Next.js & React Development

Not every website should be a custom build. But when a project has real application logic, an unusual interface, or performance requirements a CMS struggles to meet, React and Next.js are usually where I go — including for this site.

This page covers what I build with them, how I decide when they are the right call, and what you get in practice.

Who this is for

• Teams building a web application rather than a set of pages.
• Businesses needing authenticated user areas, dashboards or internal tools.
• Projects with demanding performance requirements or heavy interactivity.
• Companies with an existing marketing site who need a separate custom product alongside it.

The problems this solves

• The CMS is fighting the requirements. When most of the effort goes into forcing a content system to behave like an application, the tool is wrong.
• Interfaces that need real state. Multi-step flows, live filtering, authenticated views — things that get fragile when bolted onto a page-oriented system.
• Performance ceilings. Static generation and careful control over what JavaScript ships lets you set a performance budget and hold it.
• Integration complexity. Talking to several APIs with custom logic in between is application work.

What is included

• Architecture and rendering strategy — deciding per route whether static generation, server rendering or client rendering is correct.
• Component and design-system development.
• API and third-party integration work.
• Authentication and protected routes where the project needs them.
• SEO handled properly for a JavaScript application: server-rendered metadata, canonicals, structured data, sitemap.
• Performance work — bundle size, image handling, Core Web Vitals.
• Accessible, semantic markup rather than click handlers on div elements.
• Deployment setup and analytics.

How I approach the build

Static by default

Anything that can be generated at build time should be. It is faster for the visitor, cheaper to serve, more reliable, and it means search engines receive complete HTML rather than an empty shell to execute. Server rendering is for pages that genuinely need per-request data.

Ship less JavaScript

The default failure mode of a React project is shipping far more to the browser than the page needs. Keeping heavy data and content out of shared bundles, and off routes that never use it, is unglamorous work that shows up directly in responsiveness.

Semantic HTML before frameworks

Real buttons, real links, real headings, real form labels. This is what makes a site keyboard-navigable and readable by assistive technology and by crawlers — and it is much harder to retrofit than to do from the start.

Choosing a rendering strategy

Next.js lets you decide, per route, how a page is produced. Getting this right is most of the performance story, and it is the decision people most often get wrong by applying one mode to the whole project.

Static generation

The page is built once at deploy time and served as a file. This is the default I reach for: marketing pages, service pages, articles, project pages, documentation — anything where the content is the same for every visitor between deploys. It is the fastest option, the cheapest to serve, and the most resilient, because there is no runtime work to fail.

Server rendering

The page is generated per request. Correct when the response genuinely depends on who is asking or on data that changes minute to minute — an authenticated dashboard, a live availability view, search results. The cost is real: every visit does work, so it should be a deliberate choice for specific routes rather than a project-wide default.

Client-side data fetching

Useful for the interactive parts of a page after it has loaded — filters, live updates, anything behind a login where the content should not be in the HTML anyway. The rule I follow is that nothing needed for SEO or first paint should depend on it.

In practice most projects use all three. This site is almost entirely statically generated; a client dashboard project might be the opposite.

SEO for JavaScript applications

A common failure is metadata that only appears after the JavaScript runs. Rendering it on the server avoids depending on how and when a crawler executes your bundle.

Beyond that, the requirements are the same as any other site: unique titles and descriptions per route, a self-referencing canonical that agrees with the sitemap, one H1 per page, structured data that genuinely describes the content, no private routes leaking into the index, and internal links a crawler can follow as real anchors rather than click handlers.

Performance

The advantage of a custom build is control. You decide what renders when, what ships to the browser, and how images are handled. The targets are the Core Web Vitals thresholds — Largest Contentful Paint under 2.5 seconds, Interaction to Next Paint under 200 milliseconds, Cumulative Layout Shift under 0.1, at the 75th percentile of real visits.

That control cuts both ways. A carelessly built React site can easily be slower than a well-built WordPress one. The framework does not make the site fast; the decisions do.

Mobile and responsive

Mobile-first, using fluid layouts rather than fixed breakpoint jumps, with the same content and metadata present in the mobile rendering as the desktop one — since the mobile version is what gets indexed.

Maintenance and editability

This is the honest trade-off. A custom build gives you control and performance; it does not give a non-technical colleague a visual editor. Content changes mean either a developer, or building a CMS layer into the project.

If frequent self-service content editing is the priority, a WordPress and Elementor Pro build is very likely the better fit, and I would say so before quoting. A common and sensible arrangement is a WordPress marketing site for content, plus a custom application for the parts that need one.