SEO Improvements for alexanderkalis.com

Summary

This document outlines all the SEO improvements made to enhance search engine visibility and ranking for alexanderkalis.com.

Changes Implemented

1. Meta Tags Enhancement

  • ✅ Added canonical URL (<link rel="canonical">)
  • ✅ Added robots meta tag for better indexing control
  • ✅ Added theme-color meta tag for mobile browsers
  • ✅ Enhanced Open Graph tags with image dimensions, alt text, site name, and locale
  • ✅ Enhanced Twitter Card tags with image alt text and social handles

2. Structured Data (JSON-LD)

  • ✅ Added comprehensive Person schema with:
    • Professional details (name, job title, description)
    • Contact information
    • Social media profiles (GitHub, LinkedIn)
    • Skills and expertise areas (15+ technologies)
    • Occupation details with location
    • Alumni information

3. Site Infrastructure

  • ✅ Created robots.txt file with proper directives and sitemap location
  • ✅ Created sitemap.xml with:
    • Main portfolio page
    • Jekyll about page
    • Blog index
    • Image sitemap for profile photo

4. PWA & Branding

  • ✅ Created favicon.svg for modern browsers
  • ✅ Added favicon links for various devices (PNG, Apple touch icon)
  • ✅ Created site.webmanifest for PWA support

5. Semantic HTML Improvements

  • ✅ Fixed heading hierarchy:
    • Changed logo from H1 to div
    • Made “Alexander Kalis” the main H1
    • Changed main sections from H3 to H2
    • Changed project titles from H4 to H3
    • Changed expertise areas from H4 to H3
  • ✅ This creates proper document outline for search engines
  • ✅ Added rel="noopener noreferrer" to all external GitHub links for security and SEO

7. Jekyll Configuration

  • ✅ Updated _config.yml with:
    • Proper site URL (https://alexanderkalis.com)
    • Enhanced description for SEO
    • Twitter username
    • Added jekyll-sitemap plugin
    • Added jekyll-seo-tag plugin
  • ✅ Updated Gemfile with SEO plugins

SEO Benefits

Improved Search Engine Indexing

  • Robots.txt guides crawlers efficiently
  • Sitemap.xml ensures all pages are discovered
  • Canonical URLs prevent duplicate content issues

Enhanced Search Results Display

  • Structured data enables rich snippets in search results
  • Open Graph tags improve social media sharing appearance
  • Twitter Cards create attractive link previews

Better User Experience

  • Favicon improves brand recognition in browser tabs
  • Theme-color enhances mobile browser appearance
  • PWA manifest enables “Add to Home Screen” functionality

Technical SEO

  • Proper heading hierarchy improves content understanding
  • Semantic HTML helps search engines parse content
  • Meta robots tag controls indexing behavior

Expected Results

  1. Better Rankings: Structured data and semantic HTML help search engines understand content
  2. Rich Snippets: JSON-LD schema may enable enhanced search result displays
  3. Social Sharing: Improved OG tags and Twitter Cards make shares more engaging
  4. Crawl Efficiency: Sitemap and robots.txt optimize crawler behavior
  5. Mobile Experience: Theme color and favicon improve mobile appearance

Validation

All changes have been tested and validated:

  • ✅ HTML loads correctly in browser
  • ✅ JSON-LD is valid JSON format
  • ✅ Robots.txt is accessible
  • ✅ Sitemap.xml is well-formed
  • ✅ Site.webmanifest is valid JSON
  • ✅ Heading hierarchy follows best practices

Next Steps (Optional Future Improvements)

  1. Generate actual PNG favicon files (16x16, 32x32, 180x180) from the SVG
  2. Add more pages to sitemap.xml as site grows
  3. Consider adding breadcrumb structured data
  4. Add Organization schema if representing a company
  5. Monitor Google Search Console for indexing status
  6. Submit sitemap to Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools

Tools for Verification

After deployment, use these tools to verify improvements:

  • Google Rich Results Test: https://search.google.com/test/rich-results
  • Google Search Console: https://search.google.com/search-console
  • Schema.org Validator: https://validator.schema.org/
  • Meta Tags Checker: https://metatags.io/
  • Open Graph Debugger: https://www.opengraph.xyz/