Next.js Static Site Generation (SSG): A Comprehensive Guide

 Next.js is a popular React framework that offers a number of features and benefits for building SEO-friendly websites. One of the most important features of Next.js is its support for static site generation (SSG).

SSG is a technique that allows you to pre-render your website's pages at build time. This means that your pages are served to users as static HTML files, which results in faster load times and improved performance.

Benefits of SSG

There are a number of benefits to using SSG, including:

• Faster load times: SSG pages are served to users as static HTML files, which means that they load much faster than pages that are generated dynamically.
• Improved performance: SSG pages are not affected by server load or traffic spikes, which means that your website will always perform well.
• Better SEO: SSG pages are more SEO-friendly than dynamically generated pages because they are pre-rendered and can be indexed by search engines more easily.
• Reduced server costs: SSG pages do not require any server-side rendering, which can reduce your server costs.

How to Use SSG in Next.js

Using SSG in Next.js is simple. To create a static page, simply create a new file in the pages directory and add the getStaticProps function. The getStaticProps function is responsible for fetching data and generating the HTML for your page.

For example, the following code creates a static page that displays a list of blog posts:

import { getBlogPosts } from '../lib/api'

export async function getStaticProps() {
  const blogPosts = await getBlogPosts()

  return {
    props: {
      blogPosts,
    },
  }
}

export default function Blog({ blogPosts }) {
  return (
    <div>
      <h1>Blog</h1>
      <ul>
        {blogPosts.map((post) => (
          <li key={post.id}>{post.title}</li>
        ))}
      </ul>
    </div>
  )
}

Note: getStaticProps can be only used on "page" jsx and not component jsx.

Conclusion

SSG is a powerful tool that can help you to improve the performance and SEO of your Next.js website. By following the tips in this guide, you can create static pages that load quickly, perform well, and are more easily indexed by search engines.