Unlocking the Full Potential of PWAs with Sitecore and SEO
Interaction! Experience! Content! These are some of the few words you would have heard most commonly in today’s digital landscape. These words are the foundation of how we communicate and thrive in the world surrounded by web and mobile technologies. Progressive Web Apps or PWAs have emerged in this scene as one of the evolving technologies that brings the best of both web and mobile worlds to us. However, no matter how important you think building an exceptional experience is, what is even more essential is to ensure it can be found and discovered by your target users. This is where the powerful content management system, Sitecore, comes into play. Combining PWAs with Sitecore raises the bar and increases the potential for PWAs to be more discoverable and get in the hands of the potential users.
In this blog, we will explore how to optimize a PWA’s discoverability using and implementing Sitecore and SEO best practices.
Understanding PWAs and SEO
Progressive Web Apps (PWAs) offer great features and benefits that are evolving the end user experience. With their faster performance and load times, offline connectivity and a unified app-like experience across multiple platforms, PWAs offer a complete package that enables businesses to deliver exceptional experiences to their customers. However, PWAs also come with some challenges, particularly when it comes to SEO. Before diving into how PWAs can be properly optimized for search, let’s first understand the problems that need to be addressed for search on your PWA.
Going back to the basics, HTML, CSS and JavaScript are foundational elements of how web experiences are built. HTML lays the groundwork by setting up the basic structure and organizing content. CSS adds its flavor to make the content appealing to the user. Finally, JavaScript works its magic to add interactivity and dynamic elements, further enhancing the experience. This is the setup that pretty much every web experience has been built on. But when it comes to PWAs, it slightly differs in its structure. The traditional setup uses server-side rendering (SSR) to optimize performance and search. With server-side rendering (SSR), users are delivered pre rendered pages and it’s much easier for search engines to crawl and index content. However, PWAs serve dynamic content, and its heavy reliance is on JavaScript and client-side rendering (CSR), can add a layer of complexity to optimize it for discoverability. In order to balance this dual relationship, between JavaScript based content and SEO, there is expertise required in both the technical nuances of JavaScript and the principles of SEO.
Even though search engines can crawl and index JavaScript based content, there are still things to consider to ensure the peak performance and search. The process of SEO is never static and with trends like mobile-first indexing and ever changing search algorithms, businesses need to constantly adapt to new best practices and changes in SEO to stay at the top of the ranking charts for their products and services. It’s a continuous process and every PWA must meet the same core principles as any other website. These include:
- Structuring and marking up content to make it visible and understandable to search engines.
- Accurate indexing of content that is expected to appear on search results.
- Adopting new strategies and best practices for dynamic rendering to mitigate issues caused by client-side rendering.
Configure Sitecore for SEO-friendly PWAs
Sitecore is packed with a lot of capabilities and features for SEO that can be configured and set to enhance the searchability of your PWA. Below is a list of some of these items that you will need to consider, for your PWA, as a starting point to make your app SEO-friendly.
Metadata Management
Meta data is key to how the search engines understand your content. Sitecore’s content editor allows you to define page titles, meta descriptions, and keywords specific to each of your PWA pages. It’s a good practice to use unique and descriptive metadata to improve visibility and click through rates for your application.
Canonical URLs
PWAs often have dynamic content which can often result in having duplicate pages. Sitecore consists of built-in features that enables you to define canonical URLs that informs the search engine of the correct version to index for your PWA and prevent indexing any duplicate content.
XML Sitemaps
An XML sitemap acts as a roadmap of your PWA for search engines. Sitecore offers sitemap generation tool to ensure all the critical pages of your PWA are indexed by the search engines. It is a good practice to frequently update the sitemap when content changes.
Schema Markup
Adding a scheme markup helps to enhance visibility on the search engines. Sitecore can help inject structured data, allowing search engines to generate rich snippets like FAQs, reviews and events for your content.
Service Workers and SEO
Service workers are an essential part of PWA which allows for offline capabilities and caching in PWAs, however, if not configured properly, service workers can block search engines from accessing key resources.
Here are some tips:
- Cache Responsibility: You should avoid caching the main HTML file and only cache non-essential resources such as images or scripts, to prevent serving outdated content on the search engines.
- Use Progressive Enhancement: Aim to deliver the core content as a priority, ensuring it’s accessible even if javascript fails.
- Allow Crawling: Verify that your service worker doesn’t accidentally block critical resources through the robots.txt file or HTTP headers.
SEO Best Practices for Improved Discoverability
Implementing strong SEO strategies is crucial for any digital experience. In the case of your PWA, these strategies and best practices ensure that your app reaches your target audience and is ranked higher in search engines. In this section, we are going to explore some of the key industry best practices that you can apply to boost visibility of your PWA.
Lazy Loading Optimization
Sitecore’s media management tools can help implement lazy loading for images and other heavy resources. This not only improves page speed but also ensures SEO performance.
Mobile-First Design
Search engines prefer responsive websites and applications that are mobile-friendly. Sitecore makes it really easy to create and implement responsive design across multiple screen breakpoints. Taking this mobile-first approach will ensure that your PWA adheres to the search engine’s indexing guidelines.
Clean URLs
Use Sitecore’s aliasing and redirection features to maintain clean, user-friendly URLs that search engines can easily understand and rank.
Critical SEO Mistakes in PWA Implementation
- Blocking Resources: Ensure your robots.txt file and service worker configurations allow search engines to crawl essential content.
- HTTPS Issues: HTTPS is mandatory for PWAs and a ranking factor for SEO. Double-check your SSL certificates and configurations.
- Ignoring Fallbacks: Provide meaningful fallback content for non-JavaScript browsers to avoid blank pages.
Maximize Your PWA’s Discoverability with Sitecore
Combining Sitecore’s robust CMS capabilities with PWA features opens up a world of possibilities for delivering fast, engaging, and SEO-friendly experiences. By following these best practices, you can ensure your PWA is not just an absolute stunning experience for your users but also easily discoverable by search engines.
