Do you want to enhance your overall site performance? If yes, then you need to know what the Breadcrumbs are and how they affect your SEO management.
Now, most of the web owners are busy with their website. However, sometimes they ignore their proper navigation menus, and that can affect their overall site performance and SEO ranking. So, today in this article we are going to tell you about Breadcrumbs which is very helpful to any website to increase user retention and also SEO ranking. Before we are going to the deep let’s see what are Breadcrumbs in SEO.
Read; Get The Clear Idea On What Is SEO To Improve Your Website Ranking.
What are Breadcrumbs?
The Breadcrumbs is a small text path or a graphical control element, often located at the top of a page, and it helps your users to comprehend their current position on the site. It is one of the valuable parts for both web designers and SEO experts. This term comes from the classic story of Hansel and Gretel and how they used Breadcrumbs to retrace their steps and get back home. On a website, Breadcrumbs serve the same purpose – they help users understand where they are and, if necessary, help them get back to the previous site section.
Breadcrumbs types and structure
There are different types of Breadcrumbs for a website that you can use to optimize your website. But the three most useful ones. Now we are going to discuss each of them in detail so that you can decide which type you want to use on your site.
Location-based or Hierarchy-based Breadcrumbs:
Hierarchy based Breadcrumbs are the most common form of website Breadcrumbs. It easily navigates your users back to the main page or home page. With the help of this navigation, your users can trace again through many different layers that are present on your site. It represents the structure of the page and helps users to understand the site’s multiple level hierarchies for better navigation. Something like Home > About Us > Information > Contact.
Attribute-based Breadcrumbs:
Attribute-based Breadcrumbs are most commonly seen on an e-commerce site. These Breadcrumbs explain the relationship of products to one another and help visitors to found a new approach. For example; if someone was looking for a Blue Cotton T-Shirt in XL, their attribute-based Breadcrumbs trail would read something like this: Home> T-Shirt> Men’s T-Shirt> XL > Blue > Cotton.
History-based or Path-based Breadcrumbs:
History-based Breadcrumbs deal with your browsing history directly on the site. This Breadcrumb links at the top of the page feature the various pages you’ve already visited, listed in the order that they were navigated to. It shows the history of your journey throughout the site, negating the need to ever use a “back” button. Basically, it looks like this: Home > Previous page > Previous page > Previous page > Current page.
Read; Know These On-Page SEO Factors To Improve Website Ranking.
Benefits of Breadcrumbs for SEO
There are several advantages to using the Breadcrumbs trail on your site. Let’s take a quick look at them:
1. They enhance your user experience:
Breadcrumbs are an essential factor when it comes to helping user experience. This will help your visitor to navigate your site easier and even help them understand how the website works. It also encourages your user to explore your website deeper and discover new pages and functionalities.
2. They reduce the bounce rate:
Thanks to organic search, users rarely enter your website through the homepage. That’s why every page of the site needs to be treated as an entry point. The Breadcrumbs trail creates a positive impact on your visitors as they enter your site. These navigation points guide your visitor appropriately when they want to explore your website more. It offers your visitor an alternative way to browse your site so that users won’t leave. In this instance, the breadcrumb trail reduces the bounce rate. If you want to read more about what is reduce bounce rate, then you can read; What Is Bounce Rate Of A Website And How Can You Reduce It?
3. It impresses Google or other search engines:
Breadcrumbs allow Google to more easily determine the structure of your site, which is more appealing in the long run towards a good SEO score. When you apply breadcrumbs to your site, it becomes a feature of your Google search engine results. So you will get a good amount of traffic. To increase the chances of your breadcrumbs appearing in Google, you can use the Yoast SEO Plugin on your site.
How do you optimize Breadcrumbs for SEO?
It’s clear that not all of the breadcrumbs are created equally. Some of them will have a major effect on your SEO rankings and some of them you won’t even notice. So, optimizing the breadcrumbs on your website can be a really balancing process. You must be careful when optimizing your breadcrumbs for SEO. If you optimize your breadcrumbs too much, you may get penalties from Google. So, it is a good thing is that there are no penalties if you don’t optimize your breadcrumbs enough. If you’re trying to optimize your breadcrumbs for keywords, you can use only one keyword, and keep in mind that too much extra keyword stuffing can hurt you.
Conclusion
Finally, we can say Breadcrumbs can be a valuable asset to your business and website if you use them properly. But before you can apply them on your website, you need to learn more about them. Moreover, if you have trouble applying them to your own site, you can easily create Breadcrumbs for your website using a plugin system.
Thanks for reading. We hope this was informative. If you want to read more SEO related articles, then you can read;
