Breadcrumbs are the elements that help in website navigation for better crawlability and user experience. Read on to know the impact of breadcrumbs in SEO.
A lot of factors are combined to affect SEO for a website, such as in-depth content, links and keywords. With these factors, your website can rank in the almighty Google.
But what SEO has to do with breadcrumbs?
These are basically the navigational elements and they can have a great impact on UX and SEO. There are still lots of websites making a huge mistake of not having breadcrumbs. They are very easy to implement and they impact SEO very much. So, you should choose the top SEO agency who can consider this feature.
What are Breadcrumbs?
Simply put, these are actually the links on your website to help users to know where they are on your website and how far they have gone from your homepage. They are usually found just under the navigation bar or at the top of your website.
They help the users to find the information they need and keep users on the website like internal links. It defines the categories the users have selected to enter the page they are in. One can easily get back to the last page with one click through breadcrumbs.
They are very vital features for user experience to make navigation smoother. Well, navigation is not the only thing they help in. Those nifty breadcrumbs have been even more vital for ranking thanks to the recent changes made by Google.
In fact, Google started showing breadcrumbs directly in search results as they help categorize the information even without entering the website. It also helps in Google Search Console as a structural data report. Google categorizes and goes through your site using breadcrumbs.
Types of Breadcrumbs for SEO
All breadcrumbs are not made similar. There are three different types of breadcrumbs that can serve their different purposes. You should know the right type of breadcrumbs that can easily meet the needs of your site before adding the same to your website.
History-based breadcrumbs
Like browsing history, it shows what other pages they have entered on the website. For example, if you find three different posts while looking for tech news, it might be – Home > Tech news 1 > Tech news 2 > Active page
Attribute-based Breadcrumbs
It is very common on online stores. It shows what products and attributes a user has checked. It shows something like this – Home > Clothing > Women > Ethnic Wear
Location-based Breadcrumbs
This type of breadcrumb actually tells the right position to the users in the website structure and how they can get back to the homepage. It shows something like this – Home > Media > Blogs
Why Use Breadcrumbs for SEO?
If you are wondering whether breadcrumbs are worth your efforts, you must read these pointers below –
Improved User Experience
Users can easily navigate through a website using breadcrumbs and they can easily browse other sections. For example, you visit the official website of Nestle as you want to learn about the company.
You land on their homepage but you suddenly end up on their history page. You can easily head back to About Us or even home page using breadcrumbs. It really helps users to find what they want and even engage them deeply with your website.
Improved Site Ranking
For both user experience and search ranking, breadcrumbs are important. Google uses breadcrumbs to contextualize and categorize your website content. They were added to the search result pages in 2018 and they became even more important.
In SERPs, breadcrumbs help users know where they are on your website and it’s a win-win for users and SEO. They are really helpful for sites with a lot of state-level or local pages, including restaurants and law firms. According to a recent study, breadcrumbs can help your site crack the top 10 search results.
Improved Engagement
Though bounce rate is not the only factor for ranking, it still matters for SEO. In addition, you have user experience issues if your website has a high bounce rate. You can solve this issue with breadcrumbs.
Suppose you are shopping online for new Reebok shoes. You end up with a pair but it’s not of your type. Using the breadcrumbs on Reebok’s website, you can head back to the category of “Shoes” and find another pair.
The best thing about breadcrumbs is that you don’t have to go back to Google and look for any other website.
Final Thoughts
All in all, you can make your site stand out by making a simple change, i.e. breadcrumbs. Though it’s not a guarantee to have an overnight success to your SEO efforts, they can help both search engines and users to navigate your site. You can easily make your site ranking higher in search results in a few clicks.