You’re employed onerous to create nice merchandise and drive guests to your WooCommerce retailer. Nonetheless, individuals can solely purchase the merchandise that they will discover. As soon as in your website, it’s important for customers to have a simple option to transfer all through your website and discover the gadgets they’re excited by. That’s why you need to have a technique for WooCommerce navigation.
This submit outlines find out how to create a robust navigation design in your WooCommerce retailer.
What makes a very good WooCommerce navigation menu?
The structure of your website navigation considerably impacts how guests uncover merchandise. Buyers don’t need to sift by a complicated maze to seek out the gadgets they’re excited by. Because of this it’s vital to rearrange your menu in a transparent and concise method.
To create a user-friendly WooCommerce navigation menu, you want systematic labeling and an organized hierarchy.
Guests ought to rapidly know the place to go after touchdown in your homepage. They need to not should consciously take into consideration find out how to transfer by the positioning or the place they need to look to click on.
There are usually two kinds which can be handiest to attain this.
Horizontally throughout the highest of the web page
The commonest, and efficient, strategy to an ecommerce navigation menu is a top-level navigation menu, spanning horizontally throughout the web page.
This structure is the simplest as a result of it’s the place prospects usually look first when figuring out the place to go.
Quite a few eye-tracking research have persistently proven that customers begin by wanting on the header menu. Particularly, they start on the left aspect of the web page and rapidly scan from left to proper.
Vertically down the left aspect of the web page
Whereas most ecommerce websites go for the horizontal navigation menu, others have so many classes that they don’t have sufficient house to cowl all of them.
For these websites, the perfect strategy is to make use of a vertical menu on the left-side of the web page. The commonest instance is Amazon. The ecommerce big has dozens of classes that couldn’t presumably match (in a legible method) in a standard navigation menu.
Once you click on the All icon on the retailer’s website, a menu opens with totally different departments. Clicking any of those departments opens a menu with the nested classes.
Be mindful, that there are some downsides to this strategy.
When your entire catalog navigation is hidden underneath an All label, prospects should make a number of clicks to maneuver by the menu. It additionally obscures what sort of merchandise your retailer carries.
Beneath, we will see an instance of this with Greatest Purchase’s web site.
All of the merchandise are nested underneath the Menu label. Buyers extra conversant in the corporate might know what to anticipate. However those that usually are not might not be clear on the particular sorts of merchandise the big retailer affords.
WooCommerce navigation greatest practices
Listed below are another greatest practices that will help you optimize your WooCommerce navigation menu.
1. Class taxonomies
Your most necessary classes ought to type the first headings of your menu.
These merchandise/classes will probably be seen always as your buyer navigates your web site.
Nonetheless, it’s value noting that whereas it might really feel at odds with the opposite classes you have got created when you have a product that outsells every thing else in your website then take into account allocating a few of this prime navigation house to it.
Based on Baymard, the common ecommerce website has important points relating to class taxonomies, with 50% of websites having a poor class structure. Particularly, overcategorization is the largest category-based navigational challenge for e-commerce websites.
2. Breadcrumbs
Breadcrumbs are one other helpful navigation function. They assist prospects know the place they’re in your website. Breadcrumbs additionally make it simpler for guests to return to earlier pages in addition to related pages in your hierarchical construction.
With out the breadcrumbs, it’s tougher for customers to maneuver by your website.
Breadcrumbs even have an search engine optimization profit. They assist Google perceive the hierarchy of your website which in flip helps your pages rank higher.
A typical breadcrumb menu on a product web page seems like this: Dad or mum Class > SubCategory > Product.
When somebody clicks the clickable textual content for the mother or father or subcategory, they are going to be rapidly directed to that web page. Many ecommerce websites additionally embody the homepage as a base for all breadcrumb menus.
Breadcrumbs can often be turned on or off in your theme settings. Relying on the theme, you’ll have this feature for pages, merchandise, and classes.
Should you theme doesn’t have breadcrumbs, there are a number of plugins you should utilize to rapidly implement them. Jetpack, for instance, permits you to use breadcrumbs on web site pages, although not on product or class pages.
Every plugin will enable for various ranges of customization, and setup will fluctuate. For a full listing of choices, check out the WordPress plugin repository.
3. Solely use frequent icons
Icons are in every single place on the web. These symbols enable websites to switch textual content with an easy-to-process image that takes up much less house. However, for icons to work as meant, they have to be understood by your viewers.
Should you use icons that nobody is conversant in, they received’t have the specified impact of enhancing the person expertise.
To provide you an instance, consider the magnifying glass that’s frequent on many websites. You’re possible conversant in this image and know that it signifies a website search function. Equally, you in all probability know that bag, cart, and basket icons result in the ecommerce buying cart web page.
4. Embrace a brand with a hyperlink to your homepage
To some, this one could seem apparent but it surely’s necessary to not overlook. At this level, it’s an web commonplace to incorporate your brand in your website header, subsequent to the navigation menu. The emblem also needs to include a hyperlink to your homepage.
Having this aspect makes it simple for customers to return to the entrance of your website. Everybody expects it and a few will probably be thrown off if this frequent function is lacking.
The place of your brand additionally issues. A research from NNgroup discovered that getting again to the homepage is about six occasions more durable when the emblem is positioned within the middle of a web page in comparison with when it’s within the top-left nook.
Moreover, individuals of the research remembered the model identify extra usually when it was displayed on the left aspect. Actually, the model recall elevate was 89% when the emblem was on the left versus the precise.
The explanation for this once more has to do with the left-to-right manner most brains course of data. Folks have a tendency to take a look at and concentrate on the left aspect of the display first and are thus extra more likely to recall what’s on the left aspect of the web page.
5. Make the navigation sticky
Sticky navigation is when the menu, sometimes the highest menu, is locked into place. It doesn’t disappear on scrolling, so it’s accessible irrespective of the place a person is on the web page.
Sticky navigation bars are faster to navigate. They merely make shopping quicker and simpler, particularly when a web site has quite a lot of data.
Making a WooCommerce navigation menu
With WordPress, the default setup for creating menus and populating them with gadgets is obtainable by going to Look > Menu. The structure of your menu gadgets is set by your WordPress theme’s CSS.
If you wish to customise this design, your choices are to dive into the CSS or to make use of a WordPress plugin. A plugin can prevent time from modifying recordsdata and writing new code.
Beneath, we’ll take a look at find out how to use WordPress plugins to create an excellent menu in your WooCommerce retailer.
Max Mega Menu
Max Mega Menu is without doubt one of the hottest WordPress navigation plugins. It has in depth options for creating each in depth mega menus and flyout menus. It’s nice for ecommerce shops trying to create navigation menus with many classes and subcategories.
The plugin works in tandem with the default WordPress menu editor. There’s additionally an easy-to-use, drag-and-drop editor to rapidly craft your strong mega menus.
Menu themes
Whilst you’ll nonetheless outline your menu gadgets with the default WordPress menu editor, you’ll configure the design of your new menus within the Mega Menu settings.
Begin by going to Mega Menu > Menu Themes > Normal Settings. From there, you’ll be able to set the arrow kinds, line peak, and the optionally available shadow to use to each mega and flyout menus. You can even allow hover transitions in your menu gadgets.
Subsequent, you’ll need to go to the Menu Bar tab to set the sizing and colours in your menu bar. You may regulate padding, fonts, border radiuses, backgrounds, and spacing.
Beneath, you’ll see related settings for the top-level menu gadgets.
The plugin has separate design settings for Mega Menus, Flyout Menus, and Cell Menus.
Menu Areas
When you’ve designed your themes, you will need to assign them to the suitable menu location. Click on the label for Menu Areas. There, you’ll see a listing of your present WordPress menus.
Discover the menu that you simply need to assign a theme and open the dropdown. It will take you to the Normal Settings the place you’ll be able to allow the Mega Menu plugin for that particular menu.
Within the Menu Areas part, you’ll additionally discover superior settings
Closing ideas on WooCommerce navigation
Good WooCommerce navigation design is straightforward, clear, and enticing to your customers. Implementing robust navigation isn’t overly troublesome however it’s simple to miss.
Particularly while you’re primarily centered on optimizing your pages and checkout for conversions.
Take the time to deliberately arrange your navigation so customers can simply discover what they’re after. Each your prospects and backside line will probably be happy consequently.
