Menu Structure for Large Ecommerce

[BeckyKey]

Hi

We have a large ecommerce site, the menu at the moment is limited by the amount of categories we can display.

As our site is so large, the menu at the moment only has the top categories and their immediate subcategories, however we have level 3's which go deeper, as there is such a large range. At the moment, they;re not in the top menu, but I want to put a case forward to say why we should include them - I am however mindful of a menu not being overcrowded with hundreds of links.

Has anyone had a similar experience of this? Or a case study on how adding important categories to the menu helped improve things?

Becky

[ChrisAshton]

This can always be a tough one and it's hard to get specific advice here without knowing the type of product and maybe some examples where the structure has to be multiple layers deep but... generally speaking, the nav and site architecture should really be designed from the broadest categories to the narrowest and always focussed around the users' intent.

Rand did a Whiteboard Friday about 12 months ago about information architecture which you may find helpful here. Either way, if it's going to legitimately improve the user experience by having additional subcategories directly in the nav then go for it. If you just want them there for that internal link strength then I'd probably recommend against it.

Happy to discuss further if you're comfortable sharing some examples but if not, that's fine too

[BeckyKey]

Hi,

Sure I'll give you an example, our menu has 6 main categories:

Storage, Office Trucks & Trolleys, Shelving & Racking, Pallet trucks + More Categories.

within more categories, we have 18 more category pages - one is Kitchen & Catering equipment, this has within it 10 subcategories, these don't appear in the menu.

You get to these once you click through the kitchen and catering page

I'm wondering if we should include these to the menu, so when you hover over the main category, the subcategories appear.

Would having this many links in the menu however, cause more issues for SEO