SEO Optimization in Next.js: Tips and Best Practices

Next.js is an open-source React framework for building high-performance web applications. It helps developers to create SEO-friendly websites quickly and efficiently. But with the ever-changing SEO landscape, it's important to stay up-to-date with the best practices for Next.js SEO optimization.

In this blog post, we'll discuss the most important tips and best practices for optimizing your Next.js website for search engine results. We'll also provide code examples wherever applicable and include official references to SEO-related features in Next.js.

Configuring next.config.js

The first step to SEO optimization in Next.js is to configure your next.config.js file correctly. This is where you can specify settings related to page titles, meta tags, and other SEO-related information.

For example, you can create a next.config.js file that looks like this:

module.exports = {
  pageExtensions: ["jsx", "js", "mdx"],
  webpack: config => {
    config.plugins.push({
      resolve: `gatsby-plugin-next-seo`,
      options: {
        title: `My Next.js Website`,
        description: `This is my Next.js website`,
        openGraph: {
          type: `website`,
          locale: `en_US`,
          url: `https://example.com`,
          title: `My Next.js Website`,
          description: `This is my Next.js website`,
          image: `https://example.com/image.jpg`,
          site_name: `My Next.js Website`
        },
        twitter: {
          handle: `@handle`,
          cardType: `summary_large_image`
        }
      }
    });
    return config;
  }
};

By configuring the next.config.js file, you can set the page title, meta tags, and other SEO-related information for each page in your Next.js website.

Adding Structured Data

The next step for optimizing your website for search engine results is to add structured data to your pages. Structured data is a type of code that helps search engines understand the content on your page.

Next.js provides an official library for adding structured data to your pages, called next-seo. You can use this library to add structured data such as product reviews, events, and more.

For example, you can add a product review to your page like this:

import { NextSeo } from "next-seo";
 
const ProductReview = () => (
  <NextSeo
    title="My Product Review"
    description="This is my product review"
    schema={{
      "@context": "https://schema.org/",
      "@type": "Product",
      name: "My Product",
      image: [
        "https://example.com/photos/1x1/photo.jpg",
        "https://example.com/photos/4x3/photo.jpg",
        "https://example.com/photos/16x9/photo.jpg"
      ],
      description: "This is my product review",
      sku: "12345",
      mpn: "12345",
      brand: {
        "@type": "Thing",
        name: "My Brand"
      },
      review: {
        "@type": "Review",
        reviewRating: {
          "@type": "Rating",
          ratingValue: "4"
        },
        author: {
          "@type": "Person",
          name: "John Doe"
        }
      }
    }}
  />
);
 
export default ProductReview;

By adding structured data to your pages, you can help search engines better understand the content on your page and improve your SEO rankings.

Optimizing Page Speed

Page speed is an important factor for SEO, as search engines take page speed into account when determining rankings. Fortunately, Next.js makes it easy to optimize your website for page speed.

For example, you can use Next.js' next/babel plugin to transpile code to a format that's optimized for page speed. You can also use Next.js' next/image component to automatically optimize images for page speed.

For more tips on optimizing your website for page speed, read our blog post on Optimizing Your Next.js Website for Page Speed (opens in a new tab).

Conclusion

SEO optimization in Next.js is an important part of creating a successful website. By following the tips and best practices outlined in this blog post, you can ensure that your website is optimized for search engine results and ensure that it ranks highly in search engine results pages.

For more information about SEO optimization in Next.js, check out the official Next.js docs (opens in a new tab).