Navigation is a critical part of the design of an Ecommerce store. Excellent Navigation is essential for enhanced user experience and increased sales and profits. If your website has poor navigation, then such a thing frustrates visitors to your website and ends in a high bounce rate.

You can consult with an eCommerce Website Development Company expert and enhance your expertise in the best-in-class navigation practices for your eCommerce websites. Else you can hire an eCommerce developer on your own for designing, updating, and optimizing your eCommerce site navigation.

This article elaborates on the best navigation practices you should follow for the eCommerce sites. Before getting into the core topic, let us brush up with some basics of site navigation.

What is Navigation Optimization in Ecommerce?

Successful website navigation is designed with the user in mind. It properly uses precise and easy-to-understand language as well as appropriate links to important pages. Navigation Optimization in Ecommerce is the process of enhancing how every visitor and the complete search engines identify and access content within a given website.

Modern algorithms used by search engines consider site navigation as a primary aspect of crawling your site content. In simple words, easy or well-optimized eCommerce website navigation will assist buyers in finding the right products and where they can go to find the right products they are searching for.

There are so many methods to get the perfect navigation optimization in eCommerce. The main things involved in it are how menus are labelled on mobile and desktop systems, how pages are structured, and the website’s taxonomy.

Components of Site Navigation

Every professional in eCommerce web design services commits to providing first-class services to their clients. However, you may not know the eCommerce website navigation and its components. You can focus on the following details explaining such components.

1. Primary Navigation

A successful eCommerce navigation method depends on several things, in particular how you present the header. Horizontal or vertical menus with a handful of categories of products on eCommerce websites provide absolute convenience to all visitors.

You have to consider different things to choose between these two options and get the optimal result. Do not forget that what structure works well in one context may not work well in another.

Mobile and web navigation experiences of visitors to the eCommerce store online vary. The following things play the leading role in the approach eCommerce website designers take to design the eCommerce website.

• Page Space: An eCommerce website with a horizontal menu conserves the highest possible space on desktop devices compared to a vertical menu. The space is limited on the mobile. In such a situation, vertical navigation through the hamburger menu gives the option to hide and expose the menu section
• Menu Item Priority: Every menu with top and leftmost menu items carries the maximum weight. You have to let such things in your primary areas visually. Many users read from left to right. They get the highest possible convenience when they get a horizontal navigation experience
• Scanning: Scanning pages vertically in the eCommerce websites are vital for supporting visitors to find the experiences almost immediately

2. Categories

Precise navigation structure and labeling on every page and part of this structure include deciding how to display product categories successfully. Any category type consolidates a navigation menu bar. Business people in the eCommerce sector must aim to display some top-level categories instead of general categories of products.

3. Additional Elements

Some extra elements are needed to be considered by the eCommerce teams to make informed decisions for the website navigation other than the main navigation layout. Take a look over those additional elements.

• Sticky navigation
• Design style
• Menu rendering
• Site footer

These additional elements will facilitate viewers or consumers to find the right products by placing appropriate links to the products. This will boost the product discovery experience and encourage user action.

Best Practices Of Ecommerce Navigation For A Seamless User Experience

It is a suitable time to learn and follow the best practices of eCommerce navigation. The following details guide you to get the desired eCommerce website development and assist you in achieving the goal of the eCommerce navigation. 

1. Use an Explanatory Product Category Page instead of a Drop-Down Menu

You can maximize the revenue of your eCommerce business when you replace an existing drop-down menu with an excellent explanatory product category page. This approach is constructive, especially in the detailed product categories. The two-line brief of each category assists all visitors to understand and make a good decision about shopping.

2. Introduce Subcategories

Subcategories let visitors be specific with filtered choices and save space on the homepage of the eCommerce store. This approach creates the chance for maximum time on the website with improved click-through for very good metrics as well as conversions. To program the hover method is one of the best methods to do it.

3. Optimize the Main Navigation Bar

The main navigation bar is located on the web page’s header, and the compass visitors use to find what they like to buy. However, online stores with thousands of products are difficult to use in this small space. In such a situation, you can improve the user experience and get the desired eCommerce navigation by limiting the number of links on the menu bar and using the drop-down menus.

4. Have a Category for New Arrivals

You can keep the “What’s New” or “New Arrivals” category on the eCommerce website navigation bar that indicates that you refresh the inventory regularly. This design assists repeat customers keep up-to-date with your product collection almost immediately. This design makes the product browsing as well as eCommerce website navigation easy.

5. Include Internal Search

In the eCommerce web design, you have to include some important things like an internal search option. An internal search option is really helpful to all visitors who like to perform a quick search and get the complete details about the products and make an informed decision for shopping. Installing an internal search function is one of the best methods to navigate the eCommerce website.

6. Provide Search Suggestions

There are many methods to improve the search function in the eCommerce website. For example, you can provide your website visitors with some direction. This is advisable to streamline things by offering the best search suggestions. You can include an auto-complete option in the search function and increase the comfort of your visitors while searching.

7. Comply with the Conventional Navigation Design

Creating a distinctive background design and color scheme on the landing pages is good until you comply with the navigation arrangement with which the maximum number of customers feel comfortable. You can enhance your efforts to get the website navigation at the page top directly under the search bar and brand logo and website navigation on the side of the web page known as the left rail.

Bottom Line

Navigation is one of the best indicators of the success rate of the eCommerce website. Though your eCommerce website caters to the needs of all devices, you have to keep improving your efforts for responsive design. The eCommerce website navigation practices assist you to enhance your eCommerce store further and increase sales.

The post Best Navigation Practices for Ecommerce Sites appeared first on Icecube Digital.