Keywords, backlinks or valuable in-depth content all affect a website’s ability to rank in search engines. And a feature that many SEO people do not pay too much attention to but also contribute to the success of website SEO is Breadcrumbs. This is a great navigation feature that not only improves the user experience but also helps in increasing the website ranking on the search engines. Let’s find out what Breadcrumb is and how to use this useful feature to optimize your website!!
Table of Contents
Breadcrumbs are website navigation elements applied to improve UX (user experience) and better crawlability for web visitors. Breadcrumbs act as an effective visual aid, showing the user’s position in the site’s hierarchy. This feature makes breadcrumb navigation a great source of information to help users answer questions like “where am I on the site?”, “where can I find the page I visited?”, …
What is breadcrumbs?
A lot of SEO people ignore breadcrumbs in the SEO optimization process for the website. Perhaps because they do not really understand the role or benefits that this small element can bring to the website.
Improve user experience (UX)
Breadcrumb is similar to a miniature map that gives visitors a visual view of their location on the page and from there easily go to or back to the visited pages to find the information they need. Thanks to breadcrumbs, the website is optimized for UX, providing a smooth, simple experience and making users spend more time on the website.
Improve website ranking
Breadcrumbs not only help optimize UX but also make Google “satisfied” because it helps search engines understand the structure of the website. Google now also displays Breadcrumbs in search results pages. A clear web structure makes your page stand out and attracts more users, thereby increasing your click-through rate (CTR) and resulting in improved website rankings on the SERPs.
Reduce bounce rate
Exit Rate there Bounce Rate may not be a direct website ranking factor, but it does have an impact. A high bounce rate can indicate that the site is having problems with UX – a user experience that breadcrumbs can help improve.
Let’s say you are looking for a new lipstick model on Shopee. You found this template but it doesn’t match what you’re looking for. Use breadcrumbs to easily navigate back to “lipstick” and find another product.
Breadcrumbs help reduce page bounce rate
This is really good for the website because it can prevent users from going back to Google and visiting another similar website.
Breadcrumbs are divided into 3 main categories:
- Location Breadcrumbs
- Path Breadcrumbs
- Attribute Breadcrumbs
Each type will serve a purpose, so before you add any to your site, you also need to figure out what type of navigation path will work best for your site.
Location-based breadcrumbs are navigational paths based on the structure of a web page. They help visitors understand and navigate your site hierarchy. This is the most common type of breadcrumbs today, it tells users where they are in the web structure and easily navigates back to the homepage or any previous page.
Location Breadcrumbs
This type of breadcrumb navigation displays the paths or categories the user has visited similar to the browsing history, hence it is also known as the historical breadcrumb. However, it is not yet widely used on the web. Because users often wander from page to page, path breadcrumbs make it difficult for them to know exactly where they are in the web structure. And this feature is also easily replaced by the “Back” button in the browser.
For example, if you are searching for information about SEO and have visited different articles, the breadcrumbs following the path will display something like this:
Home > SEO Article 1 > SEO Article 2 > Current Page
Breadcrumbs by attribute list categories for a particular page which are usually product categories. This type of navigation is very useful for e-commerce websites because these sites often contain a lot of products with different classification attributes. For example, for the item “Baby diapers”, e-commerce websites can categorize products by different attributes such as: age, price, manufacturer, etc. This is displayed as the breadcrumbs attribute.
This page shows all products with the attribute “domestic goods”
When applying Breadcrumbs to your website, keep these tips in mind for efficiency and user experience on the web.
- Use breadcrumbs as an extra: Breadcrumbs are considered an additional feature and should not replace the main menu. Remember that it’s just a convenience feature or a secondary navigation scheme to help enhance the browsing experience.
Apple uses breadcrumbs to aid in site navigation
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- Do not link current page in breadcrumb navigation: the last entry in the location path does not need to show the current user’s location. It makes no sense to add the current page’s link to the breadcrumbs. If you still want to show it, make sure to show only the category name without inserting the current page link.
- Use delimiters: The most commonly used symbol to separate links in breadcrumbs is “>”. You can also use other icons such as: →, >>, //, etc., depending on the website’s aesthetics.
Use clear delimiters of categories
- Note about size and color: There should be enough space between different breadcrumbs for users to see and interact, especially on mobile devices. Also note about the breadcrumbs bar color, you don’t want the user to just focus on it and ignore the main menu. Usually breadcrumbs will have a less prominent interface than the main navigation menu
- Simple font: Do not use fonts that are too “artistic”, flying, which makes it difficult to see and read. Because breadcrumbs are formed to help visitors see and understand visually. Abuse of weird typefaces only makes them more confusing and this is not a good user experience.
Conclude
Breadcrumb perhaps just a small factor that contributes to the great power of a website. But implementing effective breadcrumbs will also bring many benefits to you while competitors are gradually ignoring it. Hope SEOVietNam has brought you useful information!!
