Using Breadcrumbs to Show the Way In Your Website Design
Making it easy for visitors to find information on your website is one of the most important factors in website design. If people can't find but the looking for they will simply going to go elsewhere.Breadcrumbs are an excellent way of showing people where to go.
What Are Breadcrumbs?
As you browse through website you tend to go from the homepage, to a category page, to a subcategory page and finally to an actual information or product page. Breadcrumbs are set of links that show this category structure so you can see which part of the website you're currently looking at. They also let you jump back out to the various category levels without having to always go back to the homepage and start again.
Usually these links are placed somewhere near the top of the page to make it easy for you to see this information.
Better Listings in Google
By putting breadcrumbs on each page of your website you're very clearly showing where each page exists within your website structure.
Google loves to be able to see your website structure. If you get it right you'll find it starts to give you extra links whenever it displays your website in the search engine results pages. Breadcrumbs are great way of showing Google that you've got a sensible website structure and which pages control each level of your navigation.
Other Benefits for Your Website Design
As well as helping people navigate your website, breadcrumbs give you a few more advantages.
- For people visiting the site, breadcrumbs make it easier for them to see the structure and layout of your information. The breadcrumbs highlight each section with descriptive set of keywords which makes it easier for people to see what they are looking for.
- If you can get Google to add the breadcrumb trail to your search engine results you'll get a much higher click through rate - the percentage of people who actually click your link rather than skip over it.
- Breadcrumbs are great for search engine optimisation as they instantly put keyword rich phrases on each page.
- Breadcrumbs also create keyword rich links between the pages on your website. Each category page in your site will get links from the lower pages to help promote it as a more important part of your website.
Incorporating Breadcrumbs into Your Website Design
We've hopefully shown you the advantages of having breadcrumbs in your website design. If you're creating a new design make sure your website designer builds this feature in. If you've got an existing design it might be worth looking to see if it can be altered to include breadcrumbs.
Easy navigation and search engine optimisation are incredibly important design factors when you create a website so make sure you build these into yours as soon as you can.
If you're not sure how to make use of breadcrumbs or you need any advice on optimising your website then just get in contact with us. We'll be very happy to have a look and let you know what we think.
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