Using Breadcrumbs

No, we are not talking about ordinary breadcrumbs here. Breadcrumbs are a way of navigating your website. Breadcrumbs mainly serve the purpose of giving the visitor a better understanding of the website’s hierarchy. This way the website visitor knows which titles he clicked on that led him to the page he is currently on.

7 tips for breadcrumbs on your website:

1: Put your breadcrumb between the page title and top bar.

A breadcrumb is always above the page title, but it should never be above your website menu. For example, your website visitor may not read it or may think of it as the primary navigation.

2: Start your breadcrumb with “Home.”

This is the very first page a visitor comes to when visiting your website. After all, everyone knows what “home” means and so it will lead them back to the home page.

3: Align the breadcrumbs on the left.

People expect the link to go back to the home page to be at the top left. Then also put it on the top left. This is the easiest to find back.

4: The greater-than sign

It is, of course, important to separate your various breadcrumbs from each other. This is why you can use characters such as the greater-than sign (>). This sign is also a kind of arrow pointing to the next step you have done. Of course, you can also put real arrows between them or some other sign that makes the distinction between breadcrumbs clear.

5: Smaller font size

To distinguish the breadcrumbs from the regular text on your website, it’s best to use a different font size. Putting the breadcrumbs one font size smaller makes it immediately obvious that the text is larger and therefore more important.

6: Clickability

Each breadcrumb should be clickable and should point you to that part of the page you are clicking on. This is the biggest use of breadcrumbs.

7: No breadcrumbs on the home page

On the home page, as a website visitor, you haven’t clicked on anything yet. It is the very first page you come to when you search for a website. So you haven’t done anything yet so there are no steps to show. Only when you click on something will the breadcrumbs show what you clicked on.