Breadcrumb is an important part of having a website. In addition to telling web visitors which page they will be redirected to, adding a breadcrumb can also help Google to better understand the structure of your website.
To be able to understand what is meant by breadcrumbs and how they benefit SEO, see the discussion below.
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What is Breadcrumbs?
Breadcrumb is a short navigation text that is usually located at the top of the web page to provide information on where the user is on a site.
This breadcrumb path shows where the page you are currently on is located on a website structure . Each step of the path is clickable, all the way back to the original homepage.
The origin of the name breadcrumb, or what if translated into Indonesian as ‘breadcrumbs’, itself is quite interesting.
In the story of Hansel and Gretel, when they went to the forest, Hansel left a trail of breadcrumbs on the road so that they did not get lost when they wanted to return home.
The concept of ‘breadcrumb’ is then a model of the website navigation path as it is today. Like the breadcrumbs used by Hansel, the link path which is usually located at the top of this website is intended to prevent users from getting ‘lost’ in a website.
Types of Breadcrumb
There are several types of breadcrumbs from a website, each of which is distinguished by the name of the path. Of the many types of website breadcrumbs, here are some of the most popular.
Hierarchy-based Breadcrumbs
This type of breadcrumb is the most popular.
The hierarchy-based breadcrumb tells you where you are in a website structure and how many steps or pages you need to go through to get back to the homepage. An example of a hierarchy-based breadcrumb would be something like this:
Home > Blog > Category > Post name
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| Source: Best Buy |
Attribute-based Breadcrumbs
Attribute-based breadcrumbs are usually used on e-commerce websites. The path in this breadcrumb is based on the attribute name of the product on the website. The following is an example of implementing attribute-based breadcrumbs:
Home > Product category > Gender > Size > Color
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| Source: Nordstrom |
History-based Breadcrumbs
As the name suggests, this breadcrumb path is based on the order of the pages you visit on a website. An example of using history-based breadcrumbs is as follows:
Home > Previous page > Previous page > Current page
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| Source: Amazon |
Benefits of Using Breadcrumb
As mentioned earlier, apart from the user experience, using breadcrumbs on your website also has benefits for your SEO efforts. Here are three main reasons why your website should use breadcrumbs.
1. Can help Google understand the website
Breadcrumbs can help Google to understand the structure of your website.
Google can also display the breadcrumb of your page in their search results page so that it can provide additional information for the user. This will increase the chances for your website pages to get more clicks on Google.
2. Improve user experience
Breadcrumbs can help improve the user experience of your website because they are a common website navigation element that can help direct visitors to the web page they want more easily.
3. Lower bounce rate
In addition to the home page, web visitors can also enter your website through other pages, such as an article blog page for example. Therefore, you need to add a website navigation feature that can direct visitors to other pages on your website and breadcrumb is one of them.
That way, indirectly adding breadcrumbs to the website can also be an effort you can do to lower the website bounce rate.
Conclusion
Breadcrumb is one feature that is fairly easy to implement but can help with your SEO efforts.
Although the application of breadcrumbs will not guarantee your website to get first ranking in the SERPs, breadcrumbs still provide benefits from both the user and search engine side.
If you need help implementing breadcrumbs or other website navigation features, Fesney is here to help.