McGarrah Technical Blog

Jekyll Website Optimization for GitHub Pages - Part 1

By · 9 min read

After running this Jekyll-based website for a couple years (since July of 2023), I’ve learned valuable lessons about optimizing Jekyll sites for GitHub Pages. This blog initially started as a consolidation of several blog websites I’d published over the years. This is Part 1 of a two-part series covering the foundational optimizations that have made the biggest difference for my homelab blog.

The Journey So Far

This website started as a fork of the excellent Contrast theme by Niklas Buschmann. While the theme provided a solid foundation, running a technical blog with 100+ posts revealed areas for improvement in performance, SEO, and user experience.

Current Website Statistics

Performance Optimizations Implemented

1. Code Copy Buttons

One of the most requested features for technical blogs is the ability to copy code snippets easily. I implemented JavaScript-based copy buttons for all code blocks:

// Add copy buttons to all code blocks
document.querySelectorAll('pre code').forEach((block) => {
  const button = document.createElement('button');
  button.className = 'copy-button';
  button.textContent = 'Copy';
  button.addEventListener('click', () => {
    navigator.clipboard.writeText(block.textContent);
    button.textContent = 'Copied!';
    setTimeout(() => button.textContent = 'Copy', 2000);
  });
  block.parentNode.appendChild(button);
});

2. Reading Time Indicator

Readers appreciate knowing how long an article will take to read. I added a reading time calculator:

{% assign words = content | number_of_words %}
{% assign reading_time = words | divided_by: 200 %}
{% if reading_time < 1 %}
  Less than 1 minute read
{% else %}
  {{ reading_time }} minute read
{% endif %}

3. Optimized Image Loading

For technical posts with many screenshots, image optimization is crucial:

[![Image Description](/assets/images/image.png){:width="50%" height="50%" style="display:block; margin-left:auto; margin-right:auto"}](/assets/images/image.png){:target="_blank"}

This approach:

SEO Enhancements

1. Structured Data and Meta Tags

Proper meta tags significantly improve search engine visibility:

<meta name="description" content="{{ page.excerpt | strip_html | truncate: 160 }}">
<meta property="og:title" content="{{ page.title }}">
<meta property="og:description" content="{{ page.excerpt | strip_html | truncate: 160 }}">
<meta property="og:type" content="article">
<meta property="og:url" content="{{ site.url }}{{ page.url }}">

2. Sitemap Generation

GitHub Pages automatically generates sitemaps, but custom optimization helps:

# _config.yml
plugins:
  - jekyll-sitemap
  - jekyll-feed
  - jekyll-seo-tag

url: "https://www.mcgarrah.org"
baseurl: ""

3. RSS Feed Optimization

The jekyll-feed plugin generates RSS feeds automatically, but customization improves subscriber experience:

---
layout: null
---
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<rss version="2.0">
  <channel>
    <title>{{ site.title }}</title>
    <description>{{ site.description }}</description>
    <link>{{ site.url }}</link>
    {% for post in site.posts limit:20 %}
      <item>
        <title>{{ post.title }}</title>
        <description>{{ post.excerpt | strip_html }}</description>
        <link>{{ site.url }}{{ post.url }}</link>
        <pubDate>{{ post.date | date_to_rfc822 }}</pubDate>
      </item>
    {% endfor %}
  </channel>
</rss>

Content Management Improvements

1. Tags and Categories System

Organizing technical content requires a robust tagging system:

# Front matter example
---
title: "Article Title"
layout: post
categories: [technical, homelab]
tags: [proxmox, ceph, networking, hardware]
published: true
---

2. Archive Pages

Created dynamic archive pages for better content discovery:

{% for post in site.posts %}
  {% assign year = post.date | date: "%Y" %}
  {% assign month = post.date | date: "%B" %}
  {% if year != previous_year %}
    <h2>{{ year }}</h2>
  {% endif %}
  {% if month != previous_month %}
    <h3>{{ month }}</h3>
  {% endif %}
  <article>
    <a href="{{ post.url }}">{{ post.title }}</a>
    <time>{{ post.date | date: "%B %d, %Y" }}</time>
  </article>
  {% assign previous_year = year %}
  {% assign previous_month = month %}
{% endfor %}

Implemented related posts based on tags and categories:

{% assign related_posts = site.related_posts | where_exp: "post", "post.url != page.url" | slice: 0, 3 %}
{% if related_posts.size > 0 %}
  <section class="related-posts">
    <h3>Related Articles</h3>
    {% for post in related_posts %}
      <article>
        <a href="{{ post.url }}">{{ post.title }}</a>
        <p>{{ post.excerpt | strip_html | truncate: 100 }}</p>
      </article>
    {% endfor %}
  </section>
{% endif %}

GitHub Actions Workflow

Automated builds ensure consistent deployment:

name: Deploy Jekyll site to Pages

on:
  # Runs on pushes targeting the default branch
  push:
    branches: ["main"]
  # Runs at 05:00 UTC (01:00 AM EST) every day
  schedule:
    - cron: '5 0 * * *'  
  # Allows you to run this workflow manually from the Actions tab
  workflow_dispatch:

jobs:
  build-and-deploy:
  ...

Details for this build can be found in my repository under .github\workflows\jekyll.yml for expanded details.

This above Github Actions automation facilitates future dated articles being published since I also setup my _config.yml to not post future articles.

# _config.yml

# Future posts disabled for scheduled releases via GHA scheduled job
future: false

This combination of settings allows me to bank up several articles to post at future dates once checked into the repository.

Comment System Integration

Replaced traditional comment systems with GitHub Discussions via Giscus:

<script src="https://giscus.app/client.js"
        data-repo="mcgarrah/mcgarrah.github.io"
        data-repo-id="{{ site.giscus.repo_id }}"
        data-category="General"
        data-category-id="{{ site.giscus.category_id }}"
        data-mapping="pathname"
        data-strict="0"
        data-reactions-enabled="1"
        data-emit-metadata="0"
        data-input-position="bottom"
        data-theme="preferred_color_scheme"
        data-lang="en"
        crossorigin="anonymous"
        async>
</script>

Benefits:

What’s Next

This covers the foundational optimizations that every Jekyll site should implement. In Part 2 of this series, I’ll dive into:

Conclusion

These foundational optimizations provide immediate value to readers and establish a solid base for further improvements. The combination of performance enhancements, SEO basics, and content organization creates a much better user experience.

Key takeaways from Part 1:

Stay tuned for Part 2, where we’ll explore advanced optimizations and dive deeper into performance metrics and future enhancements.

References

Tags: jekyll, github-pages, optimization, seo, performance, website
Categories: web-development, technical
About the Author: Michael McGarrah is a Cloud Architect with 25+ years in enterprise infrastructure, machine learning, and system administration. He holds an M.S. in Computer Science (AI/ML) from Georgia Tech and a B.S. in Computer Science from NC State University, and is currently pursuing an Executive MBA at UNC Wilmington. LinkedIn · GitHub · ORCID · Google Scholar · Resume