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Field notes

Field notes from shipping Next.js sites that rank.

Long form writing from active RankSmith engagements. No recycled tips, no AI summaries of other people’s posts. Every essay is written from something we shipped, something we measured, or something we learned the hard way.

6 minute readPublishing April 2026

How to write an answer first H2 that ChatGPT will actually cite

A walk through of the exact heading and first sentence structure we use on RankSmith sites, and why it gets lifted as a citation more often than a well optimised blog post.

14 minute readPublishing May 2026

WordPress to Next.js, a migration checklist that preserves rankings

The forty step migration checklist RankSmith uses on every WordPress to Next.js move, including the 301 map, the schema port, and the live cutover window.

5 minute readPublishing May 2026

llms.txt in 2026, what we actually put in the file

A line by line walk through of the llms.txt we ship on every RankSmith build, and the annotation rules we follow so LLMs pick the right entry points.

8 minute readPublishing June 2026

INP under 100 milliseconds on a Framer Motion heavy page

How RankSmith keeps Interaction to Next Paint under 100 milliseconds on pages that lean heavily on Framer Motion, without turning off the interactions.

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Essays are published here first. If you want a quieter copy, book a strategy call and we will hand you the current draft set plus the internal checklist we use on every migration.