“Bread crumbs” is an unusual name of the navigation chain which can be presented on a website to improve its usability. This element gives users a better understanding of the relation between a page where they are (like a category page or product page) and higher-level pages. How it happens and why it is so convenient for users – we will review it in this article.
Such a curious name for this type of navigation was borrowed from the fairy tale of Hansel and Gretel by Brothers Grimm. In the fairy tale plot, Hansel threw small pieces of bread on the forest pathway and left the trail of bread crumbs to find the way home. Bread crumbs in SEO have the same meaning as in the fairy tale, and they help users find a way back to the previous page of the website.
Breadcrumbs Usage in eCommerce
If the “breadcrumbs” are absent on the product page, it may be a problem for visitors to search for different items because they can’t take one step back in the hierarchy or back to a previous search results page. Due to this, users have to make various manipulations, such as select the top-level category or start to search again.
Two types of bread crumbs can be used in online stores:
Bread crumbs based on the structure and hierarchy of the online store
Read More Articles :
- Do You Know How to Be an Engaging and Highly Effective Educator?
- Everything You Need To Know About the Samsung Galaxy S7
- Dividend-Paying Whole Life Insurance – Understanding What Sets it Apart
- How A Mobile-Compatible Website Helps You “Be Everywhere”
- Essential SEO Techniques That Your Website Should Be Using
There is an opinion that online stores must offer two types of breadcrumbs to their visitors simultaneously. But in reality, we can find many online stores that offer only one type of bread crumbs, and it is a hierarchy-based one. It is hard to say whether it is good or not, as both variants have their advantages.
Location or hierarchy-based “breadcrumbs” allow users to reach the main category (higher-level web page) relative to the page where they are. For example, let’s imagine a shopper looking for “smartphones Samsung 2016″ on Google and landing on a certain product page in the online store. If a user doesn’t like items on the page and wants to see other variants, how should they find the main category page such as “Mobile devices” or a sub-category such as “Smartphones”“? The advantages of this type are obvious.
Some online stores use bread crumbs based only on the user navigation path (browsing history). With the help of such bread crumbs, the user navigates to the previous page, which can be not just a list of categories. For example, the user may have used a filter on the previous page or got to the page using requests in Google or through ads. So, these bread crumbs effectively work as the “Back” button, but this fact limits the user’s ability to see the whole range of products represented on the website. But to be honest, this type of breadcrumbs completely duplicates the back button functionality. Moreover, since this type of navigation is based on the user’s viewing history, search engine bots will never consider it, so there are no SEO benefits.
Breadcrumbs and Google
Google Search considers bread crumbs markup in the code of a page to sort and classify the text information from a certain page in search results. Practically, users can get to a page using various search requests. If search results can provide the same page, then the breadcrumbs can classify the information in the Google snippet.
Useful tip: If you have a special markup in your online store and bread crumbs are not displayed in Google search results, watch this video to find the solutions.
In April 2015, Google announced some innovations for mobile devices. The URL structure as breadcrumbs path has started to be displayed on SERP. You can see this when you search on your mobile devices.
Peculiarities you need to know.
Breadcrumbs are usually displayed as a horizontal strip located at the top of the page. Vertical variations are also possible, but they are used much less frequently.
As the navigation element, bread crumbs have some influence on the users’ behaviour, taken into account by search engines.
This navigation chain should organically fit into the overall design of the online store, and it should not look like an extraneous element.
Display the full way and always start it from the home page. It’s what users expect.
Use the symbol ‘>’ to identify separators between elements of the path. Users get used to seeing this symbol as a separator.
Do not implement breadcrumbs on the homepage because it doesn’t make any sense.
Boldface the last link in the path to tell the user that it is the current page where they are.
Breadcrumbs are associated with the circular link that leads users to the same page on which they are located when clicking on the link. Pay attention that each chain element should be a reference to a certain level of the site. And only the latest link must be inactive. Otherwise, it will become a classic example of a circular link, which is not so good for SEO
I hope that the tips were helpful to you and you will be able to improve your online store and make it more comfortable for users.
Have a nice sale!
If you want to start your online business and consider the Magento platform to create the online store, visit the site http://www.gomage.com. GoMage is a professional Magento developer who has been working since 2010. The team is ready to assist you and provide the best service.