Breadcrumbs in SEO: Definition, Benefits, & How to Create It

If you are working on your website performance using SEO, you probably have heard about breadcrumbs. As a navigational tool for your website, breadcrumbs have a big impact on user experience and SEO.

In addition to letting visitors know where they are on your website, breadcrumbs also assist Google in determining the structure of your website. This navigational tool is also easy to implement. 

This article will guide you to explore what breadcrumbs are and how to create it on your website. So, check this out!

What Is Breadcrumb in SEO?

Breadcrumbs in SEO are programmed internal links that help users trace where they are on a website and how far away they are from the homepage. They are typically located right behind the navigation bar or at the top of a webpage.

For example, you will find a clickable series of pages just below the navigation bar looking like this: Home > References > What Is Suggestive Selling? Benefits and Best Practices. 

In general, breadcrumbs assist users in finding the information they need and in staying on a website, much way internal links do. Instead of using the back button on a browser, users can use breadcrumbs to advance one step and continue their journey on the website if they become lost.

Not only inside the website, breadcrumbs are also visible in search results and can help users easily understand where a page is located on your website as follows:

It is important to note that Google completely comprehends the structure and contents of your website by using the structured data on it. Thus, breadcrumbs are used by Google for both crawling and rich results.

Types of Breadcrumbs

Commonly, there are four types of breadcrumbs in SEO serving individual purposes. Therefore, if you plan to add this navigational tool, you must determine the right type based on user experience. Below are the types of breadcrumbs you should know:

1. Location-Based Breadcrumbs / Hierarchy-Based Breadcrumbs

This navigational type is commonly used on a website and instructs users on how to return to the homepage and where they are in the site's hierarchy. The format could be Home > Travel > Dubai. 

2. Look-ahead / Forward Breadcrumbs

Next, there are forward breadcrumbs that show the next pages users can visit in addition to the current destination. Usually, the last destination will be in the form of dropdowns where users can choose the next page to visit. 

3. Attribute-Based Breadcrumbs

E-commerce websites frequently employ these breadcrumbs to display the properties that a user has clicked on. Example: Home > Seasonal Attire > Winter > Women.

4. History-Based Breadcrumbs

This kind of breadcrumb, which is rarely used, functions similarly to a browser history in informing users of other pages they have viewed on the website. The format would be Home > Previous page > Previous page > Current page.

Why Should You Use Breadcrumbs?

Now that you already grasped the idea of breadcrumbs, you might wonder why you must use this navigational tool on your website. In fact, you can get the benefits of breadcrumbs as follows:

1. Make Visitors Stay Longer

Breadcrumbs can navigate each page visited so that users do not have to use the back button often or even leave the pages to repeat the search journey. This is important since if many users leave your site without finishing the journey, it will increase the bounce rate. 

Even though the bounce rate is not a ranking factor, it can aid users to navigate through the website and Google considers this in their ranking process. 

2. Improve User Experience

Because breadcrumbs help users navigate your website, they will explore it more flexibly. This indicates that your website has a good user experience. 

3. Appear on Rich Snippet

As mentioned before, this navigational tool can appear on the SERPs, but only if you include structured data in the breadcrumbs. This way, Google can recognise it and display it on SERPs. 

However, it is important to note that you cannot manipulate Google by using structured data on your website without providing users with vivid breadcrumbs. Once you are caught doing this and violating the guidelines, Google can penalise you for not being eligible for any type of rich snippets.

4. Help Google Understand Your Website

Breadcrumbs not only navigate users but also search engines like Google to understand what your website is about and its structure. By using it, Google can crawl your content better and display it on the rich results on SERPs.

How to Create Breadcrumbs

To add breadcrumbs structured data, Google has released a guideline to do so on Google Search Central. In general, you can follow Google guides here:

• Insert the important properties. You can use Content Management System (CMS)’s plugins or JavaScript. 
• Follow the Google guidelines. 
• Validate the code using the Rich Results Test and if you find errors, immediately fix it. 
• Deploy the pages having structured data and inspect how Google sees the page by using URL Inspection tool. 
• Submit the sitemap. 

If you are using WordPress, you can easily create breadcrumbs on your website using Yoast SEO, WooCommerce Breadcrumbs Plugin, or WordPress Plugins. Other CMS like Squarespace, Wix, and Shopify also have built-in breadcrumbs features that you can use easily. 

Conclusion

 Those are the detailed information about breadcrumbs in SEO you can adhere to. It can be said that this navigational tool is important for better user experience and SEO impact.

Using breadcrumbs is indeed essential for your website performance, but so is SEO. Therefore you must improve the SEO strategy to gain better results. In this case, SEO Service by cmlabs can be your go-to solution. 

We at cmlabs will assist you in optimising your website in the on-page, off-page, content, and many more. So, secure a meeting now and tell us your SEO needs for free!