Problem Statement
How do you optimize Next.js applications for SEO and what features does Next.js provide?
Explanation
Optimize SEO by using the Metadata API in App Router to define title, description, Open Graph tags, Twitter cards, and structured data through metadata exports or generateMetadata functions in layouts and pages, ensuring search engines and social platforms display your content properly.
Implement proper heading hierarchy with h1 through h6 tags, use semantic HTML elements like article, nav, and section, and ensure all images have descriptive alt attributes for accessibility and SEO.
Generate XML sitemaps dynamically with sitemap.js or sitemap.ts files that Next.js serves automatically at /sitemap.xml, create robots.txt with robots.js for crawler directives, and implement proper canonical URLs to prevent duplicate content issues.
Use server-side rendering for content-heavy pages to ensure search engines receive fully rendered HTML with all content immediately, implement proper internal linking for better crawlability, add structured data using JSON-LD for rich snippets, and ensure mobile-friendliness with responsive design.
Monitor SEO performance with Google Search Console, optimize Core Web Vitals since they're ranking factors, implement internationalization with hreflang tags for multi-language sites, and use next/link for internal navigation to maintain SPA benefits while being crawler-friendly.