S e a r c h A p p e a r a n c e : B r e a d c r u m b s & R S S

Yoast SEO for WordPress training ? Module 5.4

Search Appearance: Breadcrumbs & RSS

In this lesson, we'll describe the settings on the Breadcrumbs and RSS tabs of the Search Appearance settings of Yoast SEO. First, we'll discuss breadcrumbs. We'll explain what they entail, why they are important, and we'll explain which settings are available for breadcrumbs in the Yoast SEO plugin. After that, we'll cover RSS. We'll discuss why this feature is of use and explain what these settings can do for your site.

Breadcrumbs

A breadcrumb is a small text path, often located at the top of a page. On , for instance, the path to our Yoast SEO plugin page is H ome > WordPress Plugins > Yoast SEO for WordPress. This breadcrumb path is shown in Image 1. This breadcrumb immediately shows you where you are. Every part of that path is clickable, all the way back to the homepage.

Image 1: Breadcrumbs Yoast SEO for WordPress Breadcrumbs also appear in Google. If you use Yoast SEO or add the correct form of structured data to your site, search engines can pick up these data and could show your breadcrumbs in the search results, just like in Image 2. This provides users an easy to understand overview of where the page is on your site.

Image 2: Breadcrumbs in the search results

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Advantages to using breadcrumbs

There are a couple of advantages to using breadcrumbs on your site. Let's go over them quickly:

1. Google loves them. Your visitors like breadcrumbs, but Google likes them as well. Breadcrumbs give Google another way of figuring out how your website is structured. In addition to that, Google might use your breadcrumbs to show these in the search results. This way, your search result will at once become much more enticing to users.

2. They enhance user experience. People hate to get lost. When confronted with a new location, people often look around in search of recognizable objects or landmarks. The same goes for websites. You need to keep visitors happy and reduce as much friction as possible. Breadcrumbs can help your user experience since it's a well-known interface element that instantly shows people a way out.

3. They lower bounce rates. Hardly anyone comes in via the homepage anymore. It's all search results nowadays. That means every part of your site could be an entry point. You must come up with a way to guide these visitors to other parts of your site if the selected page does not meet their expectations. Breadcrumbs can lower bounce rates because you're offering visitors an alternative means of browsing your site.

Breadcrumbs settings in Yoast SEO

Yoast SEO offers an easy way to add breadcrumbs to your WordPress site. It will add everything necessary to add them not just visible on your site, but get them ready for Google as well. If your theme supports Yoast breadcrumbs, the settings on the Breadcrumbs tab of the Search Appearance settings will already be available. If your theme doesn't support them, you need to copy a small piece of code into your theme.

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After you've made sure your theme's ready for Yoast breadcrumbs, you can go to the Breadcrumbs tab of the Search Appearance settings of Yoast SEO to find the breadcrumbs settings. If you enable breadcrumbs on this tab, the rest of the breadcrumbs settings will appear (Image 3). On this tab, you can determine what your breadcrumbs will look like. For example, you can choose the separator that will appear between your breadcrumbs, you can set what your homepage should be called in the breadcrumb path, and you can determine an anchor text that will show before the homepage breadcrumb.

Image 3: Breadcrumbs settings The next option on this tab (Image 4) lets you choose which taxonomy will be shown in the breadcrumbs for the content types you use on your website. For example, if you choose to show categories for the content type `Posts', this means that the breadcrumb path of each post will be Home > Category name > Post name. If the only content types you use on your site are posts, you can only set the taxonomy for posts, but if you

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use multiple content types that allow breadcrumbs, it is possible to set a different taxonomy for each content type.

Image 4: Taxonomy to show in breadcrumbs for content types In the video, we chose to show the category option in the breadcrumb path. But you could also select a different taxonomy from the drop-down menu, a tag for example. Imagine that you've written some different articles about trimming dogs. Not just for poodles, like we discussed in the video, but also Maltesers and Afghan hounds. You could tag all these articles with `Trimming dogs'. If you select `Tag' in the menu, then the breadcrumb path changes into Home > Trimming dogs > How to trim poodles, instead of Home > Dogs > How to trim poodles. This way, it's more clear to the searcher that there are more posts to be found on trimming various types of dogs. The point is that you decide which taxonomy you think is most important to show people in the breadcrumbs. What would be the most useful option for y our audience? The last option (Image 5) is a bit more abstract and lets you choose which content type archive will be shown in the breadcrumbs for your taxonomy pages.

Image 5: Content type archive to show in breadcrumbs for taxonomies

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Let's revisit the three scenarios we discussed in the video. 1. You don't have custom content types a nd you don't have a static page for your blog posts. 2. You don't have custom content types but you d o have a static page for your blog posts. 3. You have custom content types and/or you have a static page for your blog posts.

If the first scenario applies to your situation, you can just ignore this setting. Your drop-down menus will be empty. If you have created a static page for your blog posts, the option `Blog' will appear in your menus (Image 6). If you select this option, this page is automatically shown in your breadcrumb path for taxonomy pages. So, instead of Home > Dogs y ou would see Home > Blog > Dogs.

Image 6: Menu option `Blog' How do you create a static page for your blog posts? Well, by default, Wordpress displays your latest posts on your homepage. However, if you prefer to show something else on your homepage , you can move your blog posts to a static page. You can control this in the `Homepage Settings' of the Customizer (Image 7). As soon as you create a static page for your blog posts, a new feature will pop-up in your breadcrumbs settings (Image 8). If you toggle this switch to `Show', your static page will be shown in the breadcrumbs for individual posts (as well). For example, Home > Blog > How to trim poodles.

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