Framer SEO checklist: what to set before you publish

Most SEO problems on Framer sites come from settings nobody filled in, not from the platform. Before you publish, set the site title and description, a title and meta description for every page, field variables on CMS detail pages, a social image and favicon, one H1 per page, alt text on images and your custom domain. Then add redirects for changed URLs, clean up unused pages and check the live site. Framer generates the sitemap for you. Structured data and llms.txt are optional extras.

This is the checklist I run on every site I build or hand over.

What should you set in Framer before publishing?

Set a site-wide title and description, unique page titles and meta descriptions, CMS field variables for detail pages, a social image and favicon, one H1 per page, alt text on meaningful images and a custom domain. Add redirects for any URL you changed, remove unused pages, then check the published site in a browser and in Google Search Console.

How do you set the site title and description in Framer?

Open the site settings and fill in the general title and description first. These are the defaults Framer falls back on when a page has nothing of its own, so an empty field here tends to show up in search results later.

How do you write page titles and meta descriptions in Framer?

Every page has its own title and description. I write them by hand for each page, because a searcher sees these two lines first.

• Title: around 50–60 characters, with the main topic near the front and the brand at the end.

• Description: around 150–160 characters, in active voice, describing what the reader gets from the page.

How do you set SEO for CMS detail pages in Framer?

CMS detail pages share one template, so you set their SEO once and let each item fill it in. In the detail page’s settings, insert field variables into the title and description, for example the item’s title field followed by your brand name, and a summary field for the description.

I add a dedicated SEO description field to blog collections, since a card summary is rarely the right length for a meta description. Bind a CMS image field to the social image too, so each article shares with its own picture.

Which social image and favicon does a Framer site need?

Set one site-wide social image, the picture that appears when someone shares a link, and override it on pages that deserve their own. A 1200 × 630px image works for most platforms.

Upload a favicon too. A square mark that stays readable at small sizes works better than a full logo.

How do you set one H1 per page in Framer?

Each page should have exactly one H1, usually the main headline, with H2 and H3 below it in order. In Framer the heading level comes from the tag, most reliably the tag on a text style. How big the text looks has nothing to do with it. One catch I’ve hit: when a heading is bound to a CMS field, its level comes from the text style, so a title that should look like an H3 but act as the page’s H1 needs its own style tagged H1.

I set up text styles with the right tags at the start of a project, so the structure holds wherever they’re used. When I customise a template, heading tags are one of the first things I check, because templates often ship with several H1s on one page.

Does Framer let you add alt text to images?

Yes. Images in Framer have an alt text field. Describe what the image does on the page, not what it looks like in general: “Portfolio home page on a laptop, showing the case study grid” tells a screen reader and a search engine more than “laptop”.

Leave alt text empty for purely decorative images, so screen readers skip them. For CMS images, add an alt text field to the collection and connect it, otherwise every item shares the same description or none at all.

How do you connect a custom domain to a Framer site?

Add the domain in the site settings and follow the DNS instructions Framer shows for your registrar. Decide early whether the main version is www or the bare domain, and keep it that way.

When do you need redirects in Framer?

You need a redirect whenever a URL that already exists changes. Framer has a redirects section in the site settings where you map an old path to a new one.

Before a relaunch, I map each old URL to its closest new page. Sending everything to the home page is quicker, but it throws away what the old pages had built.

Should you delete unused pages before publishing?

Yes, or at least keep them out of search. Templates often include pages you won’t use, such as a second home page variant, a pricing page for a service you don’t offer, or placeholder blog posts. Published, they can be indexed.

Delete what you won’t need. For pages you want to keep but not show, exclude them from search engines in the page settings and remove links to them.

Does Framer create a sitemap automatically?

Yes. Framer generates a sitemap for the published site, including CMS detail pages, and updates it when you publish. You can open it at /sitemap.xml on your domain. What you need to do is submit that address in Google Search Console, and make sure the pages listed are the ones you want found.

Do you need structured data or llms.txt on a Framer site?

Neither is required, and I treat both as extras after the basics are done.

• Structured data: JSON-LD that describes the page, such as an organisation, a person or an article. You can add it through custom code in the site or page settings.

• llms.txt: a proposed plain-text file that summarises a site for language models. It’s not a formal standard yet. In Framer you can publish it as a static file from the site settings.

Clear page titles, real headings and plain answers near the top of each page do more for AI visibility than either extra.

How do you check a published Framer site for SEO?

Check the live site, not the canvas.

1. Open a few pages and view the page source to confirm the title, description and social image are there.

2. Paste a page link into a social preview tool or a private message to see the shared card.

3. Check the heading order with a browser extension or the accessibility tree.

4. Visit two or three old URLs to confirm the redirects land where you expect.

5. Submit the sitemap in Google Search Console and watch the indexing report over the following weeks.

FAQ

Is Framer good for SEO?

Framer outputs fast, server-rendered pages with editable titles, descriptions, alt text, heading tags, redirects and a sitemap. Those are the technical basics. How well a site ranks then depends mostly on its content and how carefully the settings are filled in.

Can I set SEO for each CMS item in Framer?

Yes. Set the detail page’s title, description and social image with field variables, and each item fills them in from its own fields. Add dedicated SEO fields to the collection if your card summaries are too short or too long.

Does a Framer template come with SEO set up?

Partly. Most templates include page structure and some settings, but the titles, descriptions, alt text and social images still describe the template, not your business. Replace them all before you publish.

Where to go from here

If you’re starting from a template, my guide to customising a Framer template covers the steps before this one. If you’d rather have the build and the SEO setup handled for you, see my Framer services.