Breadcrumb navigation is a text path found at the top of a web page telling where the visitor is on your website. Each step of this path is easily clickable and all-the-way to your site’s homepage. You will also find breadcrumbs in the search results of Google and reap the maximum benefits out of the same. This navigation type helps your visitors to figure out where your web page is located on the website.
SEO
If you use Yoast SEO, it would include the required prearranged data, which is the breadcrumb list. However, some of the times, you may need to integrate a small code to your theme too.
According to an article published on Forbes.com, you need to organize your website using breadcrumbs for seamless navigation. For example, if you have e-commerce website platform such as Shopify, your website has the necessary site architecture as well as optimized to provide you maximum visibility online. However, this holds true for all your competitors in your business or industry. Therefore, read on to learn about the top benefits of using breadcrumb navigation to take your SEO to the next level.
Improves user experience
Online visitors abhor being lost on a website while looking for information. They hate it so much that they can abandon your site if navigation is not simple and seamless. When troubled with some new location, users usually search for identifiable items and landmarks; the same is true for your visitors when trying to access information but failing to do so due to poor navigation.
You must ensure that your site visitors are pleased and you cut back on friction as much as feasible. This is where breadcrumbs come into play to enhance user experience. That is because these are a universal interface component leading your visitors their way around your website. Your visitors do not need to click the back button to accessthe information they like to read or see.
Google loves breadcrumb navigation
Your website users like breadcrumb navigation so do the search engine giant Google. Did you know that breadcrumb helps Google to determine and understand how your business website is structured and whether structured aptly or not? Google might also use breadcrumb in its search results, making the results more appealing to online visitors.
If you would like to improve the chances of your website’s breadcrumb showing up in Google, you will have to include organized data such as Yoast SEO does.
Fewer bounce rates
It is uncommon for people to enter your website through your home page. Today, it is more about organic SEO and it implies that page of your website might be the point of entry. You will have to find a solution to lead your website visitors to other pages of the site, in case the chosen web page fails to fulfill their requirements. That is how breadcrumbs help in reducing bounce rates, as the navigation is providing your visitors another way to browse through the web pages. It is always better to lead your visitors to the home page instead of pushing them back to Google. Ask any SEO expert & they will also tell you the same thing and the benefits breadcrumb provides to website owners and visitors.
Reduction in less significant web page views
You think that more page views translate to better SEO rankings. No, you are wrong! Instead of focusing on the number of web page views, you need to think about average time spent on your site by visitor on most essential pages than a couple of less important pages.
If you do not include breadcrumb in your navigation, visitors will jump from one page to the other and in the process, they might skip on the most significant pages that you would like them to view. Breadcrumb navigation reduces the number of ineffectual page views that make a mess of your analytics data.
Improves user time spent on your site
As breadcrumb has links to other web pages in the parallel hierarchy, your visitors may feel curious to check the other pages as well. It will radically improve the time spent on your site.
According to experts in the SEO industry, Google and Bing are leveraging data such as average user time spent on a web page, bounce rates, and other factors to figure out the quality and structure of your site. It implies that breadcrumb navigation helps you to attain enhanced online visibility in some way or the other.
Occupies less space on your website
As far as breadcrumb navigation is concerned, theytake up the slightest space on your web page, as they havenegligible font size. Besides, breadcrumb does not lead to issues like more page load time, which adversely affects your site rankings in the search engine results pages or SERPs.
Provides Information Cues
On your website, information scent means content/textual as well as visual cues. It is important to ensure smooth navigation so that your visitors know where to move on your site. Breadcrumb navigation also helps you to receive fast orientation so that visitors know where they are exactly on your site. The visitors also know about the actions they take like whether they would click on the link or avoid doing so, and what would happen if they click eventually.
Conclusion
These are some of the top and major rewards of using breadcrumb navigation on your site. The drawbacks are trivial; it appears an easy and simple decision to design an SEO-friendly website that integrates breadcrumb navigation. Moreover,when you have made up your mind to include it, you should pursue and implement some of the best practices and stay away from making inane mistakes when it comes to your website’s breadcrumb navigation. At the end of the day, your site should rank high in the SERPs to attract visitors to your web pages and turn them into loyal customers. Make sure your visitors are not lost on your website. They should click on the buy button, download an e-book, or inquire about your products or services. Breadcrumb helps you achieve just that!
