JAMstack SEO Guide: http://bejamas.

io/blog/jamstack-seo-guide

Contents
Contents 1
What is SEO (search engine optimization)? 3

Technical SEO 6

Performance 7

What else can you do for your JAMstack website to influence performance? 9

Indexing and crawlability 12

Robots.txt and XML sitemap 12

Duplicated content, redirects, and canonication 14

Structured data 16

Crawl budget 17

Technical SEO in a nutshell 17

Content SEO 19

Keyword research 20

Search intent and domain/page authority 22

Search intent 23

Domain/page authority 24

The two together 24

Content 25

On-page SEO tips 26

Backlinks 27

Quality links 28

Link reach out 28

How to reach out? 29

The end or rather the beginning 29

Google and the rest of the tools, the overview 31

Further reading 32

Content SEO follow for JAMstack SEO guide page 35


Copyright 2019 @ Bejamas Page 1 of39

 JAMstack SEO Guide: http://bejamas.io/blog/jamstack-seo-guide

Bombastic title, right? With a purpose.

While making this as a blog post I had specific goals in mind. First of all, my goal is to rank high for a

keyword JAMstack SEO (which has a low average monthly search volume) and SEO guide (which has a

sufficient search volume but it's an incredibly difficult keyword to rank for with this domain).

I'll explain that a bit later. More importantly, I’m hoping to shed some light on SEO so JAMstackers can

understand the often-overlooked importance of it and the best practices they can utilize for them and

their clients.

See what I did there?

To understand these tips/tricks consider them in context of the original blog

post here. I’ve added my main keywords to the first paragraph, within the first

100 words. Furthermore if you look at the page source code you’ll see TITLE

length is between 55-70 characters (including spaces) and meta DESCRIPTION

length between 120 and 160 characters with nice descriptive CTA.

The tips above and throughout the original blog post are not the only things that make SEO what it is

nowadays.

Though still important, SEO has grown out of simple keyword placement, and TITLE and META description

tag optimization. There are at least hundreds of ranking factors, if not more, that Google uses to rank

pages. However, we do not know the exact importance/value they have in ranking algorithm.

And that’s not all.

Fierce competition, educated searchers, frequent algorithm updates, crazy amount of new features in

search results have made SEO more complex than ever before. Not to mention high expectations from

the clients.

Copyright 2019 @ Bejamas Page 2 of39

 JAMstack SEO Guide: http://bejamas.io/blog/jamstack-seo-guide

Nowadays, if you want to do SEO properly you have to think beyond the desired keyword, title, and other

tags. You also have to take branding, audience behavior, search intent, user experience, analytics, and

competition into consideration too.

It's not a one-time thing anymore. To be honest, I love it even more for it.

Even the traffic gains from SEO have changed. For example, for keywords with feature snippets showing

in results, earning #1 spot in organic search will bring you less traffic and lower click-through rate than a

few years back for the same spot. Whatmore earning a featured snippet doesn't guarantee decent

traffic either, as shown in Ahrefs study.

Even though Google is referring less outgoing traffic to websites than before, it is still the number #1

source of traffic for most websites. With that being the case, digging deeper into SEO might be more

important for developers and marketers than ever before. And, believe it or not, having a JAMstack

website helps a lot.

What is SEO (search engine optimization)?

See what I did there?

H2 tags for subtitles with a slightly different keyword in it (you’ll see this often

throughout the post) because who knows, maybe the big G picks it up and

show it in People Also Ask (Related Questions) box.

According to Wikipedia, search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of increasing the quality and

quantity of website traffic, increasing visibility of a website or a web page to users of a web search

engine.

Speaking in layman's terms, the whole purpose of SEO is to help your content rank better in search

engines for desired/targeted keywords and get under the spotlight of your potential audience. In

Copyright 2019 @ Bejamas Page 3 of39

 JAMstack SEO Guide: http://bejamas.io/blog/jamstack-seo-guide

practice, you are trying to get your content in the top 5 spots of the first page as they get 68% of all the

clicks coming from that search result page.

QUICK NOTE

Google Search is the undeniable leader of the global search engine market.

Most guides refer to tips/tricks/tactics that can help you rank better in Google.

It is the same with this one.

As I said earlier, SEO today goes beyond simple page optimization and it can be broadly divided into

two parts: ⚙ technical SEO and 📄 content SEO.

Let’s dive into the best practices and see where the JAMstack fits.

Copyright 2019 @ Bejamas Page 4 of39

 JAMstack SEO Guide: http://bejamas.io/blog/jamstack-seo-guide

Copyright 2019 @ Bejamas Page 5 of39

 JAMstack SEO Guide: http://bejamas.io/blog/jamstack-seo-guide

Technical SEO
See what I did there?

Don’t be lazy and check out the source code of our page here. You’ll see our

HTML code for the above image as:

<img

src="technical-seo.jpg"

alt="Technical SEO is what helps your content play a central role in SEO.”

/>.

Keywords in the image name and alt tag. The goal here is to provide useful,

information-rich content with appropriately used keywords and in context of

the content of the page/section. And have your image appear in Google

image search for your targeted keyword.

A huge subject on its own, Technical SEO is what helps your content play a central role in SEO. It focuses

on helping your website get better visibility and creates a better web experience for your users and

search engines.

Basically, with technical SEO you are tackling:

• performance

• indexing and crawlability

Copyright 2019 @ Bejamas Page 6 of39

 JAMstack SEO Guide: http://bejamas.io/blog/jamstack-seo-guide

Performance

See what I did there?

H3 for this subtitle. Google and other search engines use H tags to understand

the on-page structure of the text. With this topic being a part of a bigger one, I

needed a different H tag to explain that to the crawlers.

Web performance refers to the speed in which web pages are downloaded and displayed on the user's

web browser - Wikipedia’s definition.

Even if you are not into SEO or web development you are probably aware that people and Google are

obsessed with speed and web performance.

Ever since the worldwide mobile internet use surpassed desktop in 2016, speed has become an

increasingly important ranking factor. With Google now moving to mobile-first indexing, the speed of

your site on mobile will not only affect your SEO and organic ranking but it will affect your ad quality

score as well. Basically, you might end up paying more for your Google Ads.

For example, page loading time is a more important factor in a user’s mobile experience than what the

website looks like. According to a case study done by Akamai, a one-second improvement in page

speed correlates to 27 percent of the increase in conversion rate.

A more recent research from Google shows how the probability of bounce increases with every second

along with a global perspective on mobile speed, webpage size, and the number of content pieces per

page across industry sectors.

Copyright 2019 @ Bejamas Page 7 of39

 JAMstack SEO Guide: http://bejamas.io/blog/jamstack-seo-guide

All of this goes to show how much page speed is valued by users. And Google values users behavior.

Here we come to one of the biggest advantages that JAMstack websites have over others - better web

performance. In case you didn’t know, with JAMstack, the HTML files are prebuilt and served over the

CDN instead of being rendered on the server. This, in turn, provides faster DOM ready and full-page load

times. For example, check this website Lighthouse performance score:

Copyright 2019 @ Bejamas Page 8 of39

 JAMstack SEO Guide: http://bejamas.io/blog/jamstack-seo-guide

Or take a look at one of our case studies showcasing improvements we’ve made for our clients with

JAMstack.

Not bad, right?

What else can you do for your JAMstack website to influence

performance?
There are a couple of additional things you should keep an eye on and making sure they're done right to

help your website perform better.

Performance budgets. In case you are starting from scratch with a new website or you are planning a

redesign be mindful of performance budgets. The purpose and the overall idea behind it is to set goals

of your web build early on so that you can better balance performance issues without harming

functionality or your user experience. It helped us immensely during our website re-build (you can

check out Bejamas case study for more info). If you decide to go this road start your planning with

Performance Budget Calculator.

Mobile-friendly design: Having a responsive design, adjustable to the screen, is not a fancy option you

can have on your website. It is a necessity from both search engines and users perspectives. With

Google introducing mobile-first crawling for all new websites, you need to make sure that your website

is shows perfectly on multiple screens from mobile over tablets to laptops and desktops.

HTTPS: Users privacy and security comes first. HTTPS helps prevent anyone from tampering with the

communication between your website and your user’s browser. As a part of their promotion of a more

safe and secure web, in 2014 Google announced that it will use HTTPS as a ranking signal in search

results. What that means is that if you have two websites that are the same in every possible way

except one is on HTTP while the other is on HTTPS, Google will give a positive bump in search results to

the one with HTTPS.

Copyright 2019 @ Bejamas Page 9 of39

 JAMstack SEO Guide: http://bejamas.io/blog/jamstack-seo-guide

URL Structure, Site Structure, and Navigation: Having a clear URL and site structure, navigation, clean

site design, and code influences how your website is perceived from users and crawlers point of view.

There are a couple of general rules you should stick by:

• Google suggests that the fewer clicks it takes to get to a page from your homepage, the

better it is for your website.

• Planning your structure together with the keyword research can help you not only increase the

authority of your website but also spread it efficiently and evenly over your pages, raising your

chances to appear in search results for all of the desired keywords.

• Clear website menu with links to your categories, keywords and main pages is a must. Avoid

having so-called orphaned pages, that aren’t linked from any other page of your website.

• Use shorter, keyword-oriented URLs with hyphens to break up words for readability. Keep in

mind that the URL should describe the content of the page as clearly as possible.

JavaScript: Reduce the amount of JS on your website. Always keep JavaScript code below your main

content as this won't degrade the user experience. You can use Google Tag Manager to simplify things

with custom JS for example.

Images: One of the most significant savings in overall page size and page load speed comes from

optimising images. First, you can utilize lazy loading or be one of the first to use native image lazy-

loading tag introduced to Chrome this summer.

Second, make use of WebP image format that is designed and supported by Google, to create images

that are better optimized and reduced in file size than JPGs (or PNGs).

That in turn makes for a faster website.Keep in mind there are web design and UX elements behind

image optimization as well. It is not just a question of simple image resizing.

Copyright 2019 @ Bejamas Page 10 of39

 JAMstack SEO Guide: http://bejamas.io/blog/jamstack-seo-guide

For JAMstackers # 


If you use Gatsby as your static site generator, you can circumvent most of

the problems that come with the practice of lazy loading with gatsby-image

which is a React component that combines Gatsby’s native image processing

capabilities with advanced image loading techniques to easily and completely

optimize image loading for your sites.

Next.js users can use this solution to tackle it. Hugo users can apply this shortcode for resizing images,

lazy loading, and progressive loading. Finally, Jekyll user can do something like this here.

QUICK NOTE

Don’t obsess over performance metrics but be mindful of them. For example,

if search results for your niche/topic/keyword is packed with pages with videos

and/or fancy animations, you can bet speed would be an issue for most (I’m

talking about mid range numbers) but that does not mean your ‘all text and

images’ page with high speed scores would rank well. And chances are it

would not convert the targeted audience well either. Why? Ranking is a

multifactor game and performance is just a piece in this puzzle.

Copyright 2019 @ Bejamas Page 11 of39

 JAMstack SEO Guide: http://bejamas.io/blog/jamstack-seo-guide

Indexing and crawlability

All the performance efforts and awesomeness of your content would mean nothing if search engines

can’t properly index and crawl your website. You see, allowing search bots to crawl your website is one

thing. Making sure bots can crawl and discover all of the important pages while staying away from

those you don’t want them to see is something else.

Robots.txt and XML sitemap

In essence robots.txt file provides search bots with information about the files and/or directories you

want or don’t want them to crawl. It can help you keep entire sections of a website private (for example,

every Wordpress website has robots.txt file that prevents bots from crawling admin directory). It can

also be used to prevent your images and PDFs from being indexed, or your internal search results pages

from showing up in search engine results.

A sitemap, on the other hand, is a file in XML format which provides crawlers with valuable information

about the website structure and website pages. It tells the crawler which files are important to your

Copyright 2019 @ Bejamas Page 12 of 39

 JAMstack SEO Guide: http://bejamas.io/blog/jamstack-seo-guide

website, when the page was last updated, how often it was changed changed, are there any alternate

language versions of the page, etc.

One you make a sitemap use Google Search Console to let the big G know about it.

For JAMstackers # 


You can simply make them and add them to your repository. Gatsby users can

make use of plugins to create robots.txt and sitemap.xml automatically. Jekyll

users can easily generate sitemap by adding the jekyll-sitemap gem to their

_config.xml (follow these instructions). As for robots.txt, just add a file to the

root of your project.

Hugo ships with a built-in sitemap template file while for robots.txt Hugo can generate a customized file

in the same way as any other template.Finally, Next.js users can use one of these community shared

modules/solutions.

Copyright 2019 @ Bejamas Page 13 of39

 JAMstack SEO Guide: http://bejamas.io/blog/jamstack-seo-guide

Duplicated content, redirects, and canonication

The practice of having the same or slightly different content on a couple of pages or websites can be

considered as duplicated content. There is no one-size-fits-all to the question of how similar content

needs to be in order to be marked as a duplicate. The answer varies and depends on Google and other

search engines interpret it.

In e-commerce websites, for example, you are bound to have the same content on multiple item pages.

However, if you plan on a deliberate use of the same content over multiple pages and/or domains, you

are most likely damaging those pages/websites rather than helping them.

Why? Well, you are making it hard for search engines to decide which page is more relevant for a

search query and you might end up getting a boost for the least expected page.

If duplicated content appears on one or a couple of internal pages, the best way to deal with it is to set

up a 301 redirect from the duplicate page to the original page. URL redirection is a tool that helps you

inform search engines of the changes you make to your website structure as well. For example, if you

Copyright 2019 @ Bejamas Page 14 of39

 JAMstack SEO Guide: http://bejamas.io/blog/jamstack-seo-guide

decide to change the URL structure of your page but would like to keep all the goodies backlinks

distribute, with 301 redirect you are proclaiming new URL as the successor of the previous one.

For JAMstackers # 


Who run their site on Netlify (as most of us do), you can easily configure

redirects and rewrite rules in a _redirects file which you add to the root of the

public folder.

Amazon S3 users, for example, can set redirect like this. In case you are running your website with Zeist

you can set routes in now.json configuration file as described here.

Another way to deal with duplicated content is by using the rel=canonical attribute in your link tag.

There are two ways you can use it:

• <link href="URL OF ORIGINAL PAGE" rel="canonical" /> with this one you are pointing search

engines to the original “canonical” version of the page. The one crawler is visiting at the

moment should be treated as a copy of a specified URL.

• or <link href="PAGE URL" rel="canonical" /> is a self-referential rel=canonical link to the existing

page.

In both cases, the use of canonical attribute ensures that the right page or the preferred version of the

page is indexed.

For JAMstackers #

Gatsby, for example, has a simple plugin named gatsby-plugin-canonical-urls

which sets the base URL used for canonical URLs for your website. If you are

using Next JS make the following changes to your post.js ie you need to add

next/head and add a canonical tag like this: <link rel="canonical" href={`$

{YOUR_DOMAIN}/blog/${TITLE}`} >

Copyright 2019 @ Bejamas Page 15 of39

 JAMstack SEO Guide: http://bejamas.io/blog/jamstack-seo-guide

Hugo supports permalinks, aliases, link canonicalization, and multiple options for handling relative vs

absolute URLs as explained here. One of possible Jekyll canonical URLs solutions can be found here.

Structured data

Google and other search engines use Schema.org structured data to understand the content of your

page better and to allow your content to appear in rich results.

Correct implementation of structured data might not influence your ranking directly, but it'll give you a

fighting chance for appearance in around 30 different types of rich results that are powered by schema

markup.

Making appropriate structure data is pretty straightforward. Check out schema.org for schemas

suitable for your content. Use Google’s Structured Data Markup Helper that will guide you through the

coding process and add the code in JSON-LD format to the page.

Copyright 2019 @ Bejamas Page 16 of39

 JAMstack SEO Guide: http://bejamas.io/blog/jamstack-seo-guide

For JAMstackers #

You’ll be happy to know that most headless CMSs provide you with the tools to

manage structured data, page by page, in a form of defining custom

components. Or you can add schema as a part of a template you are using.

Crawl budget
If you are running a large website with tons of pages prioritizing what to crawl, when to crawl it, and how

many resources you can allocate to crawling, becomes hugely important and it is managed with crawl

budget. Not managing it properly can lead to important pages not being crawled and indexed.

Unless you are running a website with a huge number of pages, I’d suggest you leave your crawl budget

on auto-pilot.

Technical SEO in a nutshell

Search engine optimization is still hugely important for any business. In this day and age technical

aspect of it plays an equally important role as does the content. And in a culture that values speed first

having a reliable architecture backing you website performance has become a necessity.

JAMstack may be a new way of building websites but it offers an amazing list of advantages over

traditional stacks on top of performance and SEO benefits. Security and scalability being among the top

ones.


Copyright 2019 @ Bejamas Page 17 of39

 JAMstack SEO Guide: http://bejamas.io/blog/jamstack-seo-guide

Copyright 2019 @ Bejamas Page 18 of39

 JAMstack SEO Guide: http://bejamas.io/blog/jamstack-seo-guide

Content SEO
Now we’ve tackled the technical part let’s dive deep into content.

See what I did there?

This is from and for the original web page here. When you have a huge post

like this one, it is better to break it into a few pages. First of all, even fast

loading JAMstack pages like ours would load slower with complete content on

them. Secondly, the fact you've clicked through page #1 gives a signal to

Google that you liked the content on the page. Thirdly, with more pages you

can rank for more keywords. Finally, it raises dwell time on your pages and

also influences bounce rate and number of average page sessions (all of

which are content quality and ranking signals).

JAMstack part kind of ends here. However, being that we all are into web development it might be wise
for you to read the content part as well where I cover the basics of content SEO. In case you want to
understand SEO on a much deeper level I strongly advise you to read the whole guide.

Broadly, content issues fall under one of these two segments:

1. the on-page optimization which includes keyword research, the content itself, keyword

placement, meta tags, content structure, H tags, content pruning, etc.

2. and off-page optimization which includes domain authority, backlinks, shares, etc.

Now, there’s no shortage of great posts with in-depth explanations of these two segments (just look at

the search results).

Copyright 2019 @ Bejamas Page 19 of39

 JAMstack SEO Guide: http://bejamas.io/blog/jamstack-seo-guide

However, I’d like to approach the content SEO in a slightly different way than most guides do. I’d like to

propose a content SEO follow which, I believe, is a much better way of explaining things to a novice and

expert alike public.

Keyword research
While your service, product or content are the core of your business, the right keywords that your

audience is searching for are the cornerstone of your content and your overall digital marketing

strategy.

Basically, keyword research is there to help you find strategic keywords you ought to target with your

website’s content. Or so the most guide and articles on that topic say.

Don’t get me wrong here, that’s true to a certain extent. Let me rephrase the above sentence:

keyword research is there to help you find strategic keywords you ought to target with your website’s

content and that are in line with your website’s ability to rank for them.

That’s all fine and dandy but where do you start? And how do you know which keywords you should

target?

See what I did here?

I’ve made an example out of this guide/topic/keywords. You can either read

the rest then check the example or jump to the example which is down below.

Copyright 2019 @ Bejamas Page 20 of39

 JAMstack SEO Guide: http://bejamas.io/blog/jamstack-seo-guide

Before you start, keep in mind that your keyword research depends on your website ( authority, are you

a trusted resource, number of pages, etc.), your goals (are you aiming at branding, exposure, traffic or

gathering leads and sales?), your competition (and their authority, etc.), and finally the industry you are

in. In that sense so does keywords you can rank for.

Start by making a list of important, relevant keywords and topics based on what you know about your

business and/or goals you are trying to achieve. If you already know them, check the competition and

see what they have been doing in that regard. If not, find them through the keywords you’ve chosen.

Your best friends at this point are Google and a couple of free and paid keyword discovery tools:

• Google search results

• Google Keyword Planner

• Google auto-suggest

• “similar searches” in Google

• Free tools like Ubersuggest and Answer the Public

• One of the paid tools like Ahrefs, Moz or SEMrush

Basically, you’ll use all of them to tap into what’s already going on in your industry and get a clear

picture of what your target audience is searching for, how they conduct search, which keywords are

they using, how popular are the keywords, what is the search volume for them, general intent shown in

search results for the keywords, and what will it take to actually rank for those keywords.

You’ll use them to understand your competition as well, analyze their good and bad sides in their

keyword and backlink profiles and strategies. Keep in mind that your business competitors and your

content competitors are not always the same. The answer is in the search results.

With that being said, if you are using one of the paid tools you’ll notice a metric often labeled as

keyword difficulty (KD), which aims at providing you with a rough sense of difficulty to rank for a specific

keyword. First, keep in mind that KD value differs from tool to tool (each tool has a different way of

measuring it). Second, do not rely completely on KD. Always check search results manually to judge/

evaluate real-world keyword difficulty and search intent before targeting that keyword.

Copyright 2019 @ Bejamas Page 21 of 39

 JAMstack SEO Guide: http://bejamas.io/blog/jamstack-seo-guide

At the end of the day, proper keyword research should help you find relevant and worthwhile keywords

that will not only help you boost your SEO efforts but also convert relevant traffic into revenue. After all,

there is no point in driving a lot of traffic if you can’t convert it.

Most guides point that you should look for high-volume, low-competition keywords. By all means judge

business value with these two ‘filters’ and keep in mind that those low competition keywords are not just

easier to rank for but once you rank for them they will provide a foundation and authority that will help

you go after those more difficult, volume-rich keywords.

Remember, good keyword research does not mean you can get away with crappy website and content.

Search intent and domain/page authority

Copyright 2019 @ Bejamas Page 22 of39

 JAMstack SEO Guide: http://bejamas.io/blog/jamstack-seo-guide

Looking at the subtitle I bet you’re thinking - odd coupling, right? First one is a genuine ranking factor

while the other is a provisional number used by top SEO tools. Before you start firing hear me out.

Search intent
Google is always in pursuit of answering a searcher's query with the most relevant results. That means

being able to understand searcher’s intent behind a search query is their ultimate goal.

For you, it means that if you want to rank in Google's search results in 2019 understanding and creating

content with search intent in mind is crucial. It's the intent behind the query/keyword that matters, and

how well your content solves it.

There are four types of search intent (take the term types less specific and less concrete than the term

in the sentence implies): Informational, Navigational, Transactional, and Commercial investigation.

Informational: In case you are asking a specific question in your search query or want to know more

about a certain topic, you are most likely expressing informational intent. Questions like ‘who is Brad

Pitt?’ or ‘what is JAMstack?’ and direction queries like ‘airport directions’ and topic/keyword queries like

‘soccer’ or ‘university education’ fall under this type.

Navigational: When you are searching for a certain website, for example, ‘Bejamas’ or ‘Gmail sign in’

etc. you are expressing navigational intent.

Transactional: People who have the intention to make a purchase are searching with transactional

intent. Queries like ‘iPhone 10 price’ and ‘namecheap coupon’ and ‘buy secrid Miniwallet’ all fall under

this category.

Commercial investigation: Those of you who have the intention to buy something soon, but prefer to

get informed before the purchase, you are expressing commercial investigation intent. So, queries like

'iPhone vs Android' and 'iPhone review' and 'best wallets' and 'record shop near me' and 'cheap hotels in

London' all belong here.

Copyright 2019 @ Bejamas Page 23 of39

 JAMstack SEO Guide: http://bejamas.io/blog/jamstack-seo-guide

Domain/page authority
Domain authority/domain rating is a metric that aims at helping you understand the strength of a

website.While Google might or might not use something similar, these metrics are tool defined so treat

them as such. What I mean by this is that you should use domain authority, and other similar metrics

(such as KD), as an indicator of what might be rather than something that is.

Most tools offer authority metric in an ‘overall’ sense which, in my opinion, brings even more uncertainty

to an already vague metric. I believe adding an industry aspect to it, making it into ‘authority in given

industry/topics’ metric rather than overall one would be of a better use for SEOs.

Finally, establishing a site as an authority on search engines, or for ‘authority’ metrics for that matter,

takes time and careful planning (keyword research, content quality/quantity, and backlinks). Benefits

are significant. For example, domains with high ‘authority’ metrics are usually trusted resources which

enables them to publish content and rank much faster than the rest.

Establishing your site and yourself (will talk about it a bit later) as an authority, and earning links from

existing authoritative sites, can influence your ranking immensely.

The two together

So, why the two deserve to be taken into consideration together? The answer is in the search results.

See what I did there?

Check out what I did for this guide (keep in mind the same principle can be

applied to your website as a whole or for individual pages).

You can either read the rest then check the example or jump to the example

straight away down below.

Or take a look at awesome post Optimizing for searcher intent in 7 visuals by Rand Fishkin from Moz.

Copyright 2019 @ Bejamas Page 24 of39

 JAMstack SEO Guide: http://bejamas.io/blog/jamstack-seo-guide

Content

Setting aside the quality of your writing, there are a couple of things you should keep in mind when

crafting content. As explained above focus your content on subject/keyword intent. Then focus on

making relevant and genuinely helpful content. That, among many things, means you do not write for

SEO but help writing fit into an SEO 'mold'.

Let’s take the length of content as an example. A ‘guide’ in general implies a lengthy piece, so the

keyword ‘Angry Bird guide’ requires much more content than keyword ‘Angry Birds cheats’. Basically,

don’t think about the length of the content in absolute terms. Instead, think about what is written and

how resourceful it is.

While running a keyword research take cues about the content showing in search results and scan top-

ranking pages. This will help you figure out what type of content is showing in search results (blog post,

product page, category page, video only page, long/short-form content, etc.).

Copyright 2019 @ Bejamas Page 25 of39

 JAMstack SEO Guide: http://bejamas.io/blog/jamstack-seo-guide

Pay attention to E-A-T (Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness). Ever since Google’s ‘Quality

Raters Guidelines’ leaked a couple of years ago, we are pretty much aware of what Google suggests to

its quality raters what to look for in quality content.

It should be expertly written (or written by an expert in the field), authoritative (should bring real benefits

to the subject), and trustworthy (is coming from a trustworthy site which is backed by overall site quality

and Google acceptance). Basically, with the content, you are influencing your personal and your

website’s/businesses EAT.

Make damn sure your content is well-written and organized, provide real value to the readers, link out to

relevant content, and back out by top-notch tech SEO (did anybody say JAMstack?).

Finally, if search results allow it (have it), give your audience different ways to engage with your content

(Text, Video, Audio) and be sure to incorporate clear CTAs to the next stage of your funnel because for

most businesses gathering traffic via SEO is just a first step. After that, you need to find a way to make

use of that traffic dollar vise.

On-page SEO tips

If you read this guide thoroughly you’ve most certainly noticed See what I did there? parts. This whole

guide is made as an SEO case study for the original blog post here. As such, on-page SEO tips are

shared across this guide.

Copyright 2019 @ Bejamas Page 26 of39

 JAMstack SEO Guide: http://bejamas.io/blog/jamstack-seo-guide

Backlinks

While this might be my least favorite part of SEO it is almost equally important as the quality of your

content. Like other chapters in this guide this one too deserves a post on its own (check the resources

for links).

Don’t fool yourself into thinking that with the right link building strategy your website will climb up the

results to #1. Backlinks are only one piece of the puzzle, just as the quality of your content is another. On

top of it, the quality of your content helps your overall link building strategy.

Copyright 2019 @ Bejamas Page 27 of 39

 JAMstack SEO Guide: http://bejamas.io/blog/jamstack-seo-guide

Quality links
Quality of a link depends on a couple of things:

• domain industry affiliation and authority - for example, for this guide it is not the same if I have

a link from searchenginejournal.com or foodmatters.com. While both are valuable, the first one

brings on the weight of being an industry known and trustworthy source (remember ETA?). As

such, it signals Google what they link/share is of value to the industry they are known in.

• anchor text of a link - it is desirable to have many different anchors in your backlinks portfolio,

but you still get the most out of links that link to you with your desired keyword or a phrase.

• and, oddly enough, content quality and link place - obviously, being linked within an awesome

piece of content that is in your industry is more valuable than being linked in a mediocre one.

As for link placement, links that show up higher in the main content hold more value.

See what I did there?

In the example part, you can see how I approached backlinks outreach for this

guide. You can either read the rest then check the example of link building for

this guide which is down below.

Now that we know what a quality link is how do you get one, or a couple of thousands?

Link reach out

There are a couple of ways to look for backlinks and I’ll mention a few here:

• check the search results for your targeted keywords and those similar, or in connection with

them, and reach out to the websites that rank for them.

• use one of the paid SEO tools to check competitors backlink portfolio and see if you can grab a

spot on pages that link to them.

• find broken links or unlinked brand mentions going to resources or products you mention. Help

the page with the broken link and ask for a backlink.

• find your industry round-up posts or websites that are accepting guest posts.

Copyright 2019 @ Bejamas Page 28 of39

 JAMstack SEO Guide: http://bejamas.io/blog/jamstack-seo-guide

There are a plethora of options when it comes to link building. Social network links, however, are not one

of them as their backlink SEO value is pretty low. They matter more on user behavior side and influence

signals like dwell time, bounce rate, click depth, etc.

How to reach out?

We know what a quality link is and where to find them so how do we reach out? Well, there is no

universal trick or a strategy you can use that works all the time. I’ve found that having a personal spin

on proven tactics worked the best whether you reach out via email or Linkedin.

Avoid templates and personalize your approach. Do research on who to reach out to and convey a

message appropriately. But here lies the big problem of link building and that is time/money availability.

You see, doing proper research and personalization takes time but even with all the effort that you’ve

put into it, you can still end up empty-handed.

Some would argue there are alternatives to that. Like, focus on your content quality. Or focus on building

relationships first, either via Linkedin or Twitter. But that’s a story for an entirely different post.

The end or rather the beginning

The best SEO strategy implies you’ve taken into account all the tech aspects and building content in

that sweet spot between what your customers need and want, and what your product/service provides.

However, fail to give searchers what they want ie. satisfy searcher's intent, and your chances of ranking

high are close to none.

The goal of this guide is to introduce JAMstackers # to the SEO and bring JAMstack benefits under the

spotlight of the SEO community as well.

In case you’d like to learn more about SEO we’ve prepared tools and resources / further reading links

below.

Copyright 2019 @ Bejamas Page 29 of39

 JAMstack SEO Guide: http://bejamas.io/blog/jamstack-seo-guide

Finally, I want to thank Thom Krupa (CTO at Bejamas), Kevin Indig (VP SEO & Content @ G2 and Tech

bound newsletter author) and Nick LeRoy (SEO consultant and author of the #SEOFORLUNCH newsletter)

for their valuable and sometimes brutally honest feedback (sorry I did not listen).

Thank you for reading.

P.s. If you haven’t done it already, now would be a perfect time to check out my content SEO flow case-

study for this guide (scroll down).

Nebojsa Radakovic


https://bejamas.io

https://www.linkedin.com/in/nebojsaradakovic/

https://twitter.com/CookieDuster_N

Copyright 2019 @ Bejamas Page 30 of 39

 JAMstack SEO Guide: http://bejamas.io/blog/jamstack-seo-guide

Google and the rest of the tools, the overview

From analytics and search console, to structure data and rich results, Google offers a wide variety of

tools that aim to help you have a better and more useful website. On top of those, there are a couple of

other nifty tools that you should check out as well.

Google Search Console - https://www.google.com/webmasters/

Performance Budget Calculator - https://perf-budget-calculator.firebaseapp.com/

Mobile-Friendly Test Tool - https://search.google.com/test/mobile-friendly

Screenfly / Test Your Website at Different Screen Resolutions - http://quirktools.com/screenfly/

WebDev Performance Tool - https://web.dev/measure

Google Tag Manager - https://tagmanager.google.com

Structured Data Markup Helper - https://www.google.com/webmasters/markup-helper/u/0/

Structured Data Testing Tool - https://search.google.com/structured-data/testing-tool/u/0/

Structured Data Examples - https://jsonld.com/organization/

Schema Generator - https://kalicube.pro/schema-markup-generator-organization

Rich Results Test - https://search.google.com/test/rich-results

Ubersuggest - https://neilpatel.com/ubersuggest/

AnswerThePublic - https://answerthepublic.com/

Ahrefs - https://ahrefs.com/

SEMrush - https://www.semrush.com/

MOZ - https://moz.com/

The 55 Best Free SEO Tools For Every Task - https://moz.com/blog/best-free-seo-tools

Copyright 2019 @ Bejamas Page 31 of39

 JAMstack SEO Guide: http://bejamas.io/blog/jamstack-seo-guide

Further reading
In case I got you interested in the topic, check out these resources for your further education in SEO. I’ve

listed them in order of topic appearance I’ve covered:

Advanced technical SEO guide

https://www.searchenginejournal.com/technical-seo/

Web Performance Tips and Tricks from the Trenches (Google I/O ’19)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJGCZCaIZkQ

Speed Index

https://sites.google.com/a/webpagetest.org/docs/using-webpagetest/metrics/speed-index

Visualizing Speed Metrics to Improve SEO, UX, & Revenue

https://moz.com/blog/visualizing-speed-metrics

How Google PageSpeed Works

https://css-tricks.com/how-google-pagespeed-works-improve-your-score-and-search-engine-

ranking/

Technical SEO Audit Checklist

https://www.distilled.net/technical-seo-audit-checklist/

Custom Templates for Google Tag Manager

https://www.simoahava.com/analytics/custom-templates-guide-for-google-tag-manager/

Duplicated Content in 2019

https://www.hobo-web.co.uk/duplicate-content-problems/

Netlify, Gatsby Redirects -

https://dev.to/swyx/fight-link-rot-with-server-and-client-side-redirects-netlify-and-gatsby-29jn

Google’s Introduction to Structured Data

https://developers.google.com/search/docs/guides/intro-structured-data

Bing’s Marking Up Your Site with Structured Data

https://www.bing.com/webmaster/help/marking-up-your-site-with-structured-data-3a93e731

How to optimize your crawl budget?

https://www.oncrawl.com/technical-seo/how-to-optimize-your-crawl-budget/

Technical SEO Audit Checklist

https://www.distilled.net/technical-seo-audit-checklist/

Copyright 2019 @ Bejamas Page 32 of39

 JAMstack SEO Guide: http://bejamas.io/blog/jamstack-seo-guide

100+ Google SEO Success Factors, Ranked

https://zyppy.com/seo-success-factors/

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Starter Guide from Google

https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/7451184?hl=en

Official Google Search Quality Rating Guidlines

http://static.googleusercontent.com/media/www.google.dk/da/da/insidesearch/howsearchworks/

assets/searchqualityevaluatorguidelines.pdf

How to Use Google’s EAT and Quality Guidelines for Content SEO Success?

https://medium.com/startup-grind/use-googles-eat-quality-guidelines-for-content-seo-success-

d118c3ee66bb

Link Building Techniques Masterclass with Jon Cooper (2019)

https://youtu.be/DgQI-A4Fahc

SE Valuation of Links

https://moz.com/blog/20-illustrations-on-search-engines-valuation-of-links

A Simple (But Effective) 31-Point SEO Checklist

https://ahrefs.com/blog/seo-checklist/

What webmasters should know about Google’s core updates

https://webmasters.googleblog.com/2019/08/core-updates.html

A Developer’s Guide To SEO

https://www.portent.com/blog/seo/developers-seo-guide.htm

[case study] Disciplined? How www.dailymail.co.uk got placed amongst peers (awesome article on

what can happen)

https://www.sistrix.com/blog/disciplined-how-dailymail-co-uk-got-placed-amongst-peers/

[case study] How HomeToGo Overtook Airbnb?

https://www.sistrix.com/blog/2009-vs-2019-seo-how-hometogo-overtook-airbnb/

[case study] Crawl Budget Optimization

https://www.deepcrawl.com/case-studies/migros-case-study/

A New Era of Google Search: What It Means for SEO

https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-search-new-era-seo/311399/

Alert: Less than Half of Google Searches Now Result in a Click

https://sparktoro.com/blog/less-than-half-of-google-searches-now-result-in-a-click/

Organic Click Through Rate Study

Copyright 2019 @ Bejamas Page 33 of39

 JAMstack SEO Guide: http://bejamas.io/blog/jamstack-seo-guide

https://backlinko.com/google-ctr-stats

A new Google – from search to discovery engine

https://www.kevin-indig.com/a-new-google-from-search-to-discovery-engine/

Google Ranking Factors 2019: Opinions from 1,500+ Professional SEOs

https://sparktoro.com/blog/resources/google-ranking-factors-2019/

Evolving “nofollow” – new ways to identify the nature of links

https://webmasters.googleblog.com/2019/09/evolving-nofollow-new-ways-to-identify.html

Copyright 2019 @ Bejamas Page 34 of 39

 JAMstack SEO Guide: http://bejamas.io/blog/jamstack-seo-guide

Content SEO follow for JAMstack SEO guide page

The best way to learn is by example. Let me walk you through the process I’ve used before, during and

after writing this post as an example of content SEO flow. Writing this guide was a bit specific because I

knew right from the start which keywords I wanted to target (no matter what the numbers would show).

Still, the overall steps explained here can be applied to any keyword.

Keyword research > First step was to Google keyword: JAMstack SEO.

Now, I am using a nifty little Google Chrome extension called SEO Search Simulator by Nightwatch. It

simulates unbiased search engine queries from any location on Google so you can easily check your

and your competitor's websites in local versions of Google search.

At the same time, I’ve checked Google auto-suggestions and related searches for keyword variations I

might include in this post or maybe pivot to if they are a better match for what I had in mind:

Copyright 2019 @ Bejamas Page 35 of 39

 JAMstack SEO Guide: http://bejamas.io/blog/jamstack-seo-guide

Finally, I wanted to explore what other options I might have, what is the traffic like for those options, what is needed
to rank for them and how difficult it is. In this case, I’ve played with JAMstack and SEO as the main keywords to
see which other 2-3 keywords with lower traffic and competition might be a good fit for this post.

As already mentioned, you can use Ubersuggest or Google Keyword planner as free options or any of the paid tools
to conduct this research. To be honest, it is a personal preference much more than anything else. In my case, I like
to use SEMRush + SERPstat. Occasionally I check Moz as well.

So, I searched the following:

Copyright 2019 @ Bejamas Page 36 of 39

 JAMstack SEO Guide: http://bejamas.io/blog/jamstack-seo-guide

Search for JAMstack:

Search for SEO:

Copyright 2019 @ Bejamas Page 37 of39

 JAMstack SEO Guide: http://bejamas.io/blog/jamstack-seo-guide

Search for SEO guide:

Finally searched for JAMstack SEO which came out with no result.

Intent and domain/page authority > Now that I have traffic and a couple of other stats, I want to check

what is showing up in search results for the keywords I am interested in.

KW JAMstack: Organic results with the informational general intent of the results - for example,

explaining what jamstack is with websites that can mostly be tied to JAMstack industry/category.

KW SEO: AdWords results, followed by feature snippet and related questions first. Organic results are

with informational intent from SEO industry authority websites (Moz, Search Engine Land, etc.). Moz

page authority between 50-70 and Moz domain authority 80-90 with the huge number of backlinks.

KW SEO guide: pretty much the same as for SEO keyword with exception of showing a couple of domains

which are not SEO industry-specific.

KW JAMstack SEO: 8 organic results with informational intent followed by a video box and the rest of

organic search. In the first 5 spots, we have 2 SEO specific posts and 3 general ones about JAMstack.

Page authority between 30-40 with more than a couple of exceptions - for example, PA 19 and the low

number of backlinks, especially for SEO specific pages. All in all, seems like a good match for us.

Copyright 2019 @ Bejamas Page 38 of 39

 JAMstack SEO Guide: http://bejamas.io/blog/jamstack-seo-guide

Content > Keywords JAMstack and SEO are not my marks. The first one is a whole different subject. The

second one because our domain is recognized more in JAMstack/web dev industry and has much

lower domain/page authority and backlinks count than results in a highly industry-specific keyword.

Keyword SEO guide, by having a non-SEO industry domains in results leaves a possibility to rank but

only if I manage to get a ton of backlinks that would raise both page and domain authority. As such,

and for the sake of variety and options, I should include it as a secondary keyword.

To rank for keyword JAMstack SEO this page would need to be a long-form post (they work best for

informational intent keywords) as direct competitors typically have posts within 600-1000 words range.

Given that this should be a ‘guide’ it should cover as much ground as it can and get backed by a good

number of backlinks with anchor links with the main keyword on either jamstack or SEO related pages.

Now it is time to start writing.

Backlinks > As mentioned above I need links from either jamstack or SEO specific pages/websites. There

are two ways to find those:

• Look in the results for keyword JAMstack SEO and find authors of the posts or website contact

form/email and contact them about including my link.

• Or check competitors, in this case, the 2 pages that have JAMstack SEO keyword in them, and

use any of the paid tools to find out who linked to them and then reach out to those websites.

I tend to reach out to people either via email (you can use Hunter.io to find emails) or Linkedin. In both

cases, I’ll be transparent and straightforward with my intention.

Copyright 2019 @ Bejamas Page 39 of 39