Is Next JS best for SEO?

Content is nothing without SEO. No matter how relevant and informative your content is, it won’t appear in search results without SEO. The success of your content marketing team, thus, largely depends on the digital marketing team. But many people think SEO is only about choosing the right keywords, or having dynamic content. However, it’s much more than that. There is a technical side of SEO, which plays a key role in reaching your target audience and also lays the foundation for a successful website. Just as digital marketers use tools like SEMRush, HubSpot, etc, to manage their SEO, there are tools which developers can leverage to create SEO-friendly websites. One such useful tool, or you may say development framework, is Next.js. So if you are looking to build a SEO optimized website, hire dedicated Next js developers to ensure your website ranks higher and delivers a smooth user experience. 

What is Next.js?

Next.js is a React-based, open-source framework for developing unique websites and web applications. The Stack Overflow survey conducted in 2024 listed Next.js as the fourth most popular web development frameworks and technologies. With features like file based routing, serverless functions, hybrid rendering, automatic code splitting and API routes–Next.js allows developers to create high-performing and scalable websites easily. 

Next.js also provides features that help in UX and SEO. Features like SSG and SSR improve the loading time of a web page, which is a crucial factor for user retention. Built-in functions like lazy loading and font image optimization also help a website to load much faster, resulting in a satisfactory user experience with reduced bounce rates. 

Use cases of Next.js: 

• Web platforms
• Complex web applications
• SaaS products 
• eCommerce websites
• Retail platforms
• Multi-market solutions
• Interactive user interfaces 

Hire Next.js developers to boost your website’s SEO and performance. 

Why is SEO Important?

• If done right, SEO brings a significant improvement in the search engine rankings and visibility. 
• You can target keywords which are relevant for your business. 
• SEO improves website credibility and trustworthiness. 
• Not only rankings, but SEO improves user experience also. 
• Organic SEO is a highly cost-effective strategy that creates a good footfall for your business. 
• Potential customer reach is also increased. 

With an effective SEO strategy in place, custom web development can further optimize your website’s performance. 

How Next.JS Improves Your SEO?

While Next JS is a React-based framework, it provides SEO advantages that React cannot. React presents a few challenges which can throw your website down the rankings page. The main problem is its client-side rendering methodology. Rendering websites on the client side means the browser receives an empty HTML file along with JavaScript files that are ready to execute. The browser renders the page’s content by executing those JS files. 

In this process, search engines become unable to index websites because the bots notice a space with no content at a first glance. Bots can see the actual content only when the page fully renders. This delay impacts SEO, especially with websites having multiple pages that need indexing. 

The solution is using Next.js, which provides an enhanced SEO by rendering web pages on the server-side instead of rendering them on the client-side. Server side rendering makes it easier for search engine bots to read and index web pages, as they don’t appear empty. This makes the websites load faster, giving a positive signal to the search engine crawlers, to give a higher ranking in the SERPs.

Other Important Features of Next.js that Help in SEO:

• Font Optimization: Fonts are obviously an essential part of a website. Failure to optimize them negatively affects SEO. Next.js provides developers with an in-built module to optimize the fonts in any webpage. The module can automatically optimize the font and remove external network requests for an enhanced performance. 
• Image Optimization: The second essential element of a website is images. next.js offers a custom image optimization feature which automatically compresses images and displays them in a format that works best for SEO. In addition to that, it uses the lazy loading feature to resize the images, further helping search engine crawlers to rank your website higher. 
• Custom Script Component: Next.js provides a custom script component to the developers, enabling them to load third-party scripts like chat widgets or ads in a way that doesn’t slow down a website. Using the “strategy” attribute, developers can control when and how these scripts are loaded, thereby improving the performance of websites. 
• Custom Link Component: Next.js’s another brilliant feature, “custom link,” pre-fetches all the links that are displayed in a web page before a user clicks on them. When the pages are loaded like this in the background, it not only makes the navigation smoother but also makes the website’s performance super fast and responsive.
• Custom Head Component: The metadata in the head tag should look relevant to search engine crawlers, and Next.js provides a custom head component for setting it up right. Developers can use the head component to configure metadata either statically or dynamically. Including elements like descriptions, meta tags, titles, etc, developers can optimize the head tag to help in SEO efforts.

Which Nextjs Rendering Method is Recommended for SEO?

With Next.js, developers can leverage four rendering methods: Server Side Rendering, Static Site Generation, Incremental Static Regeneration, and Client Side Rendering. Of these four, client side rendering is not considered a good option for SEO. If your project demand is a higher ranking in the search engine results page, our team at Brain Inventory would not recommend using client-side rendering for it. Instead, you can use client side rendering for a specific part of the website that doesn’t need to appear in the eyes of search engine crawlers. It could be dashboard, admin panel, internal apps, or other sections that usually don’t want attention. 

Server side rendering and static site generation are generally popular among developers, because of the prominent benefits they offer for SEO. Static site generation renders web pages on the server side at build time, allowing search engine crawlers like Google to access content including title, metadata and description. On the contrary, client side rendering renders web pages on the client side, which makes the bots see “empty” content on the webpage, resulting in a bad SEO. 

Server-side generation improves SEO, but a major drawback is that developers must rebuild websites whenever they update the content. This process becomes long and hectic for websites that require frequent content updates.

Server side rendering and incremental site generation are also good options for SEO. They both pre-render content like server-side rendering. However, server side rendering, instead of rendering content at the build time, renders it during the request time, making it a perfect fit even for frequently updated websites. Incremental site generation is one step higher than server-side rendering as it allows developers to rebuild pages at specific time intervals, which ensures that the content in the website remains fresh and relevant. 

Get Started With Next.JS 

Next.js is a popular framework that creates a balance between speed and flexibility. It simplifies the development process with in-built features, easy setup, SEO performance optimizations, etc. Considered the best framework for SEO, Next.js helps web pages to load much faster and reach your target audience easily. To get started, you may contact us and schedule a meeting. Our Next.js experts can take care of the technical side of SEO, so your in-house team can focus on more important tasks. Call now for our custom software development services.