What Are Breadcrumbs and How Do They Help Your SEO?

Breadcrumbs are a navigational aid that helps users understand their current location within a website. They are typically displayed at the top of a webpage and show the hierarchical structure of the site, allowing users to easily navigate back to previous pages. The term “breadcrumbs” is derived from the fairy tale “Hansel and Gretel”, where the characters use breadcrumbs to find their way back home.

In the context of web design, breadcrumbs serve a similar purpose by providing users with a trail of links that lead back to the homepage or parent categories. Breadcrumbs are particularly useful for websites with a complex structure or a large number of pages. They provide users with a clear path to follow, making it easier for them to find the information they are seeking.

Additionally, breadcrumbs can also have a positive impact on search engine optimisation (SEO) by improving the crawlability and indexability of a website. This article will explore the importance of breadcrumbs for SEO, how they improve user experience, the different types of breadcrumbs and how to implement them, best practices for using breadcrumbs in SEO, and case studies that demonstrate how breadcrumbs have improved SEO for websites.

Summary

• Breadcrumbs are a navigational tool that helps users track their path on a website, typically displayed as a trail of links at the top of a page.
• Breadcrumbs are important for SEO as they provide search engines with additional context about the website’s structure and help improve site indexing and ranking.
• Breadcrumbs improve user experience by providing clear navigation and helping users understand their location within the website.
• There are different types of breadcrumbs, including location-based, path-based, and attribute-based, and they can be implemented using HTML or structured data markup.
• Best practices for using breadcrumbs in SEO include making them visible and clickable, using schema markup, and ensuring they reflect the website’s hierarchy accurately.

The Importance of Breadcrumbs for SEO

Improved Search Engine Understanding

This can help search engines to better understand the content and context of each page, which can ultimately lead to improved rankings in search results.

Enhanced Internal Linking Structure

In addition to providing search engines with valuable information about a website’s structure, breadcrumbs can also help to improve the internal linking structure of a site. Internal links are an important ranking factor for SEO, as they help to distribute authority and relevance throughout a website. By including breadcrumbs on each page, website owners can create additional internal links that connect related pages within the site. This can help to improve the flow of PageRank and authority throughout the site, which can have a positive impact on SEO.

Boosting Crawlability and Indexability

Overall, breadcrumbs are an important tool for improving the crawlability and indexability of a website, which can ultimately lead to better rankings in search results.

How Breadcrumbs Improve User Experience

Breadcrumbs not only benefit SEO but also greatly improve user experience on a website. They provide users with a clear and intuitive way to navigate through a site’s structure, making it easier for them to find the information they are looking for. By displaying the hierarchical path of a page, breadcrumbs give users a sense of orientation and help them understand where they are within the site.

This can be especially useful for websites with a large number of pages or complex navigation, as it allows users to easily backtrack or move between different sections of the site. Furthermore, breadcrumbs can also help to reduce bounce rates and increase user engagement. When users can easily navigate through a website and find relevant content, they are more likely to stay on the site for longer periods of time.

This can have a positive impact on key metrics such as average session duration and pages per session, which are important indicators of user engagement. By providing users with a clear path to follow, breadcrumbs can help to guide them through the site and encourage them to explore more content. Overall, breadcrumbs are an important tool for improving user experience and can help to keep users engaged and satisfied with their website visit.

Types of Breadcrumbs and How to Implement Them

There are three main types of breadcrumbs that are commonly used on websites: location-based breadcrumbs, attribute-based breadcrumbs, and path-based breadcrumbs. Location-based breadcrumbs show the user’s current location within the site’s hierarchy, such as “Home > Category > Subcategory > Page.” Attribute-based breadcrumbs display the attributes or characteristics of the current page, such as “Home > Colour > Red > Product.” Path-based breadcrumbs show the user’s path through the site, such as “Home > Search Results > Product > Product Details.” Each type of breadcrumb serves a different purpose and can be used in different contexts depending on the structure and content of the website. To implement breadcrumbs on a website, web developers can use HTML markup or structured data to create the breadcrumb trail.

HTML markup involves adding breadcrumb links directly into the HTML code of each page, using