SEO

Technical SEO makes sure search engines can fetch, understand and fairly present every page. Content
quality does the rest.

1. Indexable HTML

• Important content must be in the server-rendered HTML (static site, SSR or prerendering). A
  client-only React SPA shows crawlers an empty <div id="root"> at first; prefer Next.js/Astro or
  prerender for public pages.
• Real links: <a href="/pricing">, not click handlers. Every page reachable by links.
• Correct status codes: 404 for missing pages (not 200 with "not found"), 301 for moved pages.

2. Head tags for every page

<html lang="en">
<head>
  <meta charset="utf-8">
  <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1">
  <title>Invoice Templates for Freelancers | Billify</title>
  <meta name="description" content="Download 20 free invoice templates for freelancers. Edit in your browser, export to PDF, and get paid faster.">
  <link rel="canonical" href="https://billify.app/invoice-templates">
  <meta property="og:type" content="website">
  <meta property="og:title" content="Invoice Templates for Freelancers">
  <meta property="og:description" content="20 free templates. Edit in your browser, export to PDF.">
  <meta property="og:url" content="https://billify.app/invoice-templates">
  <meta property="og:image" content="https://billify.app/og/invoice-templates.png">
  <meta name="twitter:card" content="summary_large_image">
  <link rel="icon" href="/favicon.svg" type="image/svg+xml">
</head>

• Title: unique per page, 50–60 characters, primary topic first, brand last.
• Description: unique, 140–160 characters, a reason to click; not keyword stuffing.
• Canonical: absolute URL of the preferred version (no tracking params; pick www or not, trailing slash or not).
• OG image: 1200×630 PNG/JPG, under ~1MB, absolute URL, text readable at small size.
• Next.js: use the metadata export / generateMetadata instead of raw tags.

3. Content structure

• One <h1> that matches the page topic; logical h2/h3 sections.
• Descriptive link text ("see pricing plans", not "click here").
• Images: descriptive file names and alt; dimensions set; modern formats.
• Internal links between related pages; breadcrumbs on deep sites.

4. Clean URLs

Lowercase, hyphenated, short, readable: /blog/invoice-tips, not /p?id=123&cat=7. Stable forever;
when changing, 301-redirect old to new. One URL per piece of content.

5. Structured data (JSON-LD)

Add in <head> or body; match visible content only. Pick the type for the page:
Organization + WebSite (home), Article/BlogPosting, Product with Offer, FAQPage,
BreadcrumbList, LocalBusiness, SoftwareApplication, Event.

<script type="application/ld+json">
{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"Article","headline":"10 Invoice Tips for Freelancers",
 "datePublished":"2026-03-02","dateModified":"2026-03-10",
 "author":{"@type":"Person","name":"Dana Lee"},"image":"https://billify.app/og/invoice-tips.png"}
</script>

Validate at https://validator.schema.org or Google's Rich Results Test.

6. sitemap.xml and robots.txt

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<urlset xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9">
  <url><loc>https://billify.app/</loc><lastmod>2026-03-10</lastmod></url>
  <url><loc>https://billify.app/invoice-templates</loc><lastmod>2026-03-08</lastmod></url>
</urlset>

User-agent: *
Disallow: /admin/
Sitemap: https://billify.app/sitemap.xml

• Sitemap lists only canonical, indexable, 200-status URLs; generate it from routes/content at build.
• Never Disallow: / in production. Use <meta name="robots" content="noindex"> for pages that should
  not appear in results (robots.txt blocks crawling, not indexing).
• Staging sites: noindex everything (or password-protect).

7. Performance and mobile

Core Web Vitals are a ranking signal: see the web-performance skill (LCP < 2.5s, CLS < 0.1,
INP < 200ms). Responsive layout, readable 16px text, tap targets 44px, no intrusive popups.

8. After launch (tell the user)

Verify the domain in Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools, submit the sitemap, check
coverage reports. Rankings take weeks.

Check before you finish

1. Build/serve the site (run_app) and view the HTML source of 2–3 pages: title, description,
   canonical, OG tags, JSON-LD present and unique per page.
2. Invoke-WebRequest http://localhost:3000/sitemap.xml and /robots.txt return 200 with correct URLs
   (production domain, not localhost).
3. A missing URL returns status 404.
4. inspect_preview at mobile width: one h1, no console errors, images have alt.

Common mistakes

• Same title/description on every page; titles over 70 characters.
• Canonical pointing to the home page from every page; relative OG image URLs.
• Shipping the staging noindex or Disallow: / to production.
• Structured data describing things not on the page (fake reviews).