Breadcrumbs and their effect on site’s SEO
Our website can consist of dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of subpages. A user who uses it should be able to navigate it easily and clearly. Fortunately, there is an element that meets their expectations - it's breadcrumbs. What do they look like and how do they work?
What are breadcrumbs?
When defining the essence of breadcrumbs, we often refer to the classic fairy tale Hansel and Gretel by the Brothers Grimm. The boy created a trail of breadcrumbs to find their way out of the forest. This concept can also be associated with mythology: Theseus used a thread to escape the Minotaur's labyrinth. Regardless of the association, the role of breadcrumbs is simple: to help users navigate a website.
Breadcrumbs outline the journey a user has taken through a website, indicating the starting point, the pages visited along the way, and the user's present position. They also serve to structure the site's hierarchy in a clear and understandable manner.
What do breadcrumbs look like?
Breadcrumbs provide a visual representation of the user's journey through a website, showing the path taken from the homepage to the current page. They often use arrows to separate each page in the trail and include phrases such as "You are here" to indicate the user's exact location. For example:
Breadcrumbs and SEO
Breadcrumb navigation is most effective when a website has a clear and logical hierarchy. Implementing breadcrumbs can significantly improve your site's SEO by providing additional internal links. These links help search engine crawlers better understand your site's structure, ultimately leading to higher search engine rankings.
Breadcrumbs, by pointing to specific sections and keywords, contain valuable keywords. This helps not only robots but also users. In fact, breadcrumbs were created primarily with users in mind.
Speaking of users, breadcrumbs contribute to improved UX, or User Experience. A better user experience leads to a decreased bounce rate and increased dwell time. The former is the bounce rate, the latter is the time spent on the site. All of this is taken into account by search engine bots, which raise the site's position in SERPs.
Does my website need breadcrumbs?
As it's often said in SEO - it depends! As we mentioned earlier, breadcrumbs make sense when a website has a hierarchical structure. If your website is small or you're still building content, you can leave breadcrumbs for later. If you manage a large, complex website, it's worth hierarchizing the structure and taking care of the breadcrumb trail.
➡️ Read also: Keyword stuffing: Why less is more when it comes to keywords
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Jan Wojciechowski
Content Marketing Specialist
Content Marketing Specialist with several years of experience. Studied Marketing and Management on the University of Warsaw. In his work he tries to combine his writing skills, content knowledge and passion for new technologies. Privately he likes to do sports, read books and illustrate them.