In this digital era, having a website is crucial for businesses. It is the first thing that potential visitors see on your site. If they don’t think it’s professional or find it difficult to use, they won’t remain long enough to see whether there’s anything else that catches their attention. For a better user experience and to retain visitors for a longer time on the website, one must use breadcrumbs navigation – especially for eCommerce sites.
Breadcrumbs navigation is one of the most important elements that greatly influences how users view websites. With dynamic breadcrumbs, your websites can locate everything fast and effortlessly and make it easier for users to find specific content quickly.
In this post, we’ll discuss the breadcrumbs navigation concept in detail. This method’s name is taken from the Brothers Grimmy fairy tale Hansel and Gretel. In the fairy tale, Hansel laid a trail of breadcrumbs to guide him home by scattering small pieces of bread along the forest trail.
Let’s dive deeper into the concept!
Breadcrumbs Navigation for eCommerce Sites
On a website, there are numerous options available for navigation. Their objective is to assist visitors in navigating the website and locating particular pages, bookmarks, and content. Users can follow their present location within your site using the breadcrumbs navigation. Because breadcrumbs reveal a resource’s organizational structure, they are relevant to website positioning as well.
In SEO, breadcrumbs serve the same purpose as in the tale to direct users to the website’s previous page. If breadcrumbs are missing from the product page, it is difficult for visitors to search for products if they can’t return to a previous results page.
Breadcrumbs navigation is not necessary for websites with a few pages. But it is a necessary feature for user convenience on multi-page portals with a complex section layout. Users are forced to do numerous manipulations as a result, such as choosing the top-level category or beginning their search afresh.
Benefits of Using Breadcrumbs Navigation for eCommerce Sites
Enhance the Website Content’s Findability
Breadcrumbs improves the findability of a website’s content by establishing internal links between the website’s pages and categories. They offer search engines yet another way to comprehend the architecture of your website, find deeper pages within it, and index all of your pages.
If you want your web pages to appear in search results and drive traffic, using breadcrumbs is crucial!
Provide a Better User Experience
Users can reduce the steps for going back in the site hierarchy, thanks to breadcrumbs. If a website lacks breadcrumbs, you might have to repeatedly click the back button. However, by clicking a link in the breadcrumbs trail, you can accomplish it with just one click.
Reduce Bounce Rate and Improve Browsing Experience
Users will either exit or return to the category page if they come to a product page in which they are not interested. The users who use breadcrumbs finished tasks more quickly than users who did not use breadcrumbs. So, breadcrumbs navigation for eCommerce sites is good for user experience and reduces bounce rate.
Breadcrumbs can significantly boost productivity and save time for people who use the internet regularly.
When Breadcrumbs are Not Used?
Breadcrumbs might not be useful if your website merely has a few pages and a few levels of structure. In some situations, providing breadcrumbs is ambiguous for readers.
Types of Breadcrumbs Navigation
Hierarchy-Based Breadcrumb Navigation
The hierarchy-based breadcrumb Navigation follows the site architecture of the website. Users who arrive on your website via search results will find this form of breadcrumbs helpful. If they choose, they can easily go back to the hierarchy to look at other possibilities.
History-Based Breadcrumb Navigation
This navigation style gives you simple access to your website history by showing all the places you’ve been on that page.
This can be quite useful when web pages have complicated names and customers have been browsing for a long time. However, this is the least used breadcrumbs navigation option because it essentially acts as a forward and back navigation already on the toolbar.
Attribute-Based Breadcrumb Navigation
The numerous filters that users may apply on a page provide the basis for the dynamic trail that attribute-based breadcrumbs build. The majority of attribute-based breadcrumbs are used on eCommerce websites in combination with breadcrumbs that follow a hierarchy.
This breadcrumb navigation on an e-commerce site is helpful for consumers who want to see all the products with the same characteristics.
It’s a Wrap!
Breadcrumbs navigation is an important UX element. So, don’t try to overlook them! They facilitate site navigation. They also help SEO and motivate visitors to keep taking action on your website. A user’s likelihood of making a purchase increases with a good website experience.
You may also read Tips to Reduce the Carbon Footprints of Online Retail.
