Leave No Breadcrumb On The Table

YES! SEO is more important than ever! It’s still one of the most potent digital marketing strategies that drive long-term results. If you are not trying this, you are missing out, but saying that you have not tried it? 

Well, that is not possible, you probably have and you just do not know it. Confused? 

Well, read on… Yes, you might be surprised, but digital breadcrumbs are equally useful to companies as well as consumers. This website feature helps your visitors to find where they are on a website without using the search section or the search tool. 

Website breadcrumbs allow its users to be able to keep a track of actions and pages that are viewed in the process of navigation through a site. 

What is Website Breadcrumbs?

When the term that pops up is called “website breadcrumb” or “breadcrumb trail”.

It is about a secondary navigation system available on a website or application. This shows a sub-navigation and it allows users to trace their path whilst they are browsing through a website or whilst they are using an app. 

This can usually be found beneath the primary navigation bar, and it actually looks like another navigation bar.

In terms of SEO, breadcrumb navigation majorly contributes to helping facilitate the user experience, it helps to make browsing through site pages easier and more organic for visitors, thus prompting them to stay longer and view more pages. As a result, the bounce rates are going down, which is ultimately good for SEO. 

Breadcrumb markup in the body of a webpage and can help Google Search to identify the content, matching the search query better. While many queries can lead to the same page, it is the breadcrumb that can categorize the content of a web page and show Google which one is the best for a given query context.

Hierarchy-based systems for breadcrumbs have been the most common for years, but today we can use more options in the design and the function of breadcrumbs. 

• Attribute-based – focused on specific product attributes 
• Hierarchy-based – focused on the structure of a website or an app 
• History-based – focused on your unique path through the pages

Often seen on e-commerce sites, such breadcrumbs display the attributes set for the products or services that users are looking for. In other words, attribute-based breadcrumbs may highlight specific features that have been included in a search.

Attribute-based breadcrumbs look like this: 

Feature / Feature / Feature / Feature / Feature 

Rather than showing up in any specific order, the features or “search criteria” may populate the navigation field at random, as the example above shows. 

Hierarchy based Breadcrumbs 

You’ve seen these for sure – they show where a user is within the website structure. Many sites are featured with such a breadcrumb trail – it is great for navigation on a site.

History-based Breadcrumbs

They are also called path-based breadcrumbs – they indicate the path completed by a user while browsing a website. Not surprisingly, it is the least popular breadcrumb type today because it doesn’t add any value to the website navigation: we can always use the arrow buttons to go forward and backward.

History-based breadcrumbs take you forward and backward.

No one wants to spend more time figuring out a website than necessary. It’s basic human nature to want clarity and reassurance that you are where you need to be. 

We need to sense cues like the title of a page and where it fits within the site. Those cues aid in reassuring us a link will bring us the information we want. Without that confidence, we may not click the link.

So, in thinking about that, you can see that at least three terrific reasons exist to use breadcrumbs as part of your site navigation. They (1) increase your page rankings, (2) influence buyer behavior, and (3) help users out.

Since breadcrumbs communicate the content of your pages to search engine robots, they are another contributing factor for higher ranking in SERPs. Needless to say, a higher ranking means more traffic and sales through a website, which every business owner wants to achieve.

A breadcrumb trail delivers confidence to your users by indicating their exact location within the website structure and easing the orientation with a hierarchy-based type. Attribute-based breadcrumbs help visitors explore your offerings by their features and facilitate the search process. Both of the above results in more time visitors spend browsing your website. 

The longer someone stays on your site, the more they are getting to know your brand and your products or services. You want to increase the customer’s comfort on the site in a way that increases behavior positively.

Helping Users Understand the Pattern of Your Site!

Users actually prefer sites with breadcrumbs because these navigation trails make the site smoother to steer through. When you have a better idea of where you are and why this reduces the cognitive load of decision-making while clicking through to the next page. 

It’s like having a “you are here” mark on a map, or locating the blue dot on a GPS navigation system. It’s easier to get where you are going when you know where you are.

How to Add Breadcrumbs

To add a breadcrumbs navigational path to your site, you can do some HTML coding or work to customize a website template’s navigation settings.

WordPress

The standard navigation system of WordPress websites doesn’t include breadcrumbs. To add breadcrumbs web design to your WordPress website, you have to enable this option on the SEO » Search Appearance » Breadcrumbs page. The system will offer several options of how WordPress breadcrumbs will look on your pages. 

Another option is to install and then activate an SEO Plugin that’s designed explicitly for WordPress, such as Yoast or Breadcrumb NavXT. These are fairly straightforward, but they will require additional work.

Woocommerc

If you want to revamp your breadcrumb navigation or disable them completely, you can use a WordPress Plugin called “WooCommerce Breadcrumbs”. It allows you to change the website code and customize the breadcrumbs appearance on the pages. 

“WooCommerce Breadcrumbs” settings include:

Breadcrumb separator

Wrap before: The opening HTML tag 

Wrap after: The closing HTML tag 

Before: The opening HTML tag for individual breadcrumbs

After: The closing HTML tag for individual breadcrumbs

Home text: The text to use for the ‘Home’ breadcrumb

Home URL: The ‘Home’ breadcrumb URL link

One note of caution: If your site was developed as part of a “WooTheme,” this disables WooCommerce Breadcrumbs and instead uses something called “WooFramework Breadcrumbs.” WooFramework Breadcrumbs don’t provide as much control or as many options as WooCommerce Breadcrumbs.

Some More Tips

There are three important technical tips for adding breadcrumbs to your website:

• You will need a specific, non-standard web design solution.
• With a WordPress website, you can use several Plugins to simplify the process.
• Upon the Plugin installation, you will still need to apply modifications. 

Above all, remember that adding breadcrumbs to your website is always a positive change, even if it takes time. They help improve your website rankings, which is good for SEO.

Additionally, they allow your users to browse with more confidence and convenience, which is a go-to source for more conversions. Subsequently, a web design that includes adding breadcrumbs is a winning one for creating a site that would work as a marketing tool, bringing you more sales and revenue.