Website navigation is one of the most important parts of any website design. Navigation allows you to access different sections of information on the website. Over the years, website designers opted for different ways to represent navigation on the website. If we look at modern-age websites, there are many ways you can add navigation on the home page. From traditional menu bars to hamburger icons, you can access different web pages using a variety of navigation keys.
Today, we will look at a specific type of navigation that may be present on different websites. Breadcrumb navigation is an organized path of website navigation. You can think of them as the stepping stones that highlight a specific pathway. Like stepping stones, breadcrumb navigation allows users to see where they are on a website’s path. You can track your way back and forth between different pages.
To understand it better, let’s look at the formal definition of breadcrumb navigation of a website.
Breadcrumb Navigation
Breadcrumb navigation is a secondary path to navigate through a website. It is typically located under the header of a website. This navigation trail helps users to retrace their steps back and forth on the website. You may click on any of the navigation links on the trail to access the page directly.
Importance of Breadcrumb Navigation
Breadcrumb navigation is a good-to-have ingredient in a website. You may not need it necessarily. However, it always adds more value to your user experience. Apart from the primary navigation on the top, a secondary navigation path makes it easy for web visitors to navigate between pages directly. It also enables them to track their trail on the website.
Benefits of Using Breadcrumb Navigation
If you are stepping into the website creation process, you can use breadcrumb navigation to enhance your web user experience. There are many benefits of breadcrumb navigation for your website. However, their efficiency depends on the type of website you have.
Let’s look at some of the primary benefits of using breadcrumb navigation.
Improved Website Experience
You may use diverse ways to enhance the user experience on your website. From easy navigation, bold CTAs, and quick links, to dropdown menus of the top navigation, all these factors can improve your website’s user experience. While this may be true, breadcrumb navigation can enhance the overall usability of your website. It enables you to simplify the path of your website’s pages. You can make multiple navigation functions easy for your users including, easier backtracking, quick jumps to different web pages, the introduction of new subcategories, and easy brand communication.
Bounce Rate Reduction
One of the many benefits of breadcrumb navigation is the reduction in bounce rate. More often than not, website visitors quit sessions due to the complicated navigation of the website. They find it difficult to navigate between subcategories using the quick link buttons on web pages. While this may be correct, breadcrumb exploration can minimize this frustration for your web visitors. By having easy access to multiple page links on the breadcrumb navigation trail, your website visitors can easily access any page at any time without getting lost.
Better Search Engine Rankings
Breadcrumb navigation improves your website’s search engine rankings in multiple ways. Firstly, breadcrumb trails help to organize your web pages correctly. Google’s bots index all the web pages for better search engine rankings. Moreover, due to improved navigation, more web visitors land on your website, increasing the overall web traffic. The more the visitors, the better the chances of your website ranking on Google and other search engines. Furthermore, Google shows your website’s breadcrumb navigation in the search results. Users can quickly navigate and analyze the type of information available on your web pages.
How to Use Breadcrumb Navigation
If you want to know how to use the breadcrumb navigation the right way, we have got you covered. Let’s look at some of the pro tips to use them correctly on your website.
Position of Breadcrumbs
Although there is no fixed rule to placing breadcrumbs on a website, web designers typically opt for the top-left corner. This is mostly due to the web user behavior observed on different websites. Most website visitors tend to look up the left corner for breadcrumb navigation. Since the default flow of any website’s content is also from the left side, users prefer to find breadcrumbs placed on the same side.
Highlight Clickable Links
Breadcrumbs are typically placed as hyperlinks. Users can easily navigate by clicking through the hyperlink text and switching between web pages. If you leave the navigation links as plain text, users may not be able to trace them easily. It is always a good idea to use colored hyperlink text to distinguish it from plain web content.
Use Separators
Using separators between breadcrumb links can help your users better understand the path of your website’s exploration. If you place a (>) sign to show the subcategories or web pages in the breadcrumbs, it may be easy for your web visitors to navigate through your web pages. Another option for separator symbols is (/). Many websites use it to separate web page links in the breadcrumb exploration. While this may be correct, you can opt for a suitable symbol that best highlights the path of your website’s structure.
Verdict
If you want to add breadcrumb navigation to your website, you need to hire a website design company that offers you the best consultancy and design services in your area. Since breadcrumb navigation plays an influential role in search engine marketing and user experience, you may need to opt for professional experts to build your website. Any errors in the design and structure of your website can greatly affect your website’s ranking and conversion rate.
You can also search for pre-built web designs to create a business website of your choice. We recommend you to go for web design services that not only fit your business objectives but also meet your web audience’s demands effectively.
