Blog Management Guide

Complete guide for writing, managing, and publishing blog posts on this Jekyll-based technical blog.

✍️ Writing a New Blog Post

Quick Start

  1. Create a new file in _posts/ directory

    File naming convention: YYYY-MM-DD-title-with-dashes.md

    Example: 2026-02-02-my-first-blog-post.md

  2. Add front matter at the top

---
layout: post
title: "Your Post Title"
date: 2026-02-02 10:00:00 -0000
categories: [distributed-systems, architecture]
tags: [kubernetes, microservices, scalability]
author: Rakesh Navale
excerpt: "A brief summary of your post that appears in listings"
linkedin_article_url: "https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/your-linkedin-article-url"
---

  1. Write your content in Markdown

  2. Commit and push

git add _posts/2026-02-02-your-post.md
git commit -m "Add blog post: Your Post Title"
git push

GitHub Pages will automatically build and deploy within minutes!

Front Matter Fields Explained

📝 Working with Drafts

Store work-in-progress posts in _drafts/ folder:

# Create draft (no date prefix needed)
touch _drafts/my-draft-post.md

# Preview drafts locally
./scripts/jekyll-local serve --drafts

# Publish: move to _posts/ with date
mv _drafts/my-draft-post.md _posts/2026-02-02-my-draft-post.md

🎨 Adding Images

  1. Store images in organized folders
assets/images/2026/02/my-image.png
  1. Reference in posts
![Alt text](/navalerakesh/assets/images/2026/02/my-image.png)

Note: Use /navalerakesh/ prefix for all asset paths since the site is served from that subdirectory.

  1. Optimize images before adding (use TinyPNG, ImageOptim, etc.)

📂 Categories and Tags

Categories (Broad Topics)

Use for high-level organization:

Tags (Specific Keywords)

Use for detailed topics and technologies:

💻 Local Development

Prerequisites

Setup

# Clone repository
git clone https://github.com/navalerakesh/navalerakesh.git
cd navalerakesh

# Install dependencies
bundle install

# Serve locally with live reload
./scripts/jekyll-local serve --livereload

# Serve with drafts visible
./scripts/jekyll-local serve --drafts

# Build only (output to _site/)
./scripts/jekyll-local build

Visit http://localhost:4000/ to preview your site.

For local development on Ruby 4, use ./scripts/jekyll-local .... It preloads the compatibility shim needed by the older GitHub Pages Jekyll stack in this repo.

Troubleshooting

Bundle install fails:

# Update bundler
gem install bundler

# Clean and reinstall
rm -rf vendor/ .bundle/
bundle install

Port 4000 already in use:

./scripts/jekyll-local serve --port 4001

📊 Blog Management Best Practices

1. Version Control Workflow

# Create feature branch for new post
git checkout -b post/your-topic-name

# Add and commit
git add _posts/2026-02-02-your-post.md
git commit -m "Add post: Your Topic Name"

# Push and create PR for review
git push origin post/your-topic-name

2. Commit Message Convention

3. File Organization

4. Writing Tips

5. Content Guidelines

✅ Do:

❌ Don’t:

🔍 SEO and Analytics

Built-in SEO Features

Adding Analytics (Optional)

Edit _config.yml to add:

# Google Analytics
google_analytics: UA-XXXXXXXXX-X

# Or for GA4
google_analytics_4: G-XXXXXXXXXX

# Google Tag Manager (recommended for advanced tracking)
google_tag_manager: GTM-XXXXXXX

Note: Google Tag Manager (GTM) is recommended for more flexible tracking and tag management. With GTM, you can manage multiple tracking tools (Google Analytics, Facebook Pixel, etc.) from a single interface without modifying code.

🚀 Deployment

Automatic Deployment

GitHub Pages automatically builds and deploys when you push to the main branch:

  1. Push changes to GitHub
  2. GitHub Actions builds the site
  3. Live in 1-3 minutes at navalerakesh.github.io/navalerakesh

Manual Build Check

# Build locally to check for errors
bundle exec jekyll build

# Check the _site/ folder
ls -la _site/

📋 Publishing Checklist

Before publishing a new post:

🔗 Useful Commands

# Create new post quickly
touch _posts/$(date +%Y-%m-%d)-your-post-title.md

# Find broken links
bundle exec jekyll build
grep -r "404" _site/

# Count words in post
wc -w _posts/2026-02-02-your-post.md

# List all posts
ls -1 _posts/

# Search posts
grep -r "keyword" _posts/

📚 Resources

🐛 Common Issues

Posts Not Showing

Images Not Loading

Build Failures

For general site information, see README.md