Before addressing the question, we shall have a brief idea about breadcrumbs and their usage.
Have you ever been through a maze? People who have experienced a maze will testify how difficult it can be to come out of it. You have to try out various combinations to navigate your way through it. Would it not be a great idea to have a marker to enable you to find your way back? Websites having multiple pages are similar to such a maze. You need to find your way around. The navigation tool that enables you to do so is ‘breadcrumb navigation’.
Breadcrumb – The History Behind the Name
Why do you have such an odd term ‘breadcrumb’? As a child, you must have read the story, Hansel and Gretel where the children scatter breadcrumbs on the way to the forest to help them navigate their way back home. It is a different matter that the birds ate away the breadcrumbs resulting in the children losing their way in the forest. However, the concept is the same.
Breadcrumb – Definition
In simple terms, a breadcrumb is a secondary navigation tool helping to reveal a user’s location in a website. You find breadcrumbs in websites having large content arranged in a hierarchical manner. The best examples to enable you to understand the concept are the ecommerce websites.
Certain web applications have more than one step. Breadcrumbs perform the function of a ‘progress bar’ under such circumstances. Technically speaking, they are horizontally arranged text links having the ‘>’ sign separating them. This symbol is an indication of the level of that particular page in relation to the page links beside it.
We have produced a simple image below that can help you understand the concept better. Concentrate on the path just above the image of the boots. “Clothing, Shoes & Jewelry>Men>Shoes>Boots.” This path allows you to trace your way back to the landing page.
Coming back to the main question, “Are breadcrumbs for business address present on each page”, one must state that it is better if they are because they enable easy navigation.
Breadcrumbs – The SEO Connection
We shall look at the connection between SEO optimization and breadcrumbs. Prior to that, let us know about the different types of breadcrumbs.
There are broadly three types of breadcrumbs in a website design.
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Location based: It gives you an idea about your location in the website’s hierarchy. Multi-level navigation schemes have them.
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Attribute based: Such breadcrumbs can show the attributes of items displayed on a particular page. Clicking on the link can transport you directly to that location.
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Path based: These trails show you the steps you take to arrive at a particular page.
In order to understand the SEO connection, you should know the benefits of breadcrumbs to users.
Breadcrumbs – Benefits in connection with SEO strategy
Let us first look at the benefits from the user point of view before moving on to ‘local SEO’ concepts
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Users are able to understand the layout of the website.
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Navigation from one level to another becomes easy.
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As they are secondary navigation tools, it is not necessary to have then on every page. However, they can help you provide website information.
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You do not require much technical knowledge to understand their usage.
SEO strategy point of view
Search engines love the way breadcrumbs help in navigating the context to both inner and outer pages in a natural manner.
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They form an important aspect of internal links SEO. They can improve the internal linking structure of the website.
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Breadcrumbs can help you to point keywords to certain pages. This can help search engines to understand the relationship between the different pages. Using it in the hierarchical is one of the best SEO tools to improve SEO done to category pages and inner pages.
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You can use Schemas to describe them. This enables search engines like Google to understand that they are looking at breadcrumbs. In turn, it paves the way for inclusion of display breadcrumbs in SERPs. This is good for local SEO.
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They help users to navigate directly to pages they like. This is effective for SEO.
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It reduces bounce rates. Hence, it is effective for SEO marketing purposes.
Breadcrumbs – Search Engine Optimization tips
Of course, you cannot overdo it as it can attract penalties. However, intelligent use of breadcrumbs allows you to optimize for keywords.
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You can link to your home page using your main keyword in this way: Main keyword > category keyword
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Style your breadcrumbs and make it appealing to visitors. This is a good SEO marketing technique.
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These are good SEO optimization techniques in case you describe a hierarchy. If your website has one or two categories, breadcrumbs are not necessary.
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They should not replace the use of the ‘back’ button of your browser.
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These tools should facilitate navigation between closely related pages.
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Having them at a prominent spot is advisable. Usually, you find them on the top left hand corner of a web page.
Now, that you have seen the benefits of breadcrumbs in SEO, let us see whether it is necessary to have breadcrumbs on every page.
It is a navigation tool. Hence, if you have a big portal with lots of categories, it is necessary to have a tool that helps users to navigate seamlessly. The last thing a business needs is the consumer getting lost in the maze of products without knowing how to proceed further or back. It is a great tool for local seo search purposes.
In case you have a single page or two, it is not necessary to have this tool at all.
Breadcrumbs usage – Mistakes people make
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Using breadcrumbs when it is not necessary is a common mistake. It can confuse users.
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Some businesses use breadcrumbs as primary navigation.
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Using breadcrumbs when your webpage has multiple categories is not advisable.
Final thoughts
Remember the Hansel and Gretel story. They used breadcrumbs as their primary navigation tool. As a result, they got lost in the forest because the birds wiped out their trail. Therefore, using breadcrumbs as a secondary navigational tool is beneficial in local SEO.
