Next.js: The Ultimate Guide to Achieving 100% SEO and Performance

Photo by Kevin Ku on Unsplash

In the realm of web development, creating a visually stunning and highly efficient website is paramount. At our organization, we have adopted Next.js as a means of optimizing our website’s SEO and performance to the fullest extent possible. We will reveal some of our most valuable techniques and practices for fine-tuning your Next.js website and achieving an exceptional level of optimization.

Leverage the Power of Static Site Generation (SSG)

Next.js has a notable advantage in that it can create static websites, which greatly improves a site’s performance. SSG pre-renders all of a website’s pages at the time of build, resulting in users receiving a fully optimized, rapidly loading site. This method has additional SEO benefits, as search engines can quickly crawl and index static pages.

To utilize SSG in Next.js, you can use the getStaticProps and getStaticPaths functions. Here's an example of how to use getStaticProps to fetch data and pre-render a page:

export async function getStaticProps() {
  const res = await fetch('https://api.example.com/data');
  const data = await res.json();
  
  return {
    props: {
      data
    }
  }
}

Optimize Images for Better Site Performance

Images play a crucial role in any website, but can also significantly impact performance if not properly optimized. To avoid sluggish page loads, we suggest compressing images to reduce their file size. In addition, it’s important to define image dimensions to prevent layout shifts and to incorporate lazy loading to speed up page loading.

To optimize images in Next.js, you can use the next/image component. Here's an example of how to use it to optimize an image:

import Image from 'next/image';

function MyImage() {
  return (
    <Image 
      src="/my-image.jpg"
      alt="My Image"
      width={500}
      height={500}
    />
  )
}

Efficient Code is Key

Efficiency is crucial when it comes to code and website performance, and Next.js includes a number of features that assist with code optimization. One such feature is Automatic Code…