Do you want to make it easy for your users to navigate from a particular page to different parent pages? That’s when you must know about breadcrumbs.
Breadcrumb is an essential element of a website to improve user experience through better website navigation, which helps retain users. It also helps search engines understand your website’s structure to improve the ranking. In this article, we’ll explain what is breadcrumbs, their importance in SEO, when you should use them, and everything you need to know to enhance your page’s visibility.
Table of Contents
What Is Breadcrumbs Navigation SEO?
Breadcrumb is a small contextual text on the top of the page, indicating where the user is on a website. It is an essential element of a website because it makes it user-friendly, telling Google that you prioritise user experience. However, breadcrumb is structured primarily for the deep site architecture. That means websites with multiple levels of categories are apt for breadcrumbs, such as e-commerce websites.
Importance Of Breadcrumbs In SEO
The first step in achieving a higher ranking on the search engine result page is prioritising your user satisfaction. This can be done by adding breadcrumbs to assist visitors in landing on the relevant page within the website hierarchy. Here’s a list of the importance of using breadcrumbs in SEO.
1. Reduces Bounce Rate
Since breadcrumbs are established to better user experience, adding them to your website rapidly reduces the bounce rate. Breadcrumbs makes your website user-friendly so visitors can easily navigate to the relevant page within the website hierarchy.
2. Improves Ranking
Breadcrumbs in SEO allows Google to understand what your website is about and how it is structured. It assists the search engine in effectively crawling your website. If your website seems accessible, the chances of appearing on the search engine result page increase.
3. Optimises Internal Linking Structure
Breadcrumbs typically include links to parent and sibling pages. These links create a contextually relevant internal linking structure. When users click these links, they are directed to related content, which can improve the overall user experience and increase the time spent on the site.
4. Engage Users For Longer
Increasing the user engagement rate is the end goal for website owners to enhance the site’s visibility. Since breadcrumbs let the users access any page with a single click, they stick around for longer on the site. Hence, it increases the engagement rate.
5. Increase Conversion Rates
Improved user experience and straightforward navigation can lead to higher conversion rates, particularly on e-commerce sites. Where users need to move through product categories and checkout processes.
Types Of Breadcrumbs
There are three types of breadcrumbs on a website, and each differs. It is important to figure out the types of breadcrumbs and how they work before adding them to the website.
1. Hierarchy Based Breadcrumbs
Hierarchy-based breadcrumb in SEO is the most common one that helps users understand where they are on the site. For instance: Home > Keywords > Wired Keyboards. Here, the trail starts with the whole (top-level category) and then navigates through more specifics. Hierarchy-based breadcrumb allows users to explore more on the website.
2. Attributes Based Breadcrumbs
The attributes-based breadcrumb is used in the e-commerce site for service and product category pages, where the users can select options from available filters. Later, the breadcrumbs are generated based on specified attributes. Hence, such a breadcrumb has no fixed hierarchy for the product’s characteristics.
3. Path-Based/History-Based Breadcrumb
Path-based breadcrumb is like your history bar, creating a trail based on your visited pages. This breadcrumb is rarely used on websites due to its history-like interface. Also, showing previous click paths to users is considered an unacceptable SEO practice.
Best Breadcrumbs Navigation Practice For Mobile UX
Users can save time and effort by quickly jumping to higher-level pages or categories using breadcrumbs. This becomes especially crucial on mobile devices where limited screen space requires too much scrolling.
- Position the breadcrumb above H2 for full usability benefits. It should be visible without the need for excessive scrolling.
- Due to limited screen space on mobile devices, use a concise breadcrumb trail. Avoid using lengthy or complex breadcrumb paths.
- Make each breadcrumb element clickable, allowing users to jump directly to a higher-level page.
- Use the optimal delimiter for separating the hyperlinks. The “Greater than” symbol is the best suit for indicating the relation between the pages.
- Ensure that the text size is readable and that there is enough space between the breadcrumb’s trail.
Conclusion
Implementing breadcrumbs on your website will benefit your users in navigation and provide clear hierarchical paths. It improves website accessibility, assisting users in understanding their location within the site. Now that you know what is breadcrumbs in SEO, add them to your website to improve your page’s visibility and grow your business. Choose hierarchy-based and attribute-based breadcrumbs for your website to bring maximum results.
