What happens when you stop treating your portfolio as just a website and start treating it as a searchable representation of yourself? I decided to find out. Recently, I searched Google for: “Rishikumar Yadav Portfolio” The result was interesting. My existing portfolio appeared on the first page, along with multiple pieces of my online presence: Portfolio DEV.to article documenting the portfolio rebuild LinkedIn profile Images associated with my online presence This isn't a claim that I've "mastered SEO." It's simply a milestone in an ongoing personal SEO experiment. Why I Started Doing This I've always thought of a personal portfolio as more than a place to display projects. It should answer a simple question: "Who is this person, and what has he built?" When someone searches my name, I want them to be able to discover different parts of my work and understand that they're connected to the same person. For me, SEO isn't only: "How do I rank this website?" It's also: "How easily can someone find and understand my online presence?" That led me to a slightly different approach to personal SEO. My Goal: Make the Portfolio the Central Hub I'm currently rebuilding my personal portfolio as a Laravel application. The long-term goal is for the portfolio to become the central hub of my online presence. Something like this: PORTFOLIO │ ┌─────────────────┼─────────────────┐ │ │ │ ↓ ↓ ↓ LinkedIn GitHub DEV.to │ │ │ Professional Projects Technical profile Writing │ ↓ Other Platforms Each platform has its own purpose. Portfolio → the central connection LinkedIn → professional identity GitHub → code and projects DEV.to → technical writing Royal Road → creative writing I don't want every platform to become a copy of the portfolio. I want each one to represent a different side of me while pointing toward a central source. The SEO Work Behind the Result The Google screenshot is the visible part. The more interesting part is the work happening behind the website. I've been working through the fundamentals of technical SEO rather than relying on a single trick or keyword. 1. Meta Tags One of the first things I focused on was making sure every important page has meaningful metadata. That includes things such as: <title>Rishikumar Yadav | Web Designer & Frontend Developer</title> <meta name="description" content="Rishikumar Yadav is a Web Designer and Frontend Developer specializing in modern websites, UI/UX, frontend development and SEO."> Along with the standard viewport and other relevant metadata. The idea is simple: "Every page should clearly communicate what it is about." 2. Canonical URLs I also implemented canonical URLs. For example: <link rel="canonical" href="https://example.com/page"/> Canonicalization helps communicate the preferred URL for a page when similar or duplicate URLs could potentially exist. It's a small implementation detail, but an important part of maintaining a clean URL structure. 3. Open Graph Metadata SEO isn't limited to Google search results. A page should also look good when somebody shares it. That's why I worked with Open Graph metadata for social platforms. For example: <meta property="og:title" content="Rishikumar Yadav | Portfolio"> <meta property="og:description" content="Web Designer & Frontend Developer"> <meta property="og:image" content="https://example.com/images/og-image.jpg"> <meta property="og:url" content="https://example.com"> <meta property="og:type" content="website"> This controls how pages can be represented when shared across supported platforms. 4. Twitter/X Cards I also added social card metadata for Twitter/X. For example: <meta name="twitter:card" content="summary_large_image"> <meta name="twitter:title" content="Rishikumar Yadav | Portfolio"> <meta name="twitter:description" content="Web Designer & Frontend Developer"> <meta name="twitter:image" content="https://example.com/images/ogimage.jpg"> Again, the goal isn't simply ranking. It's making sure the content is represented properly wherever the URL appears. 5. JSON-LD / Schema.org This is probably one of the more interesting parts of personal SEO. I worked with JSON-LD structured data to give search engines additional context about the website and the person behind it. A simplified example of the concept: { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@type": "Person", "name": "Rishikumar Yadav", "url": "https://example.com", "sameAs": [ "https://www.linkedin.com/...", "https://github.com/...", "https://dev.to/..." ] } The sameAs relationships are particularly interesting for a personal website. Instead of thinking of these as completely separate identities: Portfolio LinkedIn GitHub DEV.to The goal is to provide signals that they represent the same person. Conceptually: Rishikumar Yadav │ ┌──────────────┼──────────────┐ ↓ ↓ ↓ Portfolio LinkedIn DEV.to │ │ │ └──────────────┼──────────────┘ ↓ Online Identity Structured data doesn't magically make a website rank. It's about providing machine-readable context. 6. Google Search Console I also use Google Search Console to understand how Google is discovering and indexing the site. Some of the things I pay attention to include: Search queries Impressions Clicks Average position Indexed pages Indexing issues Crawling Search appearance This is important because SEO shouldn't be based entirely on assumptions. Instead of asking: "I think Google likes this." I can look at actual search data and see what is happening. 7. Google Analytics Search visibility is only one part of the equation. I also use analytics to understand what happens after someone reaches the website. Things such as: Traffic sources Landing pages User navigation Engagement Popular pages Traffic trends A search impression is nice. A click is better. But understanding what happens after the click is where the data becomes much more useful. 8. PageSpeed Insights I've also been using Google PageSpeed Insights to evaluate the technical performance of the website. I pay attention to areas such as: Performance Accessibility Best Practices SEO Core Web Vitals SEO and performance aren't completely separate concerns. A website can have good content and metadata but still provide a poor experience if it is slow, difficult to use, or poorly optimized for mobile. So performance is something I want to consider during development, not after everything is finished. 9. XML Sitemap I also work with an XML sitemap to expose the important URLs of the website to search engines. For example: /sitemap.xml As the portfolio grows and more pages are added, having a properly maintained sitemap becomes increasingly useful for discoverability. 10. Robots.txt The other basic piece is: /robots.txt It provides crawling directives for search engine bots. It's simple, but it's part of the basic technical foundation of a crawlable website. The Interesting Part: Google Is Connecting the Pieces This is what I found most satisfying about the result. The search wasn't showing only one website. It was showing multiple properties associated with my name. Rishi Kumar Yadav │ ├── Portfolio │ ├── DEV.to │ ├── LinkedIn │ └── Images That's the direction I want to continue moving toward. Not just: "My website ranks." But: "My online presence is understandable." Personal SEO Is an Ecosystem I think it's easy to approach SEO as a collection of isolated tasks. Add keywords. Add metadata. Build backlinks. Submit sitemap. Wait for rankings. But personal SEO feels different to me. It's more like building an ecosystem. PORTFOLIO / | \ / | \ ↓ ↓ ↓ LinkedIn GitHub DEV.to │ │ │ ↓ ↓ ↓ Professional Code Writing │ │ │ └───────┼───────┘ ↓ Online Identity Each platform contributes something different. The portfolio provides the central source. LinkedIn provides professional context. GitHub provides technical evidence. DEV.to provides written expertise. Other platforms provide additional context about the person behind the work. The Bigger Lesson I don't consider appearing on the first page for my own name + portfolio a massive SEO achievement. It's a small milestone. But it's a useful one. Because it shows that the different pieces I've been building are beginning to appear together in search. And that's exactly what I wanted. I don't want my online presence to be a collection of disconnected profiles. I want someone searching for Rishikumar Yadav to be able to discover: Who I am. What I build. What I write. What I've worked on. What I'm interested in. My portfolio will eventually become the central hub for all of that. For now, I'm documenting the process. The portfolio isn't finished. But Google is already starting to show the pieces. And that's a pretty satisfying place to be. Have you searched your own name? If you're a developer, designer, writer, or creator, try searching your own name and see what Google associates with you. You might be surprised by what you find. Rishikumar Yadav