Google Likes Breadcrumb Navigation

This is an extract from TWIS SEO Update 23 June 2017.

Find out why Google Likes Breadcrumbs so much in this post, and read 6 tips on how to implement them for a bit of crawling and ranking love from Google. Doing this could impact your web business, so please feel free to contact me.

#SEO #Breadcrumbs #InternalLinking #Googlebot

Summary:

• Google likes breadcrumbs, they are treated as normal links by Google.
• They also, if using structured markup, give additional links on Google search.
• Breadcrumbs are handy for users and search engines, they give structure and easy navigation to all concerned.
• They help Google to Find Crawl and Index your content.
• Having relevant links near to related content is never a bad idea…

Tips on Building Breadcrumb Navigation:

1. Have breadcrumbs on your site, including mobile, if you don’t already.
2. Position them in a place that the user would find useful – top-left of the content panel is usually a good idea.
3. Ignore any designer who complains about them. Easy navigation is always user-friendly.
4. Make your breadcrumbs relevant to the content and the structure of the website.
5. Be careful with keyword stuffing in breadcrumbs & where possible, keep the breadcrumbs brief and indicative rather than lengthy.
6. Read out Basic Internal Linking Guide here.
7. Contact me if you would like to discuss the beauty of breadcrumbs and how to best implement them.

Navigation & Breadcrumbs Discussion:

Ahhh, the humble breadcrumb. At least Google has given SEOs some ammunition in sometimes fraught discussions with designers over these little blighters.

For some reason, designers have often sought to remove breadcrumbs over the years, as designs became more responsive and fluid – they seemed to not know where to place them, or how to deal with them. Users find them useful, search engines find them useful and who knows, maybe designers will come to love them as well.

You do need to be careful with keyword stuffing. If they are directly drawn from page titles without any editing, they can get a little spammy once you’re a few levels in. Where possible, edit breadcrumb display text to remove keyword stuffing after a few levels – not always possible, I know, but you would hope that CMSs would have an option to edit.

More info:

• Gary Illyes on Twitter
• H/T SE Roundtable

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I recently wrote about how Google’s Mobile First is Not Mobile Friendly. Read it now.

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• Google likes breadcrumbs.
• They aid navigation, relevance, internal linking, crawling.
• Ignore any designers who don’t want them.
• Read Mobile First Is Not Mobile Friendly.
• Read The State of SEO in mid-2017.

Thanks for reading. If you would like to discuss what these changes mean for your web property, or would like to know how to implement them, please feel free to contact me.

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