I’m not sure how discoverable blog posts that are hosted on Github Pages are, but I came across this article that seems to indicate that search engine optimisation is a valid concern, and that there is help out there in the form of a Jekyll plugin.
Although I generally try to avoid installing plugins where possible, I also want to make sure my content reaches an audience!
I was about to commit to installing an extra plugin, but before I committed… I decided to check the HTML source of one of my posts to see what was already there in the HEAD section:
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en-US">
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=edge">
<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1">
<!-- Begin Jekyll SEO tag v2.6.1 -->
<title>Making My Posts Discoverable | Aaron Kelly’s Blog</title>
<meta name="generator" content="Jekyll v3.8.5" />
<meta property="og:title" content="Making My Posts Discoverable" />
<meta name="author" content="Aaron Kelly" />
<meta property="og:locale" content="en_US" />
<meta name="description" content="Making my posts discoverable" />
<meta property="og:description" content="Making my posts discoverable" />
<link rel="canonical" href="https://aaronpkelly.github.io/2020/01/03/making-my-blog-discoverable.html" />
<meta property="og:url" content="https://aaronpkelly.github.io/2020/01/03/making-my-blog-discoverable.html" />
<meta property="og:site_name" content="Aaron Kelly’s Blog" />
<meta property="og:type" content="article" />
<meta property="article:published_time" content="2020-01-03T00:00:00+00:00" />
<script type="application/ld+json">
{"mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://aaronpkelly.github.io/2020/01/03/making-my-blog-discoverable.html"},"@type":"BlogPosting","url":"https://aaronpkelly.github.io/2020/01/03/making-my-blog-discoverable.html","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"Aaron Kelly"},"headline":"Making My Posts Discoverable","dateModified":"2020-01-03T00:00:00+00:00","datePublished":"2020-01-03T00:00:00+00:00","description":"Making my posts discoverable","@context":"https://schema.org"}</script>
<!-- End Jekyll SEO tag -->
<link rel="stylesheet" href="/assets/css/style.css?v=650a48ca270b25ea183cc8f9feb2e4593004c2b2">
</head>
Boom. It looks like Jekyll SEO optimisation is done automatically for me, no need to install any additional plugins. Easy win!
However… what’s included in the tags doesn’t really look useful. Any search engine that index’s my post won’t really have much idea of the content using these tags. Looks like there’s more work to do!
According to the documentation, the SEO plugin will include extra information if I provide some Jekyll front-matter in my post, including probably the most importing meta-tags, title (self-explanatory), and description - which ideally should be a short, punchy ~140 char length that summarises the contents.
The output in the previous section is what I get when I provide no Jekyll front-matter in a post.
So, lets see if providing some extra information at the beginning changes things. Using these docs as a reference, here’s what I’ll try adding to the beginning of my post:
---
title: Making my posts discoverable
description: Using the Jekyll SEO Plugin to index my blog posts on Github Pages
---
After committing my changes and waiting for the page to be rebuilt, what was the result? Here it is:
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en-US">
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=edge">
<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1">
<!-- Begin Jekyll SEO tag v2.6.1 -->
<title>Making my posts discoverable | Aaron Kelly’s Blog</title>
<meta name="generator" content="Jekyll v3.8.5" />
<meta property="og:title" content="Making my posts discoverable" />
<meta name="author" content="Aaron Kelly" />
<meta property="og:locale" content="en_US" />
<meta name="description" content="Using the Jekyll SEO Plugin to index my blog posts on Github Pages" />
<meta property="og:description" content="Using the Jekyll SEO Plugin to index my blog posts on Github Pages" />
<link rel="canonical" href="https://aaronpkelly.github.io/2020/01/03/making-my-posts-discoverable.html" />
<meta property="og:url" content="https://aaronpkelly.github.io/2020/01/03/making-my-posts-discoverable.html" />
<meta property="og:site_name" content="Aaron Kelly’s Blog" />
<meta property="og:type" content="article" />
<meta property="article:published_time" content="2020-01-03T00:00:00+00:00" />
<script type="application/ld+json">
{"mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://aaronpkelly.github.io/2020/01/03/making-my-posts-discoverable.html"},"@type":"BlogPosting","url":"https://aaronpkelly.github.io/2020/01/03/making-my-posts-discoverable.html","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"Aaron Kelly"},"headline":"Making my posts discoverable","dateModified":"2020-01-03T00:00:00+00:00","datePublished":"2020-01-03T00:00:00+00:00","description":"Using the Jekyll SEO Plugin to index my blog posts on Github Pages","@context":"https://schema.org"}</script>
<!-- End Jekyll SEO tag -->
<link rel="stylesheet" href="/assets/css/style.css?v=4d112552ff41cd9575406760a170ad14ab16ac25">
</head>
That looks much better! There’s much more metadata available to search engines now, which will hopefully help anyone who’s searching for content that I’ve written about.
Just in-case you’re hosting your own Jekyll blog and need to install this plugin yourself, the official installation instructions will have you covered.