SEO in Headless WordPress: Better Than Traditional?

One concern we hear about headless WordPress: “What about SEO?”

The truth is, headless WordPress can be better for SEO than traditional WordPress. Here’s why.

Performance is an SEO Factor

Google’s Core Web Vitals directly impact rankings. FlatWP’s static/ISR approach delivers:

• LCP < 1s: Pages load in under a second (vs 3-5s for traditional WP)
• CLS near 0: No layout shift from lazy-loaded elements
• FID < 50ms: Instant interactivity

These metrics give you a ranking advantage over slower traditional sites.

Server-Side Rendering

Unlike single-page apps that struggle with SEO, Next.js renders full HTML on the server. Crawlers see complete, rendered pages – no JavaScript execution required.

This means:

• Content is immediately available to bots
• Social media crawlers see proper Open Graph data
• No SEO penalties for client-side rendering

Meta Data from WordPress

FlatWP pulls SEO metadata directly from Yoast or Rank Math:

export async function generateMetadata({ params }) {
  const post = await fetchPost(params.slug);
  
  return {
    title: post.seo.title,
    description: post.seo.metaDesc,
    openGraph: {
      images: [post.seo.opengraphImage],
    },
  };
}

Editors manage SEO in WordPress. Next.js renders it perfectly.

Automatic Sitemaps

FlatWP generates XML sitemaps dynamically from WordPress content:

export default async function sitemap() {
  const posts = await fetchAllPosts();
  
  return posts.map(post => ({
    url: `https://flatwp.com/blog/${post.slug}`,
    lastModified: post.modifiedDate,
  }));
}

When content updates, the sitemap updates. Search engines stay in sync.

Schema Markup

We include proper JSON-LD schema for articles:

{
  "@context": "https://schema.org",
  "@type": "Article",
  "headline": post.title,
  "datePublished": post.date,
  "author": {
    "@type": "Person",
    "name": post.author.name
  }
}

This helps Google understand your content structure.

No Bloat

Traditional WordPress sites load unnecessary plugins, tracking scripts, and theme bloat. This slows everything down.

With FlatWP, you control exactly what JavaScript loads. Most pages need zero client-side JS for content display.

The Bottom Line

Headless WordPress with Next.js is better for SEO than traditional WordPress because:

1. Faster page loads = better rankings
2. Perfect SSR = happy crawlers
3. Clean HTML = no bloat penalty
4. Modern image formats = faster LCP

You get WordPress’s content management with Next.js’s performance. That’s an SEO win-win.