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What Are Breadcrumbs And How To Use Them For Effective SEO?

What Are Breadcrumbs And How To Use Them For Effective SEO? featured image
28 Aug 2021
Nirlep Patel
Digital Marketing

Breadcrumb or breadcrumb trail is a graphical control element. It is used as a navigational tool in user interfaces and on web pages. It allows users to keep track of their locations within programs, documents, or websites.

It is a secondary navigation system. The term came from the Hansel and Gretel fairy tale, in which the main characters create a trail using breadcrumbs to track back their house.

What Are Breadcrumbs In Google?

The Breadcrumb trail indicates the page indicates the position of the page in the site hierarchy. It improves the user experience in terms of navigation and exploring the site. Users can navigate up in the order by going one level at a time while following the breadcrumb trail.

Breadcrumbs are represented as trail links. They are often at the top of the page. They’re located just below the global navigation. The homepage is considered the first link, and other carriers have separate links to create a hierarchy. Each link is separated through “>” or “/” symbols.

Types Of Breadcrumbs

There are three types of breadcrumbs. Each breadcrumb has a significant role in SEO building, and they have diverse functions. The three types given below contribute to making the user experience better by building SEO.

Hierarchy Breadcrumbs

Hierarchy breadcrumbs are also known as location-based breadcrumbs. It’s a breadcrumb menu. Blogs or websites make use of hierarchy breadcrumbs. They’re navigation-based platforms and use several pages to carry different types of information. Hierarchy breadcrumbs make it easier for the user to go from one page to another while using a particular platform, be it a website or blog.

Dynamic Breadcrumbs

Dynamic breadcrumbs are also known as attribute-based breadcrumbs. They are used in case a product has different characteristics. The trails make the navigation easier. They assist the users to understand product attributes without leaving the current page.

History-Based Breadcrumbs

The breadcrumbs path trail is based on pages the user visited. It’s not used as often as other breadcrumbs. It is not an effective SEO practice thus not used frequently.

Why are breadcrumbs important?

Breadcrumbs are a vital element of SEO. It helps in the creation of SEO-friendly websites. The following reasons make breadcrumbs desirable :

Easier Navigation:

The central role of the breadcrumbs is to make navigation easier.

They make it easier for users to visit the website more frequently and reduce the bounce rate.

They Are Good For SEO:

There are two main reasons why breadcrumbs are vital for SEO

  1. They help search engine bots while crawling and indexing. Crawlers can identify and use breadcrumbs to formulate more information about a site or a web page.
  2. Google shows breadcrumbs information in SERPs (Search Engine Result Pages). It doesn’t show the permalink of the page.

To Optimise Breadcrumbs For A Better SEO Following Steps Can Be Helpful

● Make the breadcrumbs enable and visible for the users

Web designers and graphic designers often hide breadcrumb trails because it doesn’t go with the page’s aesthetic. However, the visibility of the breadcrumbs can be vital for a better user experience. Breadcrumbs can match the design and will not disrupt the aesthetic or essence of the page.

● Make them mobile-friendly

Users make their queries through their handy devices. Gone are the days when the internet was limited to desktops. Today, mobiles can play just as many functions as any standard laptop or desktop. Mobile-friendly SEO will result in better optimization of the platform.

● Add schema markup

Schema markups highlight specific areas of your webpage. It helps crawlers to find relevant information. It makes indexing a little easier for the crawlers. Schema markups also help the crawlers to understand the webpage structure in a better manner.

What are the Advantages of using Breadcrumbs?

Some of the advantages that your website will have on using breadcrumbs is as follows-

  • Google Loves Breadcrumbs: Not just your visitors, Goggle too loves breadcrumbs. This gives Google and its robots to understand your website’s working and make it available to users on search results if they are looking out for something similar. Try to keep your data structured to ensure breadcrumbs appear on Google.
  • Better User Experience: When you visit a place for the first time, you don’t want to seem lost. For this, you keep in mind places, stores or some character traits to help you remember. This holds for websites as well. Breadcrumbs allow users to keep a streamlined process and understand their steps to reach that page on the website. This helps in more straightforward navigation without needing to press the back button.
  • Lowers the Bounce Rate: In most cases, people would not directly enter your home page when getting organic search results. Therefore, whatever page the visitor enters can be the entry point to your website. Your website should have good breadcrumbs added to help users navigate to a specific page they might have liked to visit. This will reduce the bounce rate and increase the time users spend on your website. Adding a homepage button or taking action wherein clicking your company name/logo on any page will lead users to your homepage.

Breadcrumbs are helpful for user experience. They improve the look of search snippets, and Google notices the web pages with breadcrumbs. Thus, it is beneficial for the business and users. The correct data structure can be achieved through breadcrumbs. They’re vital for better Search Engine Optimisation.