Is the JAMstack really better for SEO?

A common argument in favor of the JAMstack is that serving sites statically via a CDN is better for SEO. Compared to their dynamic counterparts, static assets excel when it comes to SEO chiefly because of performance. A faster load time means better SEO since search engines prioritize load times when indexing a site. Even so, relying on the nature of static content (to load fast) alone is insufficient for a healthy SEO strategy. It fails to account and optimize for other metrics like mobile traffic, and how your site performs within the Search Engine Results Page (SERP). Because JAMstack sites favor pre-rendering over server side rendering, structuring content to meet SEO goals is in fact a small, albeit intentional task.

To start, sites can make the most of “search engine presence” by building sitemaps so the bots can effectively crawl for content. Sitemaps are trivial to build when working with static sites since the content is already accessible and ready for organizing. Moreover, because many static sites are built with static site generators that have site map functionality either built in or available via a plugin, creating site maps is fairly trivial. Structured data is an added factor for good SEO that is made accessible with the JAMstack. Search engines prioritize content based on its relevance to a search term. JSON-LD is a schema that many search engines use to disambiguate and establish facts around entities. This directly correlates to a more organized web that search engines can easily parse. In the realm of static sites, adding JSON-LD is pretty straightforward. Instead of having to embellish your server rendered content specifically for the bots, JSON-LD can be added in in the build step itself. By running a simple script that injects the necessary data directly into your HTML, you’ll be up and running with structured content without having to separately create content for human eyes and bots. When it comes to optimizing your content, the JAMstack architecture sets your site up perfectly to hit your SEO goals. Actually reaching those goals however may take a bit of leg work. For more practical tips and tricks on building SEO friendly JAMstack sites, check out this article.