How I Made My Portfolio Website SEO Friendly

Published on June 7, 2026 by Himanshu Joshi

SEO Portfolio Google Search Console Website

Summary: This article explains how I improved my portfolio website for SEO. I added important pages, improved meta tags, created sitemap.xml and robots.txt, fixed internal links, used canonical URLs, and started publishing useful blog content.

A portfolio website is usually created to show skills, projects, experience, and contact details. But if the website is not SEO friendly, very few people may find it through search engines. I wanted my portfolio website to become more useful, discoverable, and professional.

Earlier, my website was mainly a portfolio. It had design and project information, but it did not have enough content pages, blog articles, sitemap, robots.txt, and proper structure for search engines. So I decided to improve it step by step.

Why SEO Matters for a Portfolio Website

Many students and developers create portfolio websites, but most of them only use the website as a resume link. A good portfolio can do more than that. It can bring visitors from search, show real project experience, build trust, and create opportunities.

SEO helps search engines understand what the website is about. If the website has useful pages, proper titles, descriptions, internal links, and original content, it becomes easier for search engines to crawl and understand it.

Step 1: Adding Important Pages

The first improvement was adding important pages. A website should not only have a homepage. It should have clear pages that explain who owns the website, what the website offers, and how users can contact the owner.

I added these pages:

Blog page
Tools page
Services page
About page
Contact page
Privacy Policy page
Terms and Conditions page
Disclaimer page

These pages made the website look more complete and trustworthy. They also created a better structure for users and search engines.

Step 2: Improving Page Titles and Meta Descriptions

Every important page should have a clear title and meta description. The title tells users and search engines what the page is about. The meta description gives a short summary of the page.

For example, instead of using a basic title like:

Home

A better title is:

Himanshu Joshi - Developer, Projects, Blog and Tools

This is more descriptive and helps explain the purpose of the website.

Step 3: Creating Sitemap.xml

A sitemap helps search engines discover important pages of a website. I created a sitemap.xml file and added all important URLs such as homepage, blog, services, tools, contact, policy pages, and individual blog articles.

The sitemap file was placed here:

public/sitemap.xml

On the live website, it opens at:

https://hiijoshi.in/sitemap.xml

Every time I publish a new blog, I add the blog URL to sitemap.xml.

Step 4: Adding Robots.txt

Robots.txt gives crawling instructions to search engines. I added a simple robots.txt file that allows search engines to crawl the public website and points them to the sitemap.

User-agent: *
Allow: /

Sitemap: https://hiijoshi.in/sitemap.xml

This is a simple setup, but it helps keep the website structure clear.

Step 5: Fixing Internal Links

Internal links are links between pages on the same website. For example, the blog page links to individual blog articles, the footer links to policy pages, and each article links back to the blog page.

I checked all important internal links to make sure they were working correctly. Broken links can make the website look incomplete and can create a poor user experience.

My rule became simple:

If a page is linked publicly, it should exist.
If a blog article is not ready, it should not be clickable.
If a URL is added to sitemap, it should open successfully.

Step 6: Using Canonical URLs

Canonical URLs help search engines understand the main version of a page. This is useful when similar or duplicate versions of a page might exist.

For every blog article, I added a canonical URL matching the final live URL. For example:

<link rel="canonical" href="https://hiijoshi.in/blog/portfolio-website-seo-friendly/" />

This helps search engines identify the correct page URL.

Step 7: Publishing Useful Blog Content

A portfolio website can be thin if it only has one homepage and a few project sections. To make the website more useful, I started publishing blog articles based on my real work.

I focused on topics like deployment, Google Search Console, AdSense preparation, GitHub Pages, AWS Lightsail, Nginx, PM2, broken link fixes, sitemap submission, and project case studies.

This made the website more helpful because visitors can learn from real practical experience instead of only seeing my skills list.

Step 8: Submitting Sitemap in Google Search Console

After creating the sitemap, I submitted it in Google Search Console. This helped Google discover the important pages on my website.

I also used URL Inspection to request indexing for important pages and new blog articles.

What I Learned

Improving SEO taught me that website quality is not only about design. A website should have useful content, clean structure, proper metadata, working links, sitemap, robots.txt, and helpful pages.

I also learned that SEO takes time. Submitting a sitemap does not mean every page will instantly rank. It only helps search engines discover and understand the website better.

Important learning: A good portfolio website should not only show projects. It should also explain real work, learning, and problem-solving.

Conclusion

Making my portfolio website SEO friendly was a step-by-step process. I added important pages, improved meta tags, created sitemap.xml and robots.txt, fixed internal links, added canonical URLs, and started writing useful blog articles.

This helped my website become more complete and professional. It is no longer just a portfolio page. It is now a developer website with projects, blogs, tools, services, and useful information for visitors.