The Breadcrumb Trail

One of the simplest yet most often overlooked aid to navigation is the breadcrumb trail.

Named after the trail of crumbs left behind by a traveller in such tails as Hansel and Gretel the breadcrumb trail on a website simply shows what page the web visitor is on by virtue of the path they have taken to get there.

For eCommerce websites this is an invaluable way of allowing users to see which department they are in and providing them with an easy way – avoiding the necessity of the back button – to get back to an index or category higher up the tree.

The breadcrumb trail is also invaluable for ensuring users that have landed on a web page within your main site are aware of their landing location. Search engines rarely direct users to the home page (nor should they!) but to the page of most relevance. To avoid feeling lost, provision of a breadcrumb trail will ensure the potential customer feels confident to move about the website and find out more about you and your products.