functions with a hook:

// components/ProposalList.tsx
import { useEffect, useState } from "react";
import { getProposal, getProposalCount } from "../lib/votingApi";

export function ProposalList() {
  const [proposals, setProposals] = useState<any[]>([]);
  const [loading, setLoading] = useState(true);

  useEffect(() => {
    async function load() {
      const count = await getProposalCount();
      const items = [];

      for (let i = 1; i <= count; i++) {
        items.push(await getProposal(i));
      }

      setProposals(items);
      setLoading(false);
    }

    load();
  }, []);

  if (loading) return <p>Loading proposals…</p>;

  return (
    <ul>
      {proposals.map((p) => (
        <li key={p.id}>
          <strong>{p.title}</strong> – ✅ {p.forVotes} / ❌ {p.againstVotes}
        </li>
      ))}
    </ul>
  );
}

From the user’s point of view this feels like any other data-driven UI. The difference is that the source of truth is your contract on Sepolia, accessed through the RPC provider.

#Connecting a wallet and sending transactions

To create proposals or cast votes, the website needs the user to sign transactions with their wallet. The minimal, no-framework way to do that is to detect window.ethereum, request access, and create a signer:

// lib/walletVoting.ts
import { ethers } from "ethers";
import votingAbi from "../abi/SimpleVoting.json";

declare global {
  interface Window {
    ethereum?: any;
  }
}

export async function getSignerVotingContract() {
  if (!window.ethereum) {
    throw new Error("No wallet found");
  }

  const browserProvider = new ethers.BrowserProvider(window.ethereum);
  const signer = await browserProvider.getSigner();

  return new ethers.Contract(
    process.env.NEXT_PUBLIC_VOTING_ADDRESS!,
    votingAbi,
    signer
  );
}

A simple “Vote” button component can then use this helper:

// components/VoteButtons.tsx
import { useState } from "react";
import { getSignerVotingContract } from "../lib/walletVoting";

export function VoteButtons({ proposalId }: { proposalId: number }) {
  const [submitting, setSubmitting] = useState(false);
  const [error, setError] = useState<string | null>(null);

  async function handleVote(support: boolean) {
    try {
      setSubmitting(true);
      setError(null);

      const contract = await getSignerVotingContract();
      const tx = await contract.vote(proposalId, support);
      await tx.wait(); // wait for confirmation

      // In a real app you’d refresh data or show a toast here
    } catch (err: any) {
      setError(err.message ?? "Transaction failed");
    } finally {
      setSubmitting(false);
    }
  }

  return (
    <div>
      <button onClick={() => handleVote(true)} disabled={submitting}>
        Vote For
      </button>
      <button onClick={() => handleVote(false)} disabled={submitting}>
        Vote Against
      </button>
      {error && <p style={{ color: "red" }}>{error}</p>}
    </div>
  );
}

This covers the core interaction pattern:

• read data using a plain provider (no wallet needed),

• ask the user to connect a wallet only when a transaction is required,

• send the transaction, wait for confirmation, then refresh the UI.

In a real project, libraries like wagmi and RainbowKit can replace most of this plumbing with hooks and prebuilt wallet UIs, but the underlying flow remains the same.

#Storage and Off-Chain Data

Smart contracts are good for small, critical pieces of state; they’re not ideal for large or frequently changing data. Most Web3 websites combine:

• On-chain state for things that must be transparent and verifiable (balances, ownership, voting, protocol rules).

• Decentralized storage (IPFS/Filecoin) for content that should be content-addressed, like NFT metadata and media.

• Traditional services (databases, search, analytics) for everything that doesn’t need to be on-chain.

#UX and Security in Web3 Websites

Even if the architecture is correct, a Web3 website can feel awkward without the right UX and security basics.

UX highlights:

• Make wallet connection and network selection explicit (“connect wallet”, “switch to Sepolia”).

• Show clear states for transactions: waiting for signature, pending, confirmed, failed.

• Surface errors in plain language instead of generic “something went wrong”.

Security highlights:

• Never handle private keys directly in frontend code; always go through wallets.

• Treat smart contracts as production backend codete, tests, reviews, and audits are often justified.

• Protect any off-chain APIs, databases, and nodes with the same care as in a Web2 system (rate limiting, input validation, monitoring).

#Infrastructure and Deployment

Early on, it’s perfectly fine to:

• use a managed RPC provider like Alchemy,

• host the frontend on a standard platform,

• and plug in simple off-chain services.

As usage grows, teams often move critical RPC traffic to self-hosted nodes running on dedicated Web3-optimised servers, to gain better control over performance, isolation, and costs. The frontend can stay wherever it’s easiest to deploy, as long as latency to the node is reasonable and you have basic observability in place.

#Conclusion

A Web3 website still looks and feels like a regular web application, but its backend is distributed across smart contracts, nodes, and a mix of decentralized and traditional storage. Once you understand where that boundary shifts from REST APIs and databases to Solidity contracts and RPC providers, the rest of the stack becomes much easier to reason about.

The core steps are consistent: decide what belongs on-chain, implement and deploy your contracts, connect a frontend through an RPC endpoint, and layer in the right mix of off-chain services, UX, and security. From there, your main decisions are less about whether to use Web3 tooling and more about how to run it reliably, whether that’s through managed providers or your own Web3-optimised infrastructure.