How to Add Breadcrumbs to your WordPress Website?

Providing an enhanced user experience on a website should be the first objective of any SEO professional. However, many new users who visit a website usually get lost if it has a lot of pages. 

Therefore, to make your new visitors find the right information and navigate through the website without getting lost, you must implement “Breadcrumbs” on your website. 

The “Breadcrumbs” you incorporate in the website act as the secondary navigation scheme that assists the users to recognize the location of a website. 

You might believe that implementing “Breadcrumbs” on your website would be complex. But in reality, with the proper understanding of concepts, this process is quite easy. 

This blog post exactly aims to do that. 

So, let’s dive into it.  

 

Implementing Breadcrumbs to your WordPress Website

Take a look at a few ways by which you can add Breadcrumbs to your WordPress website. 

• Utilize WordPress Breadcrumb plugin

  : Also known as Breadcrumb NavXT plugin – it allows you to incorporate the breadcrumb widget in any widget area of your theme. 

 

It is recommended to display it on the top of the sidebar. Furthermore, this plugin also provides different customization features that let you choose the page you want to display the trail. 

 

To implement Breadcrumbs on your site using Breadcrumb NavXT, first install the plugin. Then, navigate to the appearance option in the left sidebar and under it, click on the widgets. After that, Breadcrumb NavXT will appear on the right side of your screen. 

 

From here, you can just drag and drop it to the area where you wish to display your breadcrumb trail. 

 

• Utilize Yoast SEO plugin:
  Install and activate the Yoast SEO plugin under Plugins > Add New. This will add a new SEO option to your left sidebar. 

 

Then, you need to add some codes to your theme files that tells Yoast SEO where to display the breadcrumbs. 

 

Click update file to save your changes. After that, select Appearance > Theme editor. Then paste the same code to one of more theme files such as page.php file, single.php file, and header.php. 

 

Then select SEO>Search Appearance. Click on the Breadcrumbs tab. In Breadcrumbs settings, select Enabled. After that, Breadcrumbs settings will be revealed. Configure them as per your preference. 

 

At last, at the bottom of the page, click save changes. 

 

• Use themes that come with pre-defined breadcrumbs:
  There are various other popular themes that come with cutting-edge features and functionality. 

 

If you set to design or redesign your website with an experienced WordPress web design software, then it is likely that your website will include every feature that could enhance users experience and influences them to take the desired action. 

 

A few themes such as Astra, OceanWP, etc. can help to add the breadcrumbs easily on the website.

 

• Implement Breadcrumbs manually to your website:
  Several websites limit their codes to enhance their speed and functionality. This is the reason why they choose to write code and not use plugins. 

 

If you wish to display the product manually, you can begin incorporating functions to your functions.php file to enable them. 

Once you have added the function, you need to define it in the template file where you want to include the breadcrumbs. 

For instance, if you want to add the function on the single.php file, then the breadcrumb will appear in the post. Similarly, including the function in the header.php file will let you display the breadcrumb in the header of every page. 

Hence, before you add the file, it is recommended you first identify where you want to showcase the file. 

With this Blog You may like to know about Schema

Best Practices of Breadcrumb Navigation

Applying the design is not what just constitutes a productive implementation of Breadcrumbs. It also needs to be made effective to leverage the maximum benefits of breadcrumbs implementation in your website. 

Check out some of the best breadcrumbs navigation practices that you must consider in 2021 and beyond. 

• Separate each level with precision: The common sign used to separate breadcrumbs’ hierarchy levels is the > sign. This indicates a direction and is the best to use. 

 

There are some other variations also, which can as helpful as well. They are: 

 

• / (the backslash)
• // (the double backslash)
• >> (the double greater than sign)
• ? (the long arrow)

 

A few symbols may also create confusion. They are: 

• | (the single separator)
• : or ; (colon or semi-colon)
• … (ellipses)

 

• Implement breadcrumbs at the top of the webpage: Nearly every navigation bar is placed on the top of a website. Placing it in the middle can damage the whole design and placing it at the end will provide no outcomes. 

 

The most common and the best place for breadcrumbs is at the top of a page. This helps the site’s visitors to identify the breadcrumbs easily and use them accordingly. 

 

1. Do not add the current page in your navigation: Breadcrumbs are included in your website so that users can navigate back to the pages. Showcasing the current page in your breadcrumb navigation is of no use since visitors are already present on that page. 

 

However, if you wish to place the last item of your breadcrumb trail on the page where visitors are present, then don’t make the link clickable. 

 

1. Stylize and degrade the breadcrumbs correctly:  While you want the breadcrumbs to be seen, ensure they don’t become the focal point. 

 

Your breadcrumbs should not be the main part of the primary content of a page, but only as additional support to it. 

 

Likewise, ensure your breadcrumbs begin with the home page and then degrade to the current page. Your breadcrumbs must degrade from the highest to lowest level gracefully.

 

• Plan categorisation depending upon searcher intent: As we implement breadcrumbs, we force ourselves to strategically categorize every product for visitors and searchers. 

 

This means that our products and categories comprise the keywords we wish to rank for in SERPs. Know How Breadcrumbs is importent in SEO

 

Final words

Breadcrumbs are one of the simplest, yet productive ways to help users navigate your website and enhance organic search traffic. To ensure effective breadcrumb navigation, you need to have a proper hierarchical structure. 

We hope this article can help you ease the pain of adding breadcrumbs to your WordPress website and gaining a satisfactory user experience and great SEO results.