Improving Technical SEO with Sitelinks Breadcrumb Schema, Sitelinks Search Box Schema, and Sitelinks Menu Schema

In this article, we review how we can add the Sitelinks Breadcrumb Schema, Sitelinks Search Box Schema, and Sitelinks Menu Schema to a website. These opportunities may be brought to your attention during a Technical SEO audit and in this case, this is relatively easy to accomplish when it comes to WordPress-based websites using the Schema Pro plugin for WordPress.

Note that WordPress has many plugins so there could be other options available that can be used to add Sitelinks schema markup to a website.

Add Sitelinks Breadcrumbs, Sitelinks Search Box, and Sitelinks Menu with the Schema Pro plugin for WordPress

Not every website qualifies however you still need the schema code and this can be set below using the Schema Pro plugin for WordPress.

The site structure and query are important for Sitelinks to be displayed. Note that the process of generating Sitelinks is automated and also needs to be relevant to the visitor’s search query — the only control you have is over the menu.

From [6] “…for your site’s internal links, make sure you use anchor text and alt text that’s informative, compact, and avoids repetition.”.

The image below has pointers to the appropriate settings configured in the WordPress Schema plugin for SiteLinks, SiteLinks Breadcrumb, and SiteLinks Search Box functionality.

Schema Pro plugin settings for SiteLinks, Breadcrumb, and Search Box rich results schema markup.

Testing via the Google Search Console: Rich Results Test

We can test that these changes are working via the Google Search Console: Rich Results Test — simply add the URL in the search box and run the test:

Step one: Add the target URL and run the rich results test.

The Google Search Console: Rich Results Test query page — enter the target URL, choose your device, and click on the “Test URL” button.

Step two: Review the Google Search Console: Rich Results Test results.

We can see that this page is eligible for rich results.

Visually testing Sitelinks Breadcrumbs, Sitelinks Search Box, and Sitelinks Menu

Testing for Sitelinks Breadcrumbs, Search Box, and Menu can be done visually, by querying the website brand name in Google or Bing, however these changes won’t appear immediately and may not appear at all. If the schema is working correctly we may eventually see something that looks similar to what we have in the following sections.

Viewing Sitelinks Breadcrumbs schema markup in search results

Sitelinks Breadcrumbs in search results act as a navigation aid that gives visitors an easy-to-understand overview of where the page is located on your website [9], they improve site navigation and usability, improves the ability for search engines to crawl a website, and can have a marginal impact on click-through rate (CTR) [14].

Image for post — An example regarding what Sitelinks Breadcrumbs in search results look like.

See the “Why aren’t breadcrumbs displaying in search results for my site?”, video below.

Viewing Sitelinks Search Box schema markup in search results

The Sitelinks Search Box provides a means for searching a given website right on the Google search results page — see below for an example.

Viewing Sitelinks Menu schema markup in search results

The Sitelinks Menu contains default menu choices — a user who clicks on one becomes a visitor and hence this can help improve the click-through rate (CTR) of a website.

Technical SEO Conclusion

In conclusion, we’ve covered two plugins that, taken together, can positively impact the technical SEO for a website, the user experience, as well as the security and page load time.

What other low-hanging fruits do you know of and what did you do to improve your website? Put your suggestions in the comments and we can discuss these in more detail.

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Addendum: Site Navigation Breadcrumbs are not the same as Sitelinks Breadcrumbs

Not to be confused with site navigation breadcrumbs (see the Breadcrumb NavXT plugin), see below, which can be helpful for site navigation and usability purposes also.