Sites on the Internet today are very different, and both the structure and the index in the search engines, and whether some user wants to visit a particular resource, will depend on the fullness, size.
Site owners have to solve a million questions regarding the promotion of their resource, and equip the portal with all the necessary buttons and cells, plug-ins and other special systems for a comfortable stay of the user on the pages and quick promotion of the site in the top. Those who are familiar with the famous fairy tale "Grenzel and Gretel" will definitely remember the moment when the children scattered bread crumbs, then to return home.
This is the clearest example of why breadcrumbs are needed on the site, but this is too short an explanation for such an important detail. That is why its significance, the possibility of implementation is worth considering in more detail.
Breadcrumbs navigation: what is it and how does it work?
If you carefully study the components of the site and take any online store as an example (it doesn’t matter whether it’s clothing or household appliances), the site’s structure definitely has product pages that the visitor clicks on and is well oriented. “Breadcrumbs” here perform the same function: the visitor, due to the presence of this script on the site, can easily navigate in the Internet resource, go into different categories and scroll through the catalog and return to the main menu with just one click.
The use of such a plugin is a necessary thing precisely on sites that represent several pages (tens, hundreds or thousands), and if they do not exist, then users simply will not be able to navigate it normally. This is the main point that should be considered when developing a site.
Using the wordpress blog, the bread crumbs on the site should be placed under the main header. This navigation will be a series of links from the main page to the one where the site user is at one time or another.
Is this navigation necessary?
Not all sites care about user comfort and often forget to insert the breadcrumbs plugin into the structure. What will happen if this system does not appear on a multi-page resource? The answer is simple: firstly, the low flow of users due to the incomprehensibility of orientation in the site structure, and secondly, the low level of portal indexing in search engines. The second consequence plays a big role - there is no site in the top, which means that fewer users will see it. "Breadcrumbs" is an addition to the structure of the site, which is useful both for users and for the resource itself and its promotion in the top.
Recall a fairy tale ...
To clearly understand what the significance of this navigation is, it’s enough to recall the fairy tale “Grenzel and Gretel”: scattered bread crumbs are the way home, to the main page, to the reference point. Without these tips, the young characters of the fairy tale would never get rid of the witch and never return home, and in the situation with the site everything is exactly the same. Not a single multi-page resource is complete without this navigation.
Navigation functions
The above tasks are the main functions of the plugin, but it has a number of tasks that it solves. The breadcrumbs navigation has a number of functions:
- Simplifies site navigation for the user.
- It gives an additional signal to different search engines about the structure of the site.
- Allows you to form a competent linking.
- Creates easy-to-read snippets in search engines.
- It also contributes to the proper transmission of anchor weight. As an example, take “breadcrumbs”, for example, “Antiviruses for laptops”, which lead to a specific page on the site. This gives a signal to the search engine that the same “Anti-virus for laptops” are placed on this page.
Equipping a plug-in of this kind of resource is a necessary part, and if you need not just to develop an information site, but to promote it in order to earn income, you should go deeper into the work of the bread crumbs system on the site. And for what we need them, we found out, and how they work is also understandable, but another question arises: what are the general rules for their construction?
How to make bread crumbs? Main structures
Like any other system, this one has its own type of construction. By the way, there are only three main types of construction for sites of different subjects:
- For pages that host catalog categories.
- For product cards.
- For all other pages of the resource.
Types of builds, or How to fill the module into the system yourself?
Each of these types has its own construction. Briefly, each system looks like this:
1. For the pages in which the catalog information about its categories will be located, there should be such a structure:
Home -> {Level 1 category name} -> Other pages -> {Level n category name}.
2. For product cards, a similar construction system operates:
Home -> {Name of category category 1} -> ... -> {Name of category category n} -> {Name of product}.
3. For the last type of construction (other sites), the following construction applies:
Portal main page -> {Name of any section of level 1} -> All other sections -> {Name of section of level n}.
Popular plugins with such navigation
The wordpress blog is the most popular among site developers, it is simple to work and easy to modify, can be modified in any way, but if we talk about popular plugins, then wordpress bread crumbs are most relevant to use with the following names: Breadcrumb NavXT and Instant Breadcrumbs. In principle, the work of these two plugins is the same, and they do not require any additional settings. Their feature is that they automatically build a navigation menu. They are popular among beginners, since there is no particular confusion, but they are absolutely not suitable for complex and voluminous projects. Those who want to use bread crumbs in joomla need to know the features of the site and how the new plugins will work on it. To add them to this site, you need to find the “Navigation Settings” cell and click once on it. Then you should publish the module on the necessary pages of the site, placing the information in the necessary points, which leads to the main page of the site.
In principle, this is the only way to install this navigation on the joomla site, but the difference from the plugins in wordpress is that they can be customized, and this is exactly what happens for everyone in different ways. Search engine indexing will depend on how this plugin is configured.
A well-thought-out site structure is the key to the success of its promotion
Having examined the example of "bread crumbs" and the peculiarity of their work (settings, type of installation and function of work), it remains to draw a line under the main functions of this indispensable plug-in. So, take for example a site on which this kind of navigation is completely absent. Moreover, the portal is huge, and its focus is the sales area. The catalog includes hundreds of positions, goods of all high quality, low price - everything should attract users, and the flow of visitors should increase daily. But what happens in such a situation? If you look at the statistics, on the contrary, this portal from the day of its work may have a low increase, and then generally go to zero. The reason is simple: going to the store, we only know that there is sausage on one window and milk on the other window, but in order to reach all the products, we should go to the right window, and if this is impossible, the buyer will leave with which, looking only at the main entrance of the store.
Without navigation, the ability to move from one storefront to another, it will simply not be interesting for the user to be in such a place, and this is a very vivid example of how bread crumbs work in the site system.
Finding the right plugin
Not all site owners give their work to promote their resources to professional IT managers. Often they independently work on its modernization and therefore do not have in the arsenal of knowledge a place where you can find the necessary plug-ins, therefore there is one micro-layout. There are a huge number of “breadcrumbs” on the Web, and you can find this navigation for almost any working site. The largest amount of navigation of this plan is available on wordpress, because on the site of this portal they can be taken. The same situation is with plugins for other platforms: if something is needed, namely “bread crumbs”, then the official site of the platform provides its users with all the necessary designs.
Navigation without which there can be no
In general, the history of navigation of such a plan appeared a very long time ago, since the advent of online stores. If one-page resources could still somehow survive without them, then the services that by all possible means earned on advertising and clients simply died without bread crumbs. Who was the first creator of this navigation is unknown, but the fact that he took the Network a huge step forward is obvious. No site today can do without navigation, even we can look at the weather forecast by turning pages (for example, choosing an hourly forecast).
Summarize
So, let's draw a line under all of these. This navigation is not just a decoration on the site, but a necessary and indispensable design. Without its availability, the resource will bend, cease to function correctly and soon cease to exist at all. Before starting the portal, you should carefully consider the operation of navigation, choose the right module. Indeed, if a continuous expansion of the catalog is planned, then you should choose powerful plugins, not standard ones, which have automatic settings and are unchanged. It is better to spend an hour or two searching for a quality module before the service starts, than weeks and months to restore the rating of a resource in search engines, supplementing it with new modules later. Everything that is embedded in the structure of the site at the beginning is promoted and indexed faster, because the overall work of the resource should be given much more time than it seems.
Just a fairy tale about Grenzel and Gretel, and how much sense there is in it both for ordinary life situations and for the operation of Internet resources. These characters laid the foundation for the services that today have become global sales giants. Before you start developing sites, you should look at the largest resources and online stores, where there are more than a million products. A well-thought-out system will allow you to understand all the subtleties of navigation and its features.