Key Takeaways
When using a Headless CMS, being aware of SEO best practices is key, since the concept of plugins and add-ons are not prevalent.
A Headless CMS can provide a stronger SEO readiness based on performance, content, and optimization for multiple devices.
A Headless CMS is critical when becoming SEO-ready for omnichannel queries across desktop, mobile, wearables, smart devices, and other IoT platforms like appliances, VR/AR, etc.
A Headless CMS can integrate and connect with any MarTech stack, ensuring content creators have full control on their content lifecycle from start to conversion.
High-quality original content, proper keyword choice and placement, interlinked content pieces, domain authority, social sharing, and backlinks from reputable sources are still of prime importance for strong SEO.
The 19 Best Practices for SEO with a Headless CMS are around page performance, structured data, knowledge graph, HTTPS, CDN, keyword research, SERP friendly URLs, metadata, optimized media, regular audits, quality content, focus keywords, content frequency, XML sitemaps, canonical URLs, internal linking, mobile readiness, and voice readiness.
A Headless CMS could get better SEO results due to added flexibility and framework agnostic behavior.
SEO has a particularly bad reputation for being overly complicated and time-consuming, especially with Google's constantly changing algorithms. While good SEO is an investment and something that will not yield measurable results as rapidly as advertising, it is most definitely one of the strongest foundations for growing a sustainable online presence.
Previously, we’ve covered the SEO benefits of migrating from a legacy CMS to a headless CMS regarding page performance, security, user experience, and delivering content to multiple platforms. Since a headless CMS will not necessarily give you the simplicity of installing a plugin to manage SEO factors, you need to follow a few best practices to kick-start stellar SEO results.
This chapter aims to help set yourself up for SEO success when migrating from a monolithic system. We will examine the differences between doing traditional SEO and headless SEO, and share both technical and editorial best practices you should follow to take your SEO to the next level.
What is headless SEO
Simply put, headless SEO is the process of optimizing your headless CMS so that your website performs better organically.
That being said, the commonly accepted best practices for on-page and off-page optimization do not change: High-quality original content, proper keyword choice and placement, interlinked content pieces, domain authority, social sharing, and backlinks from reputable sources are guidelines you should keep following.
Previously, SERP placements were heavily dictated by keyword volume and density, resulting in poor-quality web pages aimed at robots more than humans. Since then, algorithms have evolved to factor in content quality, NLP (Natural Language Processing), context, performance, cross-device UX, history, and a multitude of other ranking factors, resulting in websites finding the need to produce more human-oriented quality content rather than robot-focused gibberish.
Traditional CMS platforms, like WordPress and Drupal, made it easier for marketers to better oversee their optimization efforts, primarily via "plugins" and "add-ons" that gave editors an "SEO Score" among other information.
However, the closer we move into the IoT era with AI, Voice Search, and omnichannel experiences, traditional CMSs start to show their limitations. The emergence of the need for a headless CMS for voice assistants like Google Home, Alexa, and Siri; wearables like the Apple Watch, Galaxy Watch, SNAP spectacles; and VR Devices like the Oculus have dramatically changed how we interact with the digital world around us - meaning that we can no longer rely on legacy CMS to push content to the countless devices we consume content from.
Interestingly, the principles of SEO, or a loose translation of them, also apply to the devices we interact with, even though they might not be search results. The structure of a web page selling dresses and following SEO best practices could have its content qualified for an Alexa answer when asked, "Alexa, where can I find a red dress?". The same principles apply to news apps that want to deliver headlines and blurbs to wearables like the Apple Watch or Fitbit, with a headless CMS for smartwatches in a native format.
With all these added layers of complexity pressing on the need to create quality and relevant content, the importance of following SEO best practices with a headless CMS rises in value.
How is headless SEO different from traditional SEO?
A commonly believed myth about headless CMS is that it’s less SEO friendly. Previously, we’ve debunked the myth in the CMS myth buster article. While traditional CMS platforms might offer built-in SEO features, achieving great SEO with headless CMS is absolutely possible with a hands-on approach from developers. Altough the general SEO principles apply, the input and the processes are different given that there are technical differences with having your CMS separated from the frontend.
Empower editors with stonger SEO control
From an editorial side, the biggest visible difference between a traditional CMS and a headless one is the ability to manage content: better edit metadata on the fly, have more control of structured data, and build digital experiences that are defined by the user rather than by the theme or technology. Since a traditional CMS is closely integrated with your domain and controls how content is rendered, using a platform like WordPress or Drupal allows you to add page titles, descriptions, and other meta tags out of the box. However, the drawback is that it's difficult when you want to customize the setup.
Due to its cross-platform flexibility, a headless CMS does not control how your content is rendered, which is why this functionality must be handled differently. Developers have full control over SEO implementation, meaning they can set up the UI according to the team’s SEO preferences. Therefore, the editorial team must be explicit with its requirements. A well-constructed SEO component can look just like the Yoast SEO plugin on WordPress.
Integrate SEO capabilities into your architecture instead of plugins
With a traditional CMS, users are heavily reliant on multiple combinations of plugins to manage metadata, structured content, breadcrumbs, custom taxonomies, caching, security, and content optimization, to name a few factors. This means juggling updates, troubleshooting plugin conflicts, and dealing with security vulnerabilities caused by outdated add-ons.
Conversely, a headless CMS integrates these capabilities directly into its architecture. As a result, the headless SEO approach reduces complexity while offering greater flexibility and scalability. You can configure all SEO factors in the way that works for your team and have granular control over what content goes where.
Implement your SEO strategy with content models instead of pages
Good SEO begins long before the editorial team writes and shapes their content. A project's build and technical implementations are the benchmarks the content team can expand upon. Instead of coming up with an SEO strategy and implementing it page by page afterward, headless SEO requires you to think differently and implement your SEO strategy from the very beginning.
Since headless CMS platforms do not come with predefined page templates, you’ll need to define content models for different types of pages based on your needs. A content model serves as a structured schema outlining the types of content and their attributes. Developers should carefully consider SEO requirements when creating these models. For example, if you manage a shoe brand and want specific information, such as price and customer ratings, to appear in SERP, you should include dedicated fields for these attributes in your content model.
Beyond this, viewing content as modular blocks—such as banners, product descriptions, or reviews—and defining how they interrelate can enhance both site usability and SEO, enabling better indexing and visibility for search engines.
Recommended reading
How headless CMS benefits SEO
Create optimal content that works for SEO
A headless CMS lets you focus on structured, SEO-friendly content by allowing you to define your own content models without being tied to rigid templates. For example, in eCommerce, you can create specific fields for price, product descriptions, and ratings, ensuring your content is optimized for search engines. This flexibility makes your content interconnected, reusable, and better suited for driving SEO results.
In the case of Hygraph, you get the ability to pull content and data from other systems and enrich your content entries via Content Federation which may in turn help you create better content while removing the manual work.
Deliver content with full control over your frontend
In the first chapter, we've covered the basics of a headless CMS. A headless CMS comes without a "frontend" out of the box, meaning a user has no restrictions on dictating how, where, when, and why content is dictated across platforms, without the limitations often imposed by themes, templates, plugins, and technology frameworks.
Since headless CMS is "built for the IoT era," content creators can deliver content in any format to any device. The evolution of treating content as anything more than the text on a webpage or mobile app has led to the emergence of having an editor-ready "CMS" delivering content to any platform, including smart speakers, VR devices, cars, watches, and even smart fridges. In principle, a Headless CMS is a future-proof solution since it can deliver content via APIs to platforms and channels that may not even exist yet.
Better site performance
Headless CMS enables you to use an Static Site Generator on the frontend which is by far the best way to build a performant website and make sure your Core Web Vitals are in order. SSG allows pages to load faster since they are pre-rendered as static files and served to users immediately, which improves page speed—a critical ranking factor for Google. Faster-loading pages not only enhance user experience but also facilitate easier and quicker crawling by search engine bots.
This means that updated or newly published content is more likely to be noticed and indexed promptly, ensuring your site stays relevant in search engine results. Additionally, by decoupling the CMS backend from the frontend, headless CMS platforms allow for fine-tuned optimization strategies without reliance on plugins that could slow performance.
Seamless team collaboration
Headless CMS allows developers, content creators, and editors, complete flexibility in ensuring the best structures for content creation, distribution, and SEO. Marketers don't need to wait on developers to implement changes and vice versa. So, teams are able to deliver digital experiences even faster by working in parallel and applying agile methodologies.
A headless CMS saves time since content only needs to be created once, and can be customized and distributed across platforms natively. Without the frontend layer and mandatory tech-stack of a monolithic CMS tying down the processes, performance, and capabilities of teams, embracing a headless CMS improves performance metrics for SEO across the board.
Easy integration with MarTech stack
In principle, this also ensures that a headless CMS can integrate and connect with every MarTech stack out there, as there are no longer issues related to native integrations, plugins, or compatibility. A headless CMS can allow you to easily hook up your favorite tools for marketing automation, CRM, CDP, analytics, performance marketing, A/B testing, and personalisation, either directly via API, or through a series of hooks - the combinations are quite literally endless.
Potential drawbacks
With a headless CMS, you must build things up from the ground up. As opposed to monolithic CMSs such as Wordpress, where SEO is handled by plugins (such as sitemaps, metadata, etc.), you will need a developer to set this up. You might encounter hiccups if you don't have enough development resources.
Recommended reading
Headless SEO best practices
Use the Schema.org structured data markup schema
A joint effort by most of the major search engines, Schema.org provides web developers with a set of pre-defined properties to enrich their HTML tags. The on-page markup adds structure to content and makes it more understandable to search engines. Richer search results can be delivered.
Search Engine bots work hard to understand the content of a page. Helping them by providing explicit clues about the meaning of a page with structured data allows for better indexing and understanding. For example, here is a JSON-LD structured data snippet provided by Google that helps understand how contact information might be structured:
Similarly, if your content is more instructional or enhanced, such as when creating recipes or tutorials, structured data also helps your content show up as featured snippets within a graphical search result. An example would be googling “Apple Pie Recipe,” and instead of seeing a list of results leading you to recipes, you would see a “featured” result on the top, which would either be the recipe itself or a link to a chosen destination that is popular for the same query.
Ensure accurate and concise meta tags
Meta tags are the most essential descriptors of a page’s content. Not visible to the user, they help search engines determine what your content is about. The four key meta tags with their respective recommended maximum text lengths are:
- Title tag (70 characters)
- Meta Description - short description of the content (160 characters)
- Meta Keywords - what keywords are relevant for a page (5-10 keywords)
- Meta Robots - what should search engines do with a page
Since a developer freely designs the content architecture of a website with an un-opinionated headless CMS like Hygraph, the metatags should be added as String fields to all relevant content models. Content authors can then comfortably add the relevant metadata. When used with these best practices in mind, a headless CMS can enable better SEO results.
Regularly perform Lighthouse Audits
Lighthouse is an open-source tool for auditing webpages. It runs a series of tests on your webpage and generates a report with a lighthouse score and a series of recommendations. The audit categories include performance, accessibility, progressive web apps etc.
More recently, a surge in Static Site Generators, like Gatsby and Hugo, have also made a compelling argument for going headless when starting new projects. When testing Gatsby’s starter out of the box, performance scores are very high compared to starting with basic themes from most legacy CMS, giving new projects a head-start on page performance and optimization.
Using React or Vue – SEO is in your hands
Although loading speed definitely favors single page applications built with React and Vue, there are a few SEO challenges that can be avoided if you take the necessary precautions.
Adding a component for your metadata is essential. However, a JavaScript-powered web application that renders dynamically on the client-side may not be crawled and indexed at all. Components that are not properly read will be assumed to be empty. Here are some measures to properly manage your metadata:
- To manage the metadata of a React web app, take a look at React Helmet. A component like React Router will make the URL structure of your website more search engine friendly by creating paths between different pages.
- If JavaScript is disabled on the client side, you can look into Isomorphic Javascript technology, which runs JavaScript on the server-side before sending it to the client. Alternatively, a tool like Prerender will pre-render the website and return the content in full HTML.
Use a static site generator
SSGs like Hugo, Jekyll, and Gatsby often take care of the major technical SEO challenges for you. Not only do they guarantee an amazing loading time due to the application being pre-built when delivered, but they also do the heavy-lifting in regard to metadata management and mapping your content. Check out Gatsby’s React Helmet and Sitemap plugins.
Use a CDN
A Content Delivery Network, like Cloudflare, allows you to distribute your content across a wide network of servers, usually distributed globally. When a user makes a call to your website, your website responds with two things: the basic text and data, and instructions to pull the media and/or scripts from the CDN. The user’s browser obeys those instructions and asks the CDN for the media.
Optimize media and images for SEO
Fine-tuning how a website treats assets and optimizing their usage can provide admirable contributions to SEO when done right.
Ensure that assets uploaded by the content team get properly resized and compressed to avoid adverse impacts on page performance. When new posts are created, ensure that the content team is able to provide relevant file names and alt-attributes for the images to follow best practices when being indexed.
In the case of Hygraph, you can pre-define the desired maximum size of your image assets in your GraphQL query. Even if an inexperienced content creator uploads a large image to the CMS, your precautions will take care of fast loading times.
Make use of Lazy Loading of images and video. The most essential content is downloaded first and only when required do media resources get fetched. Page size goes down, page load time goes up.
Use images in the SVG or WebP format. They are vectorized for the best quality and optimized in size for the fastest loading possible.
Add Open Graph metatags for your images. Users get a quick visual summary of your content, so Google loves them.
Use SSL
Secure your communication with users by upgrading to HTTPS. Users are more conscious about websites that aren’t secure by default, and with Google marking HTTP websites as insecure, there’s no excuse to avoid adding that layer of encryption and security.
HTTPS websites load much faster, and as we know, page speed plays an important role in ranking. More specifically, HTTPS has been a factor in Google’s ranking algorithms since 2014.
Make use of the Knowledge Graph for SEO
The Knowledge Graph is a knowledge base used by Google and its services to enhance its SERP with information gathered from a variety of sources - which is presented as an info-box next to results for rapid consumption of search queries.
Depending on your use case, structured data might contribute to Google's Knowledge Graph to provide your readers with better results, relevant links, and upfront information. For context, the Knowledge Graph is applicable to a variety of entities, including but not limited to local businesses, public personalities, brands, attractions, etc.
Common information that is part of the Knowledge Graph includes factors like reviews, opening hours, contact information, directions, links to sources, etc.
Information from the Knowledge Graph is used to answer direct spoken questions in Google Assistant and Google Home voice queries.
Keyword research
The precursor to well optimized pages are relevant content needs. No SEO campaign would exist if people didn't know what search terms visitors are using to search for products or services. Google Keyword Planner, Google Search Console, and a wide range of tools and services can help identify both short- and long-tail keywords. Building quality around highly-searched and relevant keywords can dramatically improve reader relevance and reduce bounce rates.
Use concise, SERP-friendly URLs
Ensure that all pages follow a friendly URL structure.
A clear SERP friendly URL reads similar to example.com/about-this-page.
A complicated and unclear URL reads similar to example.com/products/page-id-1231/2019-09-01
SEO friendly URLs are designed to match what people are searching for with better relevance and transparency of where their click leads to. URLs that are keyword-rich and short tend to perform better than longer ones.
Create content with quality for humans
Consider this to be the number one rule when it comes to creating content with your headless CMS. High-quality content that is engaging, informative, and relevant is a strong SEO factor as it reduces bounce rates, increases time on page, could improve UX, and results in high relevance scores.
Always aim for a conversational and friendly tone with all your content, and match it to your brand persona.
Describe your content with focus keywords early on, and include focus keywords in the URL
Your URL should encourage the inclusion of the target keyword for your page, with the content itself having clearly defined tags like H1, H2, etc. When you include a keyword in your URL, the keyword tells search engines that "This page is about this keyword," and having meta tags enforce that content correlation strengthens your page's relevance to the search.
This lets Search Engines know exactly what your content is about, and how relevant it would be for a user searching for those queries.
Similarly, using the focus keywords higher up in the article increase their relevance to search results. If your page is talking about pizza in New York, having a URL like example.com/new-york-pizza combined with talking about "New York pizza" in the first few sentences would send strong signals to SERPs.
Create content regularly
While the quality of content that you produce is important, and quality trumps pure quantity, we can't deny the perception of larger websites to smaller ones. SERPs tend to prefer larger websites since they are more content heavy, indicating a more mature and established brand. Similarly, the UX wouldn't be exceptional when looking for information only to find a website that has a few pages. To make your site larger, you need to get into the habit of producing high-quality content on a consistent basis.
XML Sitemaps
To ensure search engines index all of your content, you need to create, maintain, and update an XML sitemap, and accordingly submit them to Google Search Console, Bing Webmaster, and similar. There are many tools that are available that can help you with this when using a headless CMS like Hygraph. Either you can generate one yourself based on your page structures, or use tools like Gatsby's Sitemap Plugin.
Use canonical URLs and practice internal linking
SERPs tend to lose their preference for websites that create too much duplicate content, even when necessary (like in the case of eCommerce websites with multiple variations of the same product). But it is less about the main body of the content, it is more to do with the tags and HTML duplication that appears in a repetitive manner. Implementing canonical URLs for duplicated content with minor differences will notify search engines that duplicated content should take precedence.
Similarly, internal linking adds authority to pages you control and lets search engines understand what content is relevant to the other. Strong internal linking and high-quality content further enrich site extensions on Google, allowing readers to get relevant and related results for their queries, increasing their likelihood of clicking onwards.
Be mobile SEO ready
With over 50% of all searches on mobile devices, businesses no longer have an excuse for having their content purely optimized for desktop traffic. When optimizing mobile experiences, avoid using Flash since it may not be available on the user's phone. Use HTML5 instead.
Additionally, don't block CSS, JavaScript, or images. In the past, most mobile devices couldn't support all the elements, so developers either blocked one or all three. But nowadays, this is no longer a worry. The Googlebot now wants to see all elements of your mobile site to determine whether you have a responsive site or a different mobile offering. In fact, Google is aggressively indexing websites "mobile-first", and placing greater importance on mobile-friendliness for websites that are indexed.
Be voice SEO ready
In 2016, 20% of all queries on Google were voice-based. By 2020, it's predicted that the number will rise to almost 50%. Voice readiness and optimization are no longer a passing fad, and businesses are struggling to grasp "voice readiness." Although the combination for a Headless CMS and Voice Search deserves its own piece, in summary, to rise to "position 0," a few factors play in parallel.
- Use structured data.
- Claim your business' information across reputation platforms to contribute to the Knowledge Graph.
- Be mobile-friendly.
- Create content answering questions rather than discussing topics.
- In a headless CMS, developers have more control over the technical aspects of SEO implementation .
- the flexibility of headless CMS allows for advanced SEO strategies, such as translating URL slugs for multilingual websites, which can give you a global SEO advantage.
Ensure your pages are easily sharable
Lastly, ensure that pages are easily shareable. We’ve covered the importance of having OpenGraph and Twitter Card enabled meta information, making it easier for links shared to carry forward the correct images and page information. Having pages that can easily be shared via Social Media and Bookmarking sites with images, headers, and titles makes it easier for readers to amplify the reach of a page, allowing for overall improvements in backlinks, referral traffic, and brand awareness - giving extra strength to your pages and increasing their trustworthiness when being ranked.
Frequently Asked Questions
Are headless CMSs good for SEO?
There is no a yes or no answer to this. The SEO accessibility that comes included with a traditional CMS such as WordPress doesn’t exist as standard for a headless CMS. With a Headless CMS, SEO is treated as data, giving the user complete control over defining what SEO means for them from a technical and operational standpoint.
How does a Headless CMS impact SEO?
A correctly set up headless CMS can have far more significant SEO benefits than a traditional CMS if it is rightly considered and planned for, beginning with sound technical implementation. The benefits of using a headless CMS include greater site speed, full control of URLs, flexible site architecture, and the ability to control the technical setup far more than with a traditional CMS.
What are some Headless CMS and SEO considerations?
To begin with, ensure that you’re using structured content and structured data, with the correct schema markups for content types. Ensure all content has the relevant metadata and that URL structures and Assets follow best practices. Use modern frameworks to keep the performance of your digital content high, and follow commonalities such as ensuring HTTPS, generating XML sitemaps, and keeping responsiveness.
Do I need to worry about Server-Side Rendering (SSR) with a Headless CMS?
Although Google is able to crawl client-side rendered applications, there are still a few reasons why server-side rendering (SSR) might be preferable.
- Most other search engines still don’t crawl client-side rendered content.
- Googlebot might run on an old version of Chrome that is not supported by your app.
- There are a different set of challenges when crawling JavaScript websites, especially client-side.
What are Headless CMS and SEO best practices?
- Use the Schema.org structured data markup schema
- Ensure accurate and concise meta tags
- Regularly perform Lighthouse Audits
- Using React or Vue – SEO is in your hands
- Use a static site generator
- Use a CDN
- Optimize media and images for SEO
- Use SSL
- Make use of the Knowledge Graph for SEO
- Keyword research
- Use concise, SERP-friendly URLs
- Create content with quality for humans
- Describe your content with focus keywords early on, and include focus keywords in the URL
- Create content regularly
- XML Sitemaps
- Use canonical URLs and practice internal linking
- Be mobile SEO ready
- Be voice SEO ready
- Ensure your pages are easily sharable