I want to have my website (that is hosted in github) appear easily on google searches. How does one do that?
Cross-post:
This isn’t specific to Jekyll. Any respected SEO resources will offer good advice. Widen your search for ways to improve your sites’s SEO and you’ll turn up more help.
I’d start by setting up your site with Google’s Search Console and seeing what they’ve indexed and advise.
https://search.google.com/search-console/about
Bing and Yandex have similar tools to help you as well.
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There is a Jekyll plugin called Jekyll SEO tag that is compatible with GitHub pages. It helps generate meta tags and open graph tags that are used when sharing on social networks.
https://github.com/jekyll/jekyll-seo-tag
I would also recommend Jekyll site map to generate a site map that you can submit to Google search console.
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Hi @brando90,
Great responses so far from @mmistakes and @chrisrhymes. I’d like to add, if I may.
I do SEO work on a regular basis for my clients. I used to write web crawlers based on Standford algorithms (Google’s predecessor) when I worked for Oracle in a previous life. I don’t advertise that I do SEO work because I think genuine SEO experts are far and few between. But, I digress.
Here’s a piece that I share with my clients (and everyone). It’s freely available (no paywall or log in required). I list some tips that helped my passion project site land on #1 Google SERP 1 in two months (or less) for my target keyword phrase. And, it’s still top slot on SERP 1 after three years.
Have fun! 
P.S. Choose your keywords wisely. I.e. A nice mix of head and long tail phrases that have a healthy competition (not too high or too low) and are relative to your site of course. Make sure your site is faster than the prevailing average load times (7.3 s according to GTMetrix). Make friends with GTMetrix and Google’s PageSpeed Insights.