Maximizing SEO and Performance with Next.js: Strategies from an Activity Booking Platform Project

Introduction

Among thousands of pieces of content in search engines, standing out in results is crucial. Recently, I had the opportunity to lead SEO and performance optimization when building a new webpage for a Japanese activity booking platform. This project provided valuable insights into effective SEO and performance strategies using Next.js. In this article, I'll share the key learnings from this experience.

Our Approach

We adopted a multifaceted approach, focusing on three key areas:

Performance Optimization
Structured Data and Metadata Enhancement
Technical SEO Implementation

1. Performance Optimization

Key Strategies:

Utilizing Next.js's built-in image optimization can improve page load times, especially by using the sizes prop which determines how wide and tall the image will be at different breakpoints. If you forget to apply this prop, your app will possibly get larger images than you actually need, which leads to poor performance.
Knowing when to use priority and lazy loading for images. If the image is the Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) element and visible in the first view, it's time to use priority, which automatically disables lazy loading. This allows preloading of the elements. Alternatively, you can use lazy loading, which is set by default when using next/image. It can reduce the initial load time because it defers loading the image until it reaches a calculated distance from the viewport.
Incremental Static Regeneration (ISR) perfectly balances static site generation and server-side rendering, allowing for fast page loads while keeping content fresh.
- Fast page loading: Due to static generation at build time, the initial load becomes very fast
- Improved SEO: Statically generated pages can be easily indexed by search engines
- Automated updates: By using ISR (Incremental Static Regeneration), pages can be regenerated at specified intervals to reflect new product information

2. Structured Data and Metadata Enhancement

Key Strategies:

Implementing Schema.org structured data for product listings can potentially lead to rich snippets in search results, increasing click-through rates.
Carefully crafted meta titles and descriptions, incorporating primary keywords can significantly improve search visibility.
Proper implementation of OG tags and Twitter cards can boost social media sharing, indirectly supporting SEO efforts.

3. Technical SEO Implementation

Key Strategies:

By using the WebP format, you can significantly reduce file sizes while maintaining almost the same image quality. This results in an expected improvement in display speed.
Setting appropriate alt tags for images allows users to understand the content even in poor network conditions through text-to-speech functionality, and provide web content audibly to users with visual impairments. While it's unclear whether this directly improves SEO, it's expected that enhancing usability will improve the user experience, potentially leading to better evaluation and recognition.
Implementing an efficient pagination strategy is crucial for large e-commerce sites to ensure all products are crawled and indexed.
Semantic HTML Structure: We ensured our HTML structure was semantic and well-organized, using appropriate heading tags (H1, H2, etc.), paragraph tags, and so on.
Setting proper hreflang tags for Google to identify our website, which offers multiple languages.

Conclusion

SEO optimization is not something that can be achieved overnight, and there are many things you can do. Among these, Next.js provides numerous features that make it easier to improve performance. I hope you can utilize the features that suit your project to enhance SEO and performance!

If you know of any other methods to improve SEO, please let me know in the comments!