Static Site Generation: Next.js SSG Potential for Your Website

Do you want to ensure the best possible customer experience? Is high website loading speed one of your top priorities? Are you aimed at enhancing your website efficiency? If you answered “yes” to at least one of these questions, then we highly recommend thinking of implementation of static site generation. This article will help you find out what is it, learn what is the best framework for SSG, what are the advanced features you can significantly benefit from, and what are the most popular websites that have already integrated this technology. Let’s dive deeper into the topic!

What is Static Site Generation?

Static Site Generation (or SSG) is the method of website creation, the specific of which is that HTML-pages are built in advance and saved as static files. What does it mean? The thing is that the page is created only once at the stage of website building and stays unchangeable on the server regardless of user requests. For better understanding, let’s explain site generation in simple examples. Let’s imagine that you’re planning a huge party. Woohoo! Sure thing that you have to take care of meals for your guests. What would you choose: to prepare food every time for each guest who has just arrived or prepare all meals in advance and promptly treat guests when they arrive? Well, to optimize your time and resources, it’s better to prepare everything in advance. The same works for static rendering.

This is an ideal option for websites or website sections where you don’t need to change content at all or do it frequently. For example, blog section, static portfolios, service pages or pages with contact information.

Why Use A Static Site Generator?

As we mentioned previously, static rendering is a beneficial solution for many reasons. Let’s take a look at some of them:

• High loading speed is what you’ll definitely achieve with an SSG website. Your content is always ready to be sent in response to the user request. It doesn't require additional processing. Thanks to this, your user gets the needed content immediately, without having to wait. It means you have many times more chances to keep the user on the website and guide him to the target action.
• Forget about database hacking! Actually, with static site generation you make DB requests only once. Your static files are completely independent of complicated server processes that ensure better website reliability and enhanced security.
• If you plan to scale, SSG web is a winning choice. To preserve smooth website performance even with the increased traffic, you can simply add more servers or integrate Content Delivery Network.

Also one important benefit we should definitely mention here is the positive SEO impact that can be achieved with static site generators. Read more details about it below.

How Static Site Generation Enhances Pagespeed (SEO)

Page loading speed was officially announced as one of the crucial factors that search engines focus on to define website ranking. If you want your website to be represented in higher positions, you should take into consideration that Google prefers fast sites as they can ensure better user experience. With static HTML-pages you can significantly increase loading speed, minimize delays and bounce rate. Thanks to this search engines will perceive your website as one that is interesting for potential customers and additionally boost it.

Moreover, static site generation is beneficial for the indexing process. Thanks to the fact that HTML pages are fully built, Google can get access to the whole content, so the indexing is more precise and fast. The ability to use sitemap, stable URLs and Content Delivery Network also positively impact SEO optimization of your SSG website.

Why Choose Next.js for Static Site Generation?

Next.js is one of the most popular React-based frameworks that are commonly used for development of web apps and SSG web development. Here’s why you should choose Next.js for static sites:

• Next.js is very simple and well-structured, which simplifies site generation for your developers.
• Next.js static site is automatically optimized for better SEO indexation.
• Next.js build static and dynamic pages, which make your website more flexible and interesting.
• If your app or website is built using React, your moving to Next.js will be smooth and seamless, without the need to learn new concepts.
• Next static site generator uses a modular approach, so you can integrate a wide range of libraries and tools into your site and adjust it to your needs.
• Next.js static rendering is a good solution if you plan to scale as it has built-in support for distributed systems.
• NextJS makes internal optimization for images and fonts for you, so you can rely on it.

Implementing Static Site Generation in Next.js

Let’s take a closer look at how Next.js static generation works:

1 - Everything starts with pre-generation of HTML-pages.
2 - When all the static files are ready, they can be placed on static site hosting platforms. Among them are: Vercel, Netlify, or AWS S3.
3 - After that, these files are shared across the CDN.
4 - If some of your website pages require revalidation, you don’t need to rebuild the entire website. Just use Incremental Static Regeneration. More about it and other advanced Next.js features read below.

Advanced SSG Features in Next.js

• Incremental Static Regeneration (ISR) is a super convenient and effective method to implement necessary changes to particular pages without reassembling the entire site. Only the pages that you need will be regenerated. This ensures resource optimization as the creation of new versions of the page doesn’t involve high load on the server. You can easily adjust the frequency of necessary page updates to the needs of your business. This way, your website content will always be relevant and help effectively achieve your target goals.
• Images optimization. Next.js has a specific Image component that helps you optimize image sizes for different devices out of the box. Next.js also has a special library that helps you import optimized Google Fonts.
• SEO and Performance Optimization. Next.js static website can automatically optimize the size of images, supports CDN and ensures opportunity to add important meta-tags. Better website performance and loading, great user experience and other described above benefits make Next.js static rendering SEO-friendly.

Top Websites Using Static Site Generation in Next.js

Taking into account all these factors, more and more popular websites prefer using static site generation in Next.js. For example:

• dev.to is a popular community for developers where they can share their thoughts and discuss up-to-date topics. This community counts more than 1,7 million members, so Next.js static pages help them cope with high traffic loads and preserve smooth website performance.
• tripadvisor.com is a popular American resource that operates online travel agencies. Next.js SSG ensures great reliability and security for this website, as well as amazing loading speed.
• IKEA.com is one of the most frequently visited websites among those who want to accomplish their accommodations with stylish furniture and decorations. To ensure more exciting and interactive customer experience, IKEA combined static and dynamic pages. Thanks to static site generation, they managed to optimize resources and ensure that IKEA.com works smoothly and efficiently from different devices from any part of the world.
• Spotify.com is a music streaming giant that provides brilliant customer experience and perfect content load thanks to Next.js.
• Netflix.com is always aimed at providing immediate access to their users to the desired content. Next.js static site generation ensures smooth global reach for them, enhanced security, and high load speed.

Conclusions

Hope that our article was helpful and now you better understand what static site generation and what advantages it can be for your website and business in general. If you have any questions, need an expert consultation or are interested in SSG web development, don’t hesitate to reach out to Perfsol! Our custom development company has profound expertise and experience in Next.js static generation and know how to implement it with the best price-quality ratio for businesses!