What is Breadcrumb Navigation?
Breadcrumb navigation is a set of links that follows and displays a user’s path through a site. They are usually located at the top left of a page’s content.
Example: HDMZ > Blog > Breadcrumb Navigation & SEO
Benefits of Breadcrumb Navigation
Breadcrumb navigation is a great UX feature and is great for SEO. It allows users to easily view where they landed and find their way back without having to click the Back button or restart the entire search process. This makes for a better user experience and can reduce bounce and exit rates.
Additionally, Google loves sites with visible navigation and optimal user experience. In June 2017, Gary Illyes of Google stated: “We likes them [breadcrumb navigation]. We treat them as normal links in e.g. PageRank computation”.
Breadcrumbs help search engines crawl websites. Google now displays breadcrumbs in search results, which are likely to help increase the click-through rate (CTR) by making site content categories more visible.
Example:
Breadcrumb Navigation Best Practices
Here are some best practices that you can implement to optimize breadcrumbs for SEO:
Breadcrumbs should be at the top of the page
Breadcrumbs should be on the whole site, not just one page
Include the full navigation path in breadcrumbs
Start with your homepage and break down step-by-step to current page
Don’t hyperlink to the current page
Breadcrumbs act as secondary navigation, and should never replace primary navigation menus
What this means for you:
Breadcrumb navigation is recommended only if it will help users
Breadcrumb navigation can improve SEO by increasing click-through-rate (CTR) and reducing bounce rate
We are here to help! For assistance with adding breadcrumb navigation to your site, email us at client.services@hdmz.com.
Read More:
Google: We Like Breadcrumb Navigation Links On Your Site
