Yoast SEO + Headless WordPress + Next.js: How to Preserve SEO in a Headless Setup
In this article, we’ll look at how to keep full SEO control in a headless architecture using REST API.
🔍 The Core SEO Challenge in Headless WordPress
In a classic WordPress setup, Yoast:
✔️ injects meta tags via wp_head
✔️ controls Open Graph and Twitter tags
✔️ generates canonical URLs and schema
In headless mode, none of this HTML is rendered automatically.
👉 Your task is to extract SEO data and render it manually in Next.js.
🧠 How Yoast Exposes SEO Data via REST API
Yoast adds a yoast_head_json object to REST responses.
This includes:
- title
- meta description
- canonical URL
- Open Graph data
- Twitter card data
- schema blocks
This data is already optimized — you just need to use it.
⚙️ Rendering Yoast SEO in Next.js
Recommended approach:
- Fetch post/page via REST API
- Read
yoast_head_json - Map fields to Next.js
metadataor<Head>
This keeps: ✔️ SSR / ISR intact
✔️ full SEO parity with classic WordPress
✔️ clean and predictable output
🔁 Canonical URLs in Headless Projects
A common mistake is forgetting canonicals.
Best practice:
- Let WordPress define canonical URLs
- Render them directly from Yoast data
- Avoid rebuilding canonicals in Next.js manually
This prevents: ❌ duplicate content
❌ index conflicts
❌ SEO regressions
🧾 Final Thoughts
With proper integration, Yoast SEO + Headless WordPress + Next.js:
✨ preserves rankings
✨ keeps SEO editors happy
✨ works perfectly with ISR
✨ scales across large content sites
Headless does not mean SEO sacrifice — it means SEO control.
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