SEO TO‐DOs for new React.JS Sites - spmsolutions/seo GitHub Wiki

Optimizing a ReactJS site for SEO requires special attention because React is a JavaScript framework, and search engines traditionally have challenges crawling and indexing JavaScript-heavy sites. However, with proper strategies, you can ensure that your ReactJS site is well-optimized for search engines. Here's what you should do for SEO after deploying your ReactJS site:

• Next.js: If your React site is built with Next.js, you can leverage its built-in support for SSR and SSG. These techniques render pages on the server or at build time, providing fully rendered HTML to search engines.
  • SSR: Use getServerSideProps for pages that need to be dynamically rendered on each request.
  • SSG: Use getStaticProps for pages that can be rendered at build time and served as static files.
• Gatsby: If using Gatsby, it inherently uses SSG, creating a fully static site that is SEO-friendly out of the box.

• React Helmet: Use the react-helmet package to manage the metadata in your React app. This allows you to set page titles, descriptions, and meta tags for each route.

  import { Helmet } from "react-helmet";
  
  function MyComponent() {
    return (
      <Helmet>
        <title>My Page Title</title>
        <meta name="description" content="Description of my page" />
        <meta name="keywords" content="keyword1, keyword2, keyword3" />
        <meta property="og:title" content="My Page Title" />
        <meta property="og:description" content="Description of my page" />
        <meta property="og:image" content="https://mywebsite.com/og-image.jpg" />
        <meta name="twitter:card" content="summary_large_image" />
        <meta name="twitter:title" content="My Page Title" />
        <meta name="twitter:description" content="Description of my page" />
        <meta name="twitter:image" content="https://mywebsite.com/twitter-image.jpg" />
      </Helmet>
    );
  }

• Page Titles and Descriptions: Ensure each page has a unique and descriptive title and meta description.

• Dynamic Sitemaps: For React sites that are dynamically rendered, use tools or libraries like sitemap npm package to generate an XML sitemap.
• Submit Sitemap: After generating the sitemap, submit it to Google Search Console and other search engines.

• Robots.txt: Add a robots.txt file to the root of your website to guide search engine crawlers. Ensure it allows crawling of all pages you want indexed.

  User-agent: *
  Allow: /
  
  Sitemap: https://mywebsite.com/sitemap.xml
  

• Code Splitting: Use React’s built-in support for code splitting (via React.lazy and Suspense) to reduce initial load times.
• Lazy Loading: Implement lazy loading for images and components using libraries like react-lazyload or native HTML5 loading attributes.
• Minification and Compression: Ensure that your JavaScript, CSS, and HTML files are minified. Use tools like Webpack for bundling and Gzip or Brotli compression for serving assets.
• CDN: Use a Content Delivery Network (CDN) to serve static assets quickly across different geographical locations.

• JSON-LD: Add structured data using JSON-LD to help search engines better understand your content. This can be dynamically added using React Helmet or inserted directly in the HTML.

  <Helmet>
    <script type="application/ld+json">
      {`
        {
          "@context": "https://schema.org",
          "@type": "Organization",
          "url": "https://mywebsite.com",
          "logo": "https://mywebsite.com/logo.png",
          "sameAs": [
            "https://www.facebook.com/yourprofile",
            "https://www.instagram.com/yourprofile",
            "https://www.twitter.com/yourprofile"
          ]
        }
      `}
    </script>
  </Helmet>

• Google Search Console: Verify your site and monitor how Google indexes your pages. Look out for issues like mobile usability, index coverage, and Core Web Vitals.
• Bing Webmaster Tools: Similarly, verify your site with Bing and monitor its performance.

• Responsive Design: Ensure your React app is mobile-friendly. Use media queries in your CSS and test your site on different devices.
• Mobile-First Indexing: Since Google uses mobile-first indexing, your site should provide a seamless experience on mobile devices.

• Contextual Links: Within your app, link related pages together to improve the site structure and help search engines discover all your pages.
• Breadcrumbs: Implement breadcrumb navigation to improve user experience and provide additional context for search engines.

• Google Analytics: Integrate Google Analytics with your React app to track user behavior, page views, and conversions.
• Core Web Vitals: Monitor Core Web Vitals, which include metrics like Largest Contentful Paint (LCP), First Input Delay (FID), and Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS), using tools like Google Search Console and Lighthouse.

• Pre-rendering: Use tools like Prerender.io or Rendertron to pre-render JavaScript-heavy pages and serve static HTML to search engines.
• Canonical Tags: Ensure proper use of canonical tags to avoid duplicate content issues.

• Open Graph and Twitter Cards: Ensure your content is optimized for social sharing by including Open Graph tags and Twitter Cards in your metadata.

• SEO Audits: Regularly audit your site using tools like Ahrefs, SEMrush, or Moz to identify and fix SEO issues.
• Regular Updates: Keep your content fresh and relevant, and continue to monitor site performance through Google Search Console and other SEO tools.

ReactJS sites require specific SEO optimizations due to the challenges associated with JavaScript rendering. By implementing SSR/SSG, ensuring proper metadata, optimizing for speed and mobile usability, and monitoring performance through SEO tools, you can significantly improve your site's visibility and ranking on search engines. Regularly update your SEO practices to keep up with changes in search engine algorithms and user expectations.