What Is Breadcrumb Navigation?
Breadcrumb navigation refers to a series of clickable text links (breadcrumbs) that indicate the user’s location within a website’s hierarchy and the path they took to get there. Typically, these links appear at the top of the page and provide a convenient way for users to backtrack or navigate to higher-level pages.
The significance of breadcrumb navigation lies in its ability to enhance both user experience and SEO. Breadcrumbs simplify website navigation and improve the user experience by providing clear contextual cues. Moreover, Google favors websites that prioritize user experience, and by implementing breadcrumbs, you can improve your site’s SEO ranking. Breadcrumbs can also help Google better understand your site’s structure and distribute PageRank throughout your site, leading to better search engine visibility.
This post will delve into the various types of breadcrumbs and their benefits. Additionally, I’ll share tips on how to implement breadcrumbs on your site to improve user experience and SEO.
When Should You Use Breadcrumbs?
Breadcrumbs may not be suitable for every website. They provide navigational benefits only if your site has a complex hierarchical structure, with multiple categories and subcategories that lead to individual pages. This type of architecture is often found in e-commerce sites, where products are grouped into various levels of categories.
However, if your website has a simple, flat architecture where every page is easily accessible from the homepage with just one click, using breadcrumbs may not be necessary. In such cases, breadcrumbs will not add any significant navigational value to users.
What Are the Different Types of Breadcrumbs?
Breadcrumbs come in a few different forms.
1. Attribute-Based Breadcrumbs
Attribute-based breadcrumbs are dynamic trails that are generated based on the filters that users apply on a page. These breadcrumbs are commonly used on e-commerce sites, where they are often combined with location-based breadcrumbs.
In an e-commerce setting, attribute-based breadcrumbs can be particularly useful when users wish to view all the products that share similar attributes. This type of breadcrumb navigation enables users to filter products according to specific attributes, such as color, size, or material, and displays a breadcrumb trail based on the selected filter criteria.
2. Location-Based Breadcrumbs
Location-based breadcrumbs follow the website architecture, starting from the top-level category and progressing through the nested subcategories to arrive at the current page. This type of breadcrumb is particularly useful for users who land on your website from Google search results.
By providing a clear trail of the website structure,location-based breadcrumbs enable users to quickly navigate back to the previous pages and explore other options. This can help improve the user experience and encourage users to stay longer on the website, ultimately resulting in higher engagement and better conversions.
3. Path-Based Breadcrumbs
Path-based breadcrumbs display the unique path that users took to reach a particular page. However, instead of listing out the entire path, this type of breadcrumb navigation is usually implemented in the form of a back button that allows users to return to the previous page.
While path-based breadcrumbs can be useful in certain contexts, such as when users have completed a multi-step process, they are often limited in their functionality. In many cases, path-based breadcrumbs simply serve the same purpose as the “back” button in a web browser, providing little added value to the user experience. As a result, this breadcrumb type is not always the most popular choice among UX designers.
What Are the Benefits of Using Breadcrumbs?
There are lots of benefits to using website breadcrumbs.
1. Good for UX
Breadcrumbs minimize the effort users have to make to navigate back up the website hierarchy.
Without breadcrumbs, users may have to repeatedly use the back button or click multiple times to retrace their steps.
However, with breadcrumbs, they can easily achieve this with a single click on a link within the breadcrumb trail.
2. Encourage Browsing & Reduce Bounce Rate
Breadcrumbs enhance users’ site navigation and content discovery, which promotes browsing.
For instance, on an ecommerce website, users may arrive at a product page through Google search results. If the product doesn’t meet their needs, they can use breadcrumbs to effortlessly navigate back to view other products in the same category. This feature encourages users to explore more content, which can lead to reduced bounce rates.
3. Appear in Search Results
Breadcrumbs provide a clear indication to users of where they are on a website and how they got there. This is why they appear in Google search results, above the title tag and meta description.
By showing the breadcrumb trail, users can see the path they’ll take when they click on the search result, making it easier for them to determine if the page is relevant to their needs.
A page with breadcrumbs in Google search results could potentially attract more clicks than a similar page without breadcrumbs, as it provides users with more information upfront.
4. Improve Internal Linking Structure & Crawlability
By creating internal links across pages and categories on your website, breadcrumbs improve the crawlability of your site. This gives search engines another way to understand your site structure, discover deeper pages within your site, and index all your pages.
Having a website with good crawlability is essential if you want your pages to appear in search results and attract traffic to your website. Breadcrumbs play a crucial role in achieving this by providing search engines with an easy-to-follow path through your site.
Breadcrumb Navigation Best Practices
Here are some best practices to follow when designing breadcrumb navigation for your website:
1. Use Breadcrumbs to Support Primary Navigation
Consider breadcrumbs as a complementary navigation feature to your primary navigation menu. It is not intended to replace it, but rather provide users with an additional way to navigate your website.
2. Use Breadcrumbs Only if It Makes Sense for Your Website
Breadcrumbs are most useful when your website has a deep site architecture with multiple levels of categories and subcategories that lead to individual pages.
Ecommerce sites are a great example of this type of site structure. However, if your website has a single-level site structure where each page is only one click away from the homepage, using breadcrumbs may not provide significant value for your visitors.
3. Don’t Link to the Current Page in Breadcrumb Trails
The final item in the breadcrumb trail represents the user’s current location on the website. Since the user is already on that page, including a link to the current page is unnecessary and redundant. It is unlikely that users will click on it, and it serves no useful purpose.
4. Use Separators Between Individual Levels
Special symbols are used to separate text links in the breadcrumb trail. The most common separator is the greater than sign (>). However, designers can also use an arrow (→) or a forward slash (/).
5. Keep the Design Simple
When designing breadcrumbs, it is important to keep them simple and unobtrusive. They should be useful without distracting the reader from the main content of the page.
6. Don’t make your breadcrumb navigation too big
Your breadcrumb navigation is a secondary tool to your primary navigation bar, so it shouldn’t be too big or noticeable on the page. You don’t want your users to confuse your breadcrumb navigation as the primary navigation bar.
7. Progress from the highest to the lowest level.
For effective breadcrumb navigation, it is recommended to ensure that the links are arranged in a left-to-right sequence, with the home page link on the left and the current page link on the right. Studies by the Nielsen Norman Group reveal that users tend to spend 80% of their time on the left half of a page, making left-to-right design a compelling choice. Additionally, the link closest to the left will appear at the beginning of the breadcrumb chain, making it essential to use your top-level page as the leftmost link.