Problem
A studio site is easy to overbuild. A full application framework, database and CMS can make a simple public site slower to maintain without improving the visitor experience.
At the same time, the site needs to be understandable by search engines, AI retrieval systems and people arriving directly at a project page.
Design
The first version uses Astro and content collections so the primary output is complete HTML.
The architecture treats these as first-class requirements:
- stable URLs for projects, services and lab notes
- semantic HTML
- canonical metadata
- sitemap and robots rules
- structured data
- content that exists without client-side JavaScript
Result
The public layer stays close to static files while the content workflow can still evolve independently through Git-based editing and automation.
What changed
SEO and GEO stopped being a checklist added after development. They became constraints that shape routing, content models and deployment from the beginning.