Winning Keywords on GitHub
There are canonical repositories on GitHub. An example for iOS are AFNetworking (i.e., Objective-C) and Alamofire (i.e., Swift); they are so frequently used that they are standard with a specific functionality domain, especially w.r.t. RESTful APIs for iOS developers. These projects stand on their own so their repositories are dictated almost entirely by the developers who contribute on a daily basis. Most canonical repositories have no developer relations, which means that their relations are “purely” developer, utterly and totally dictated, made by and owned.
Most repositories, however, are not canonical. There are a large number that are product repositories from companies participating in OSS. These repositories, which aren’t dictated, made or owned by a large community of developers, are fields for SEO. There are several areas of GitHub with which to apply the mechanics of Search Engine Optimization. The primary areas are: pinned repositories, READMEs, and GitHub issues. The principles of SEO can be applied to these areas to improve the search of your product.
Pinned Repositories
Twitter is famous for tweets but there is no tweet like the “pinned tweet”. GitHub’s pinned repositories are reminiscent of pinned tweets. Although the features for stars, forks, language, or repository name are static, indexing keywords within a “pinned repository” description may lead search engines to understand best the problems for which your open source software offers solutions.
READMEs
The famous README.md is the absolute haven for indexation. Although the content of a README.md ranges significantly from one line to multiple lines, from short, brief descriptions of the software objective, to detailed, extensive explanations of methods, from guides to tutorials, an effective means of generating traffic through a README.md is through feature based itemizations, whilst all of these remainders are better organized throughout documentation.
A README.md that itemizes a list of features enables developers to compare software, especially software development kits, quickly. A short, brief explanation about how a software objective is realized ought to include the design patterns (e.g., Supersonic Ads, which is a subsidiary of IronSource now, implements a singleton’s instance through the delegate design pattern so that conforming a controller to the delegate enables Supersonic Ads’ functionalities almost instantaneously), a bullet point list of features, an invitation to collaborate, and a channel to support. This streamlines keyword indexing.
GitHub Issues
Communication in response to GitHub issue is not just about answering the question; its about figuring out what is the best way to formulate a response.The words in which responses to issues are generated are indexical for keyword searches.
Considerations such as whether or not the problem is properly described in the opening ticket, whether or not questions about the exact wording of the ticket are in order or whether or not the same question appears in a list of FAQ, is already detailed in developer documentation or otherwise, provide for a significant amount of material from which to formulate a response that may elicit a high or low degree of search visibility.
The timing with which an issue is closed is crucial. Should an issue be closed as soon as it is answered or should it be closed no sooner than it is explained to community? Answers may be expedient but explanations arising out of community interaction within the issue are extent, relaying feedback that contributes not just to indices for keyword search but the product lifecycle of development.
