Including Yoast SEO breadcrumbs on your website can significantly enhance the user experience and boost its search engine compatibility. In this guide, I will walk you through the steps of adding Yoast SEO breadcrumbs, sharing my own experiences and observations as we go along.
What are Breadcrumbs?
Breadcrumbs are a navigation aid that helps users understand where they are on a website and how they got there. They typically appear at the top of the webpage, just below the header. Breadcrumbs are displayed as a hierarchy of clickable links, starting with the homepage and leading to the current page. For example, a breadcrumb trail might look like this:
Home > Category > Subcategory > Current Page
Breadcrumbs are not only useful for users to navigate your website, but they also provide valuable context to search engines. When search engines crawl your website, they can use breadcrumbs to understand the relationship between different pages, which can help improve your website’s visibility in search results.
Installing and Activating Yoast SEO Plugin
The first step to adding Yoast SEO breadcrumbs to your website is to install and activate the Yoast SEO plugin if you haven’t already done so. Yoast SEO is a popular WordPress plugin that helps optimize your website for search engines.
To install the Yoast SEO plugin, follow these steps:
- Login to your WordPress dashboard.
- Go to “Plugins” > “Add New”.
- Search for “Yoast SEO”.
- Click on “Install Now” next to the Yoast SEO plugin.
- Once the installation is complete, click on “Activate” to activate the plugin.
Configuring Yoast SEO Breadcrumbs
After activating the Yoast SEO plugin, you can now configure the breadcrumbs settings. To do this, follow these steps:
- Go to “SEO” > “Search Appearance” in your WordPress dashboard.
- Click on the “Breadcrumbs” tab.
- Ensure that the “Enable Breadcrumbs” toggle is set to “On”.
- Customize the breadcrumb separator and anchor text to match your website’s style.
- Click on “Save Changes”.
Once you have saved the changes, Yoast SEO will automatically generate breadcrumbs based on the structure of your website’s pages and taxonomies.
Adding the Breadcrumb Code to Your Theme
Now that you have configured Yoast SEO breadcrumbs, the next step is to add the breadcrumb code to your theme’s template files. The exact location and method for adding the breadcrumb code may vary depending on your theme.
Generally, you will need to open the template file where you want to display the breadcrumbs and add the following code:
<?php if ( function_exists( 'yoast_breadcrumb' ) ) {
yoast_breadcrumb( '<p id="breadcrumbs">','</p>' );
} ?>
This code will call the Yoast SEO breadcrumb function and display the breadcrumb trail on your webpage. Make sure to place this code in the appropriate location within your template file, such as the header.php or single.php file, depending on where you want the breadcrumbs to appear.
Conclusion
Adding Yoast SEO breadcrumbs to your website is a simple yet effective way to enhance both user experience and search engine optimization. Breadcrumbs provide valuable context to users and search engines, improving website navigation and visibility in search results.
By following the steps outlined in this article, you can easily configure and add Yoast SEO breadcrumbs to your website. Remember to customize the breadcrumb settings and add the breadcrumb code to the appropriate template file in your theme.
Start improving your website’s navigation and SEO by adding Yoast SEO breadcrumbs today!