Breadcrumbs, websites and SEO: our tips and tricks

It's a fact: on a website, smooth and relevant navigation improves the user experience. To guide your visitors through your website, there is what is called a text path, better known as a breadcrumb trail.

Why is the breadcrumb trail so important both for users and for your SEO? How do you optimize your web pages with a breadcrumb trail? Here are all our tips and tricks!

What is a breadcrumb?

In the field of web design, the breadcrumb is a secondary navigation system.

In French, the breadcrumb takes its name from the legendary Ariadne who, in Greek mythology, saved Theseus in the labyrinth using a thread. In English, breadcrumb trail literally means "trail of breadcrumbs" and refers to the breadcrumbs left by Hansel and Gretel to find their way in the Brothers Grimm fairy tale.

As you can see, the purpose of the breadcrumb trail is to help anyone find their way, and on a website this is achieved through a series of links.

The breadcrumb trail is therefore a navigation element integrated into a website's source code. This navigation aid is generally found at the top of a web page, beneath the title bar or page headers.

The breadcrumb trail will provide a sequence of logical, hierarchical links to allow users to:

Concretely, here is the breadcrumb trail that a prospect might generate on a e-commerce site :

Home > category > subcategory > product

But that's only one example, because there are several types of breadcrumb trails…

The different types of breadcrumb

Three types of breadcrumb trails are commonly used to facilitate web navigation:

Hierarchy breadcrumb

This is the one from our example and also the most common. Easy to set up, this breadcrumb shows the visitor the page they are on and the steps to go back to the previous page without having to click their browser’s “Back” button.

Based on the typical structure of a website, it starts from the Home page and follows the site’s architecture while respecting the hierarchy of pages. This way, the user can move up to higher levels without getting lost!

Attribute-based breadcrumb

This breadcrumb is a bit more complex, because it uses keywords and attributes that describe the page rather than just the page title.

So it doesn’t only follow the site’s structure, but also the user’s navigation based on their searches or the filters they selected.

For example, on a clothing e-commerce site, a visitor looking for black men’s trousers in size 42 would have a breadcrumb that might look like this:

Home > Trousers > Men’s Trousers > Black > Size 42

History-based breadcrumb

This last breadcrumb is based on the browsing history and therefore on the user’s path. It is rarely used because a user who jumps from one category to another or from one page to another without a logical sequence will create breadcrumbs that are totally unstructured, even incoherent, and ultimately not very intuitive.

What are the benefits of a breadcrumb?

Adding a breadcrumb to your website is very beneficial for several reasons.

Benefits for the user

By offering your visitors a smoother, more natural navigation, you significantly improve the user experience and, as a result, your conversion rate.

Moreover, and this is especially true for sites with many category pages, a breadcrumb reassures your prospect and saves them time. In particular because they won’t need to browse every page to find a desired item or perform a new search.

Benefits for your organic SEO

This small trail of hypertext links plays a very important role in optimizing your website by providing a real internal linking structure.

For your bounce rate

When a visitor lands on a page of your site by clicking a link in their search engine, they won’t necessarily land on the right product and may sometimes leave your site without even exploring it. However, if you include a breadcrumb, it will guide the user to the category page that matches their needs. This way, the user is more likely to stay on your site, which lowers the bounce rate and improves your ranking in the results pages.

For your internal linking

A well-made breadcrumb will strengthen your site’s internal linking. By creating internal links between your pages, it helps optimize parent pages and the anchors created also reinforce your page’s thematic relevance.

For your ranking in search engines

Google particularly appreciates well-structured sites. First because they make the job of crawling bots, the Googlebots, easier. But also because they make navigation easier for visitors.

Additionally, by adding a breadcrumb trail and structured data, you help algorithms present the most relevant content from your site in search results. Thus, depending on the query, the result shown in the search engine will perfectly meet your prospects' expectations.

Which sites should implement a breadcrumb?

Using a breadcrumb trail is highly recommended if you have:

Typically, these are e-commerce sites that have many products and categories.

However, if your site has only a single level of hierarchy, adding a breadcrumb trail offers no benefit.

How to set up a breadcrumb on your site?

To be effective, your breadcrumb trail must be integrated correctly into your online store. Here are some tips and tricks to successfully implement it.

Add breadcrumbs to all your pages

If you want your breadcrumb trail to strongly improve your users' navigation experience, include it on all your pages. That way, your visitor won't get lost, no matter where they are!

Strictly follow your site's hierarchy

The purpose of a breadcrumb trail is to help the user avoid getting lost. You must follow the complete path from the homepage, without skipping any level, regardless of the depth of your pages!

Optimize your anchor text

Make sure the clickable words in your anchors are relevant and coherent, and use these anchors to reinforce the semantics of your pages!

All steps should be clickable, except the last one

Each level of your breadcrumb trail should, of course, be clickable, except for the last one since that's the page your visitor is on. There is therefore no point in adding a link on that step because it would point to the same location!

Check the consistency of your breadcrumb

If you use such a navigation system, check that the elements are consistent. When the user clicks one of the breadcrumb links, they must be redirected to the correct page! Test your implementation in both directions, upwards and downwards, to avoid any errors.

Similarly, also check its consistency with your site design (color, typography…). It should blend into the layout: visible, but discreet enough not to overshadow your main menu.

Also consider separating each level of your trail with a symbol to make it clear and understandable. Designers generally use symbols such as: > or => or /.

Place your breadcrumb strategically

Some sites place their breadcrumb trail just above the page footer, but the vast majority of online stores prefer the top of the page, after the header.

It's up to you to decide what is most appropriate for your business sector and target audience. However, the advantage of placing it above the H1 tag is that it remains easily accessible and more visible.

Don't confuse the breadcrumb with the navigation menu

Your breadcrumb trail should not replace your main menu. They are complementary navigation elements, but one should not substitute for the other. Moreover, your breadcrumb should be more discreet than your menu.

Some WordPress plugins

If you don’t have the required HTML coding knowledge, there are plugins that will allow you to integrate a breadcrumb easily:

Our tip

If the breadcrumb is an essential element for your website, offering quality content is just as important! So consider delegating the writing of your product pages, blog posts, newsletters… to our professional web writers !