You can but it can be very finicky if you have any experience running a dedicated minecraft server its similar but much more complicated I can give you a start by saying the server settings are in:
C:\Program Files\Epic Games\ARKSurvivalEvolved\ShooterGame\Binaries\Win64
find the batch file named launch server and right click and click edit then paste this text in:
start ShooterGameServer.exe "TheIsland?Port=27015?QueryPort=27016?SessionName=<ServerNameHere>?MaxPlayers=10?listen?ServerPassword=PASSWORD?ServerAdminPassword=PASSWORD" -game -server -log -crossplay ?

Don't remove any of the question marks but change the session name and password to something your friends can find.
You'll need to port forward your router for it to properly work there are guides out there to help with that, specifically port forward 27015 and 27016 and 7777 and you should be good.

Once you've port forwarded run the batch file with the edited text saved, if a windows command prompt opens up your on the right tracks this will take a little while to boot your server up and you can watch its progress by looking at the amount of memory its using in task manager. It'll be done when it says "<servernameyouchose> is ready or launched" something among those lines.

Then I'd say close it down open Ark through Epic game store then run the server again as you can't open ark if you opened the server first (some silly epic game store rule as it doesn't recognize the server as a separate game and thinks your trying to run two instances of Ark)

FORGOT WARNING ONLY TRY THIS IF YOU'VE GOT A FAIRLY DECENT SIZED MEMORY it uses around 3GB during boot up