I love site breadcrumbs, and find myself seeking them out a lot- especially when I’m on content-heavy sites. It’s too easy to get lost within pages and pages of complex navigation, and breadcrumbs basically tell you “You Are Here”, allowing for easier browsing. And easier browsing, as I mentioned very recently, is great for everyone.
WordPress, which I use to power about 95% of the sites I design, doesn’t have breadcrumbs built-in, so I usually do one of two things:
Use a plug-in
The quicker method, of course. There are a few out there, but my choice is the Navxt plug-in, which really takes me just a minute or so to activate and start using. You can learn more about Navxt including how to install and start using the plugin here.
Don’t use a plug-in
This page by Dimox from Russia describes how to set up automatic breadcrumbs yourself without using a plug-in. It looks like a lot of code, but the truth is it’s really simple to do, especially if you just copy and paste Dimox’s code. Be sure to read through the comments on his post for some ideas on customizing it to your site’s needs.
You will, of course, want to style your breadcrumbs nicely. For that, I recommend this tutorial for creating Apple.com-like breadcrumbs, or the lovely Veerle’s post on simple, scalable CSS-based breadcrumbs.
Do you use breadcrumb navigation on your sites?
