next-seo

What is next-seo?

The next-seo package is a powerful tool for managing SEO (Search Engine Optimization) in Next.js applications. It provides a simple and declarative way to set up SEO metadata, Open Graph tags, Twitter cards, and more, making it easier to optimize your web pages for search engines and social media platforms.

What are next-seo's main functionalities?

Basic SEO Configuration

This feature allows you to set basic SEO metadata such as the title and description of a page. The NextSeo component is used to wrap the page content, and the title and description props are used to set the respective metadata.

import { NextSeo } from 'next-seo';

const Page = () => (
  <>
    <NextSeo
      title="Simple Usage Example"
      description="A short description goes here."
    />
    <h1>Hello World</h1>
  </>
);

export default Page;

Open Graph Tags

This feature allows you to set Open Graph tags, which are used by social media platforms to display rich previews of your pages. The openGraph prop is used to provide an object with various Open Graph properties such as url, title, description, images, and site_name.

import { NextSeo } from 'next-seo';

const Page = () => (
  <>
    <NextSeo
      openGraph={{
        url: 'https://www.example.com/page',
        title: 'Open Graph Title',
        description: 'Open Graph Description',
        images: [
          {
            url: 'https://www.example.com/og-image.jpg',
            width: 800,
            height: 600,
            alt: 'Og Image Alt',
          },
        ],
        site_name: 'Example Site',
      }}
    />
    <h1>Hello World</h1>
  </>
);

export default Page;

Twitter Card Tags

This feature allows you to set Twitter card tags, which are used by Twitter to display rich previews of your pages. The twitter prop is used to provide an object with various Twitter card properties such as handle, site, and cardType.

import { NextSeo } from 'next-seo';

const Page = () => (
  <>
    <NextSeo
      twitter={{
        handle: '@handle',
        site: '@site',
        cardType: 'summary_large_image',
      }}
    />
    <h1>Hello World</h1>
  </>
);

export default Page;

Other packages similar to next-seo

react-helmet

react-helmet is a popular library for managing changes to the document head in React applications. It allows you to set meta tags, link tags, and other head elements declaratively. Compared to next-seo, react-helmet is more general-purpose and can be used with any React application, not just Next.js.

next-meta

next-meta is another package for managing SEO metadata in Next.js applications. It provides a simple API for setting meta tags, Open Graph tags, and Twitter cards. Compared to next-seo, next-meta is less comprehensive but still useful for basic SEO tasks.

README

Next SEO

Next SEO is a plug in that makes managing your SEO easier in Next.js projects.

This plugin is compatible with version6.0.0+ of next.

NOTE:

The feature of having multiple Open Graph images is only available in version 7.0.0-canary.0+ of next. You just need to supply a single item array:

images: [
  {
    url: 'https://www.example.ie/og-image-01.jpg',
    width: 800,
    height: 600,
    alt: 'Og Image Alt',
  },
],

Supplying multiple images will not break anything, only one will be added to the head.

Recommended Usage

The core module of Next SEO is a component that allows you to easily set the SEO attributes of a page.

The intended usage of this component is that you initialize it in a custom _app.js and instantly give every page of your application some default SEO. Once in place you can override some or all of the properties on per page basis. Ideally you would have unique SEO on each page. But sometimes for example, you might not have the right Open Graph image for sharing on social media. With Next SEO you get your default one so you are always covered.

Below is an example of setting up Next SEO using the recommended usage.

Set Up

Install it:

npm install --save next-seo

Default SEO Configuration

Create a new file at the root of your directory (or where ever you would normally keep them) next-seo.config.js.

Here is an example of a full configuration object:

export default {
  title: 'Title',
  description: 'Description',
  canonical: 'https://www.canonical.ie/',
  openGraph: {
    type: 'website',
    locale: 'en_IE',
    url: 'https://www.url.ie/',
    title: 'Open Graph Title',
    description: 'Open Graph Description',
    defaultImageWidth: 1200,
    defaultImageHeight: 1200,
    // Multiple Open Graph images is only available in version `7.0.0-canary.0`+ of next (see note top of README.md)
    images: [
      {
        url: 'https://www.example.ie/og-image-01.jpg',
        width: 800,
        height: 600,
        alt: 'Og Image Alt',
      },
      {
        url: 'https://www.example.ie/og-image-02.jpg',
        width: 900,
        height: 800,
        alt: 'Og Image Alt',
      },
      { url: 'https://www.example.ie/og-image-03.jpg' },
      { url: 'https://www.example.ie/og-image-04.jpg' },
    ],
    site_name: 'SiteName',
  },
  twitter: {
    handle: '@handle',
    site: '@site',
    cardType: 'summary_large_image',
  },
};

NOTE: There is also the option of noindex you can set this to noindex: true if you wish to no index your site. Great for when in a pre-release phase.

Custom

Next up in your pages directory create a new file, _app.js. See the Next.js docs here for more info on a custom .

import App, { Container } from 'next/app';
import React from 'react';
import NextSeo from 'next-seo';

// import your default seo configuration
import SEO from '../next-seo.config';

export default class MyApp extends App {
  static async getInitialProps({ Component, ctx }) {
    let pageProps = {};
    if (Component.getInitialProps) {
      pageProps = await Component.getInitialProps(ctx);
    }

    return { pageProps };
  }

  render() {
    const { Component, pageProps } = this.props;
    return (
      <Container>
        {/* Here we call NextSeo and pass our default configuration to it  */}
        <NextSeo config={SEO} />
        <Component {...pageProps} />
      </Container>
    );
  }
}

Page Overrides

Full Override:

From this point it is just a matter of calling Next SEO from any page and passing in a config object overriding the desired properties. Below is an example of overriding all properties.

import React from 'react';
import NextSeo from 'next-seo';

export default () => (
  <>
    <NextSeo
      config={{
        title: 'Title B',
        description: 'Description B',
        canonical: 'https://www.canonical.ie/b',
        openGraph: {
          url: 'https://www.url.ie/a',
          title: 'Open Graph Title B',
          description: 'Open Graph Description B',
          // Multiple Open Graph images is only available in version `7.0.0-canary.0`+ of next (see note top of README.md)
          images: [
            {
              url: 'https://www.example.ie/og-image-b-01.jpg',
              width: 800,
              height: 600,
              alt: 'Og Image Alt B',
            },
            {
              url: 'https://www.example.ie/og-image-b-02.jpg',
              width: 900,
              height: 800,
              alt: 'Og Image Alt B Second',
            },
            { url: 'https://www.example.ie/og-image-b-03.jpg' },
            { url: 'https://www.example.ie/og-image-b-04.jpg' },
          ],
          site_name: 'SiteName B',
        },
        twitter: {
          handle: '@handleb',
          site: '@siteb',
          cardType: 'summary_large_image',
        },
      }}
    />
    <p>All of our SEO properties are now updated.</p>
  </>
);

Partial Override:

In this example we only override title, description and canonical. All of the remaining properties that we set in next-seo.config.js will remain the same.

import React from 'react';
import NextSeo from 'next-seo';

export default () => (
  <>
    <NextSeo
      config={{
        title: 'Title C',
        description: 'Description C',
        canonical: 'https://www.canonical.ie/c',
      }}
    />
    <p>Only update title, description and canonical.</p>
  </>
);

No Index Override:

In this example we only override no index a single page:

import React from 'react';
import NextSeo from 'next-seo';

export default () => (
  <>
    <NextSeo
      config={{
        noindex: true,
      }}
    />
    <p>Only update title, description and canonical.</p>
  </>
);

Simple Usage

The simple usage would be to just include Next SEO on any page you want to set SEO attributes. One thing to note here is that you loose the default SEO behaviour, so your SEO attributes will only show on pages you include <NextSeo config={YOUR_CONFIG}>. If you are using this method you will need to redefine all properties if required.

import React from 'react';
import NextSeo from 'next-seo';

export default () => (
  <>
    <NextSeo
      config={{
        title: 'Simple Usage Example',
        description: 'A short description goes here.',
        canonical: 'https://www.canonical.ie/b',
        openGraph: {
          url: 'https://www.url.ie/a',
          title: 'Open Graph Title B',
          description: 'Open Graph Description B',
          images: [
            {
              url: 'https://www.example.ie/og-image-b-01.jpg',
              width: 800,
              height: 600,
              alt: 'Og Image Alt B',
            },
            {
              url: 'https://www.example.ie/og-image-b-02.jpg',
              width: 900,
              height: 800,
              alt: 'Og Image Alt B Second',
            },
            { url: 'https://www.example.ie/og-image-b-03.jpg' },
            { url: 'https://www.example.ie/og-image-b-04.jpg' },
          ],
          site_name: 'SiteName B',
        },
        twitter: {
          handle: '@handleb',
          site: '@siteb',
          cardType: 'summary_large_image',
        },
      }}
    />
    <p>Simple Usage</p>
  </>
);

JSON-LD

Next SEO now has the ability to set JSON-LD a form of structured data. Structured data is a standardised format for providing information about a page and classifying the page content.

Google has excellent content on JSON-LD -> HERE

Below you will find a very basic page implementing each of the available JSON-LD types:

• Article
• Blog
• Course

More to follow very, very soon!

Article

import React from 'react';
import { ArticleJsonLd } from 'next-seo';

export default () => (
  <>
    <h1>Article JSON-LD</h1>
    <ArticleJsonLd
      url="https://example.com/article"
      title="Article headline"
      images={[
        'https://example.com/photos/1x1/photo.jpg',
        'https://example.com/photos/4x3/photo.jpg',
        'https://example.com/photos/16x9/photo.jpg',
      ]}
      datePublished="2015-02-05T08:00:00+08:00"
      dateModified="2015-02-05T09:00:00+08:00"
      authorName="Jane Blogs"
      publisherName="Gary Meehan"
      publisherLogo="https://www.example.com/photos/logo.jpg"
      description="This is a mighty good description of this article."
    />
  </>
);

Blog

import React from 'react';
import { BlogJsonLd } from 'next-seo';

export default () => (
  <>
    <h1>Blog JSON-LD</h1>
    <BlogJsonLd
      url="https://example.com/blog"
      title="Blog headline"
      images={[
        'https://example.com/photos/1x1/photo.jpg',
        'https://example.com/photos/4x3/photo.jpg',
        'https://example.com/photos/16x9/photo.jpg',
      ]}
      datePublished="2015-02-05T08:00:00+08:00"
      dateModified="2015-02-05T09:00:00+08:00"
      authorName="Jane Blogs"
      description="This is a mighty good description of this blog."
    />
  </>
);

Course

import React from 'react';
import { CourseJsonLd } from 'next-seo';

export default () => (
  <>
    <h1>Course JSON-LD</h1>
    <CourseJsonLd
      courseName="Course Name"
      providerName="Course Provider"
      providerUrl="https//www.example.com/provider"
      description="Course description goes right here"
    />
  </>
);