Separate content from presentation early
Even in small projects, route content becomes harder to manage when every page mixes copy, metadata, and rendering logic in one large component.
I prefer a simple data layer for anything repeatable, such as projects, case studies, or blog posts. That keeps pages focused on composition and makes future CMS or markdown migration much easier.
Reuse page-level structure, not just small components
Teams often reuse buttons and cards but still rebuild the same page shell repeatedly. A better pattern is to standardize the page frame first: SEO, background, navigation, content container, and footer.
Once that structure is stable, new pages can be added quickly with less risk of inconsistent spacing, broken metadata, or forgotten navigation updates.
- Keep navigation changes centralized.
- Use consistent route-level layouts for better design continuity.
- Push repeated metadata logic into a shared SEO utility.
Production readiness means more than a working UI
A feature is not production-ready if it only works in local navigation. It also needs crawlable URLs, build compatibility, and the basic discoverability assets around it.
For content routes, that usually means checking static route generation, sitemap coverage, canonical consistency, and empty-state behavior before calling the work finished.