WordPress Breadcrumbs: How to Implement Them in Two Easy Ways

Have you ever seen the following trail of words on a WordPress website? Paths like these are called WordPress breadcrumbs.

It is a navigation system that tracks the visitors’ journey on your site as well as provides shortcuts to the previously visited pages.

Therefore, it is best used for websites with multiple categories. The substantial benefit of breadcrumbs is to help your visitors move from page to page more smoothly.

I will show you how WordPress Breadcrumbs can improve your website and guide you through two beginner-friendly ways to install them.

Are WordPress Breadcrumbs Important At All?

Though it takes a tiny space of your site and often goes unnoticed, WordPress Breadcrumbs have some significant perks.

First, they encourage visitors to stay on your site. Breadcrumbs provide links to other pages on your site that visitors can access with one click. Therefore, visitors are likely to remain on your website thanks to the easy navigation back and forth. Breadcrumbs can, unintentionally, direct visitors on what they can do next on your site.

Second, breadcrumbs enhance the visitor experience, as they do not have to open their browser history to find previously visited pages or click the back button over and over again. Instead, the links are already there on the Breadcrumb widget.

Third, they’re SEO-friendly, since Breadcrumbs show the hierarchy of the content on your website. It helps Google, and other search engines, to crawl your site and help find closely related content.

Knowing how practical WordPress breadcrumbs can be for your website, installing them becomes essential.

How to Add Breadcrumbs to a WordPress Site

There are two ways to install breadcrumbs – you can either tweak your theme’s functions.php file or use a plugin.

Though both ways try to achieve the same goal, modifying the theme’s functions.php file is more prone to errors.

First, it may prevent the modified theme from updating automatically or mess up the code, which will make you start over with the theme’s customization.

Plugins, on the other hand, are easy to use and are much safer for your website. You will only have to install and paste in some code, and it will protect your theme from any unwanted damage.

Below are the two plugins that I recommend to install if you want to use WordPress Breadcrumbs:

1. Breadcrumb NavXT

This plugin is open source and has more than 800,000 active installations. Best of all, it is completely free.

Here is how to install and set it up:

1. On your WordPress dashboard, hover above the Plugins button and then click Add New.
2. Find Breadcrumb NavXT in the Search Bar.
   
3. Click Install Now.
4. Activate the plugin.
5. Go to the Appearance menu and click the Editor button.
6. A new window will appear. Find the Theme Files column and select the Theme Header option. You can implement breadcrumbs to any file on the Theme Editor, from footer to single pages.
   
7. Add the following code to the bottom of the editing window.

   <div class="breadcrumbs" typeof="BreadcrumbList" vocab="https://schema.org/">
       <?php if(function_exists('bcn_display')) { bcn_display(); }?>
   </div>

8. Click the Update File button to save your changes.
9. Open one of your pages. Breadcrumbs should appear at the header section of the page.
10. To customize its look or any other additional settings, hover above the Settings menu on the WordPress dashboard and click Breadcrumb NavXT.
11. You will see options to edit the general settings like the Breadcrumb Separator, Post Types, Taxonomies, and more.
    
12. Click the Save Changes button at the bottom of the page to store the adjustments.

2. Yoast SEO

Yoast is an SEO plugin that assists you in building your site – from content and SEO analysis to various other optimization features. It offers both free and premium versions and has over five million active installations.

Here is how to install Yoast SEO:

1. Install and activate the plugin (refer to the method shown previously.)
2. Go to Appearance > Editor > Theme Header.
3. Copy the code below and paste it at the bottom of the editor window.

   <?php 
   
   if ( function_exists('yoast_breadcrumb') ){ yoast_breadcrumb('<p id="breadcrumbs">','</p>');} 
   ?>

4. Click the Update File button right below the editor window.
5. Hover above the SEO menu and click Search Appearance.
6. Select the Breadcrumb column and then Enable Breadcrumbs.
7. A settings window will appear. Adjust how your website’s breadcrumbs should look like – from the separator to the 404 Not Found messages.
   
8. Click Save Changes to update the settings.
9. Open one of your posts. You should see your newly implemented breadcrumbs at the top of the page.

Time to Take the Action Yourself!

There you go, two simple ways to install WordPress Breadcrumbs to your site.

In short, to implement both plugins, you will need to do three main steps:

1. Install and activate the plugin through the Plugins menu.
2. Paste the breadcrumb code into the Theme Header (header.php).
3. Enable WordPress Breadcrumbs for your preferred plugin.

Besides being easy to install, WordPress Breadcrumbs have other bonuses. You can use them to improve SEO performance. It can also enhance the user experience by making your site easier to navigate.

Sounds easy enough, right? Now, give it a try yourself!