If you are just starting to create a website, the term breadcrumbs may sound foreign to your ears. But you don’t need to be intimidated. Breadcrumbs are one of the elements on a website that are quite easy to learn.
Through this article, we will provide a complete explanation of what breadcrumbs are. You can find definitions, functions, the importance of breadcrumbs for SEO, and how to add them to your website.
What are Breadcrumbs?
Breadcrumbs are one of the most important elements on a website that serve to indicate the specific location of a page on the website.
This term is borrowed from the children’s story, Hansel and Gretel. Where Hansel leaves a breadcrumb trail or bread crumbs on the road as a guide to return from the forest.
Apart from that story, you can equate how breadcrumbs work like an address. It is useful for indicating the location of a page taken from the navigation menu of a website.
The length of the breadcrumbs really depends on the structure of the content on a website. If you create a concise website structure, the breadcrumbs will show the same thing. Likewise when you create a long structure.
What is the Function of Breadcrumbs?
Breadcrumbs are a part that you want on a blog because it can function as a second navigation after the main menu. This function makes it easy for web visitors to browse the website.
Visitors do not need to repeat the navigation from the start to find articles on the same topic on the website. He only needs to click the breadcrumbs to return to the page previously accessed.
Why Are Breadcrumbs Important?
Even though it looks trivial, this one element is very important for your website for two reasons.
1. Breadcrumbs are useful for optimizing your website’s SEO.
This will ultimately affect the ranking on search engines (search engines).
How did it happen?
Breadcrumbs are website elements that users and bots like from search engines. The existence of breadcrumbs makes it easier for Google to understand the data structure on the website. With a clear website structure, Google can display relevant search results about a website.
When the content is considered relevant by the user, then its position in search engines will be higher.
2. Breadcrumbs can reduce the bounce rate or the percentage of visitors who leave the website without clicking anything.
Breadcrumbs is able to index website pages down to the deepest navigation structure. This certainly makes search results on Google more relevant. Website visitors can skip complicated navigation from the home page. Instead, they can immediately find the content they are looking for with one click.
Just imagine a scenario when visitors don’t find what they’re looking for quickly. They can just leave the website quickly. Of course this is not good for the website’s reputation.
How to Make Breadcrumbs in WordPress
Making breadcrumbs on a WordPress-based website is very easy. Below we provide three ways that you can choose one of them.
1. Installing Compatible Themes
If you like practicality, installing a compatible theme is the perfect solution.
Usually WordPress themes for e-commerce automatically use breadcrumbs. This is because ecommerce websites tend to have lots of items and deep navigation menus.
2. Using the NavXT Plugin
An easy and free way to make breadcrumbs on a blog is to install a plugin. One of our recommended plugins is the NavXT plugin.
3. Maximizing Yoast SEO Features
Another alternative for making breadcrumbs is to maximize the features of the Yoast SEO plugin.
Yoast SEO is a plugin that can handle all things SEO. Not only about technical SEO on the website, this one plugin helps writers create high-quality content.
Besides that, Yoast SEO has features to optimize snippets and meta descriptions. These two elements will add to the appearance of content on search engines to make it more attractive. As a result, there is a high probability that your content will be clicked on by users.
Conclusion
Even though they look small on the website, breadcrumbs are a website element that you cannot ignore. This one element not only makes it easier for visitors to browse the website, but also affects SEO.
Breadcrumbs help Google index web pages properly. Also, its presence will reduce the bounce rate on the website.
In this article, we present three alternative ways to install breadcrumbs on WordPress. We hope this tutorial has helped you optimize your website’s potential. Good luck!
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