A business engaged in e-commerce aims to have high conversion rates as it tells how…
It’s always the little things that get you to like something and make something easier to use. The thing is that most of the time, you do not recognize how much of an impact some things have on your experience while navigating a site.
You use a lot of these little things on a whole lot of websites, but you have never paid too much attention to them. They are mostly the quality of life plugins that make the experience of going through the site much more enjoyable and slick. One such little thing is called breadcrumbs!
Originating from the story of Hansel and Gretel, breadcrumbs are a way for you to see where you are currently.
For example: Shoes > Men Shoes > Leather > Brown. So, now, let’s say that you want to only change up the material of the shoe from leather to cotton. All you need to do is just click it and change it up.
It is very good on sites that have a whole lot of categories in a hierarchy system. It makes it more obvious to the user what they are viewing and looking for. Basically, it shows you the path you have taken and where you are now.
There are three types of breadcrumbs:
1. Location-Based
When a category has multiple levels, you can then see where in the hierarchy you currently are.
2. Path-Based
It shows you each step you have taken while navigating the site and shows you where you are now.
3. Attribute-Based
The most common breadcrumbs when you are buying things online. It displays certain attributes of something within a page. The attribute can be things like color, type of material or manufacturer, and so on.
Disclaimer!
Breadcrumbs should not be used as your main navigational menu.
It should be viewed more like a feature or small addition to your site. So, it is more of a convenience thing that is the main feature. Its primary purpose is to let users know where they are and also allows them to backtrack to previous categories.
Also, be aware that if you have “WooThemes” installed, then you will notice the lack of some features that come with the plugin we will be discussing. The reason for this is that it will prefer to use “WooFramework Breadcrumbs” instead of “WooCommerce Breadcrumbs”. So, keep that in mind!
WooCommerce Breadcrumbs
Now that we know what breadcrumbs are and how they function, we can now discuss a plugin that deals with breadcrumbs.
This plugin is not for setting up breadcrumbs, but it is rather an addition that gives you more power over how they work and to what they link to. Additionally, it allows you to restyle the breadcrumbs themselves, and you can disable breadcrumbs completely.
With all of that in mind, you can, for example, remove the need for the breadcrumbs to be in order. By that, I mean that you can remove the liner or arrows that are shown in between each breadcrumb. This is very helpful when you have a smaller or intermediate site, and there aren’t so many categories for you to breadcrumb.
This plugin gives you the ability to use whichever separator you want to use between each of your breadcrumbs. This is great when you want to make the breadcrumbs stand out by putting your own custom separator (whatever you have on your keyboard).
“Wrap before” is another feature of this plugin that allows you to set which breadcrumb will show first in the line. Then, of course, you also have the “Wrap after” that does the same thing, but only it applies it at the end of every breadcrumb.
I have been looking for something like this because it gives you more control over how the breadcrumbs behave. And to top it all of, it is very lite and does not slow down your site in any way.
So, I highly recommend this plugin (especially if you have an online store). And I am not the only one who says this, you can go ahead and check out other user reviews, and you will see that they are all happy with the plugin!
How to Install
Just like every other plugin. All you have to do is download, then install, then go to your plugins menu and enable the plugin.
Once all of that is out of the way, then proceed to the setting, and under WC Breadcrumbs, go ahead and update the plugin settings. That’s it; you are ready to rumble!
Final Thoughts
Breadcrumbs are a necessity on your site if you have any type of online store or a site that has a logical hierarchy system of grouping the contents on your site. It will make it much easier for users to navigate your site and also tell them where they are at the moment.
It eliminates the need to make complicated headers that consist of too many categories. And, most importantly, it makes the experience of shopping and other things much better and professional.