5 Simple Steps to Enhance SEO in Your React Application

SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is essential for the success of any website. It ensures that your website ranks higher on search engines, resulting in more visitors. This post will walk you through the process of creating SEO in ReactJS.

Step 1: Install React Helmet

React Helmet is a package that allows you to control your document head using React components. To install React Helmet, open your terminal and type the following command:
yarn add react-helmet

Step 2: Import React Helmet

After installation, you need to import React Helmet in your React component. You can do this by adding the following line of code at the top of your file:
import { Helmet } from 'react-helmet';

Step 3: Add Meta Tags

To add meta tags to your React component, you need to use the <Helmet> component. For example, to add the title tag, you can use the following code:

<Helmet>
  <title>{Title of your page}</title>
</Helmet>

Similarly, to add meta description tag, you can use the following code:

<Helmet>
  <meta name="description" content={Description of your page} />
</Helmet>

Step 4: Add Open Graph Tags

Open Graph tags are used to enhance the appearance of your website when it is shared on social media platforms. To add Open Graph tags, you can use the following code:

<Helmet>
  <meta property="og:title" content={Title of your page} />
  <meta property="og:description" content={Description of your page} />
  <meta property="og:image" content={URL of the image you want to use} />
  <meta property="og:url" content={URL of your page} />
  <meta property="og:type" content="website" />
</Helmet>

Step 5: Add Twitter Tags

Twitter tags are similar to Open Graph tags, but they are used specifically for Twitter. To add Twitter tags, you can use the following code:

<Helmet>
  <meta name="twitter:title" content={Title of your page} />
  <meta name="twitter:description" content={Description of your page} />
  <meta name="twitter:image" content={URL of the image you want to use} />
  <meta name="twitter:card" content="summary_large_image" />
</Helmet>

Also Consider the following factors before going live:

1. XML Sitemaps
2. Mobile responsiveness
3. SSL certificate
4. Semantic HTML
5. Image optimization(lazy load, webp format, alt tags)
6. Make use of Redux for optimization
7. Optimize the robot.txt to help search bots understand how to crawl pages on your website
8. Use server side rendering
9. Have 404 error page

By following the steps mentioned above, you can create an SEO-friendly ReactJS website that will rank higher in search results and attract more organic traffic.
Sadly, dealing with React apps adds to the already lengthy list of challenges that a technical SEO must address. Yet, frameworks like as Next.js have made the task of an SEO lot easier than it was previously.

Feel free to leave a comment below and share your tips for optimizing SEO!!

Comments

[Jack]

SEO is important everywhere nowadays. Also for applications. It is best to take SEO optimization into account when designing. But there are always shortcomings. I highly recommend this post on the subject: ecency.com/seo/@seraph98/how-to-op...

[KondoManager]

Hi thanks for your post. Is helmet still actively developed?

[Aditya]

It is recemmnded to use helmet-async

[ReyTortuga]

This was a breath of fresh air!