What is Breadcrumb in WordPress

Have you ever wanted to display navigation links on your WordPress website which gives the user an idea of where they are exactly on the site? You can achieve this by showing breadcrumbs on your website.

What are breadcrumbs in WordPress?

Breadcrumb is basically a text path which lays out the exact position of a user on the website with hierarchical links to their parent. It is usually placed above the title of the post.

While the default menu can be used to navigate, it doesn’t really help in case you want to find your exact position on the site or go a few levels back.

Importance of breadcrumbs:

• SEO

If your data is structured on the website then Google will add the breadcrumb menu on top of your website in the search results. This also helps in increasing the click ratio to your website.

• User Engagement:

Mostly visitors to your website will be coming through search engines deep inside your website. The breadcrumb menu lets your visitors explore more from your website in their interested categories. This will directly help you in reducing the bounce rate and keeping the users engaged on your website.

• User Experience:

How many times have you visited a website and found yourself lost or unable to reach the previous pages? By using breadcrumbs you make it easy and fast for visitors to navigate through your website. This helps tremendously in increasing the user experience of your website.

Enable breadcrumbs on your website

Breadcrumbs can be enabled on your website with the help of plugins.

Breadcrumb NavXT –

Steps to enable breadcrumbs using Breadcrumb NavXT:

1. Install and Activate the plugin.
2. Visit Settings -> Breadcrumb NavXT for configuring the settings of the plugin.
3. Once done, visit Appearance -> Customize.
4. Click on the Breadcrumb menu. In the Position section select where you want your breadcrumbs to be placed from the dropdown menu. Also select Breadcrumb NavXT as the Breadcrumb Source.
5. Once finished you will now see breadcrumbs on your website pages and posts.

Yoast SEO –

The Yoast plugin is famous for SEO and is one of the most commonly used plugins on WordPress. If you have this plugin already installed then you just have to enable breadcrumbs in the plugin.

Steps to enable breadcrumbs using the Yoast plugin:

1. Install and Activate the plugin.
2. Visit SEO -> Search Appearance from your admin dashboard and click on the Breadcrumbs tab.
3. Click on the Enabled button in the Enable Breadcrumbs section.
4. For displaying the breadcrumbs visit Appearance -> Customize.
5. Click the Breadcrumb menu and select the Position from the dropdown menu.
6. Also select Yoast SEO Breadcrumbs from the Breadcrumb Source dropdown menu.
7. Once done, breadcrumbs will now be displayed on your WordPress website.