Setting Up SEO with Claude, first steps

I write this post on a train somewhere between Winterthur and the Airport. It's a quiet Sunday afternoon train without tourists or children - including my little angels. Working on the train has an advantage that it's generally a fixed block of time to get something done. It's literally a physical and mental "context switch" when you arrive at your destination. This switch is the pressure to complete the task. So, about that JavaBlog.com post, let's get started.

I thought before I go too far developing this blog that it would be useful to develop an initial strategy for how I'd approach SEO with JavaBlog.com. I've done this in the past, using the early rules of meta tags and page titles. The rules have obviously changed, but the fundamentals haven't - content is king.

For those unfamiliar: SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is how you make your content discoverable. One foundational step is creating a sitemap.xml - essentially a table of contents for search engines that lists every page on your site and when it was last updated. Without one, search engines have to guess what exists.

I plan to promote my other endeavors using JavaBlog.com, including an application called Polybit.ch. But first, I need to master what I call "vibing" - using conversational prompts with AI coding assistants like Claude to build software iteratively. Think of it as pair programming where your partner has read every programming book ever written but needs you to drive the vision.

This blog has value to me on both a personal and financial level. I purchased this domain in 2002 - I love coffee and coding so I thought it was a perfect match. I was 29, fresh from studying foreign languages and math. A fantastic Russian professor had encouraged me to find something to talk about with people who speak my languages. Fast forward 24 years and roughly $500 in domain renewals - I'm ready, again, for the sixth time.

What I Did Today

I used Claude to generate a sitemap.xml based on my existing page structure. More importantly, I configured the project rules (in a claude.md file) so that future pages are automatically added to the sitemap when created. This "set it and forget it" automation is where AI-assisted coding really pays off.

At the end of this session, I submitted my sitemap.xml to the Google Search Console and will wait a few days until this content is indexed. It's the long game with SEO - content and "safe" best practices. Cheers.

Prompts Used

• "the next few prompts will be public, including this one. I want to improve the SEO of my blog so that others can find my posts and be inspired to also experiment with 'vibing' or 'LLM assisted coding'. The task today is to improve the SEO for the website https://javablog.com. The website has a single path that is currently visible - '/'. Create a sitemap.xml that I can submit to the google search console. Also suggest an approach to SEO that: 1. works with translated content. 2. works in a single PR. 3. Can be extended later when there is more content."
• "lets define a favicon.ico file that shows a capital 'J' in a darker purple with a background color white."
• "I have convert installed, you can run that command."
• "Alright - start a blog post in the home component above the previous post. chronologically, the newest post will be at the top. Title: Setting Up SEO with Claude, first steps. In the body do not write anything just write 'body here'. After the body, leave an area for 'Prompts used'."
• "I would like you to include my rule about adding new pages to sitemap.xml to my claude.md. In the future, when I make changes to the site structure, automatically update my sitemap.xml file."
• "Great. Update my prompts to include the history of this 'vibe' session. Good job. Commit it in our names. I will review the commits for any unexpected changes."