Here’s something I see all the time when I’m fixing stores: collections get created and never connected to the website. Which means no one ever sees them.
Usually that’s just a knowledge gap in how it all fits together. If that’s where you’re stuck, don’t stress. You’re not alone.
What your navigation is for
Your customers need to find what they came for. Quickly, and without thinking too hard.
The goal of your navigation is to reduce the number of clicks between where someone lands and what they want to do. If you want someone to shop, make shopping easy. If you want them to browse, make the right categories easy to spot. If you want them to build a bundle, make the bundle easy to find.
Your navigation should reflect the way you want people to move through your store. That’s your customer journey.
When you’re starting out, that journey is based on three things: very little real data, “best practice” advice from Instagram and YouTube, and your understanding of your customer. The first two are unreliable, which is why I’m always pushing you to get to know your customer.
Rule 1: Start with the type of store you’re building
One hero product? Your navigation can stay really simple. Customers coming from an ad will usually land straight on the product page. For everyone else, the menu’s job is to get them to that product page to buy. You might add complementary products, bundles or a short FAQ, but you don’t need a huge menu full of links nobody uses.
Your own brand with a larger range? Your navigation needs to help people browse by the product categories that make the most sense to them.
A reseller? Your navigation usually needs to do more. You’ll likely need to help customers browse by product type, brand, use case and sale items. That’s where mapping your collections first really pays off.
Rule 2: Put your energy into the links that help someone shop
Not the links you think a website is supposed to have.
I’m just going to leave this here: your About page matters mostly to you. Your customer is usually more focused on finding the product they saw the ad for yesterday.
Contact details are important, but they only belong in the main menu if you have a bricks-and-mortar store. If you’re online only, put them in the footer. Your header menu should be doing the heavy lifting for shopping.
Rule 3: Think about desktop and mobile separately
People browse differently on each device.
On desktop you have room for a more visual menu: dropdowns, images, featured collections and clearer category groupings if you have a decent range.
On mobile, people want to get to the point. They’re shopping one-handed while juggling kids, grocery bags and car keys in the other. For larger catalogues and resellers, make sure your search bar is front and centre on every device.
Some themes let you connect a different menu for desktop and mobile. Check the header settings in your theme customiser, and if yours does, make the most of it. Never just assume one menu will work perfectly for both.
Rule 4: Do the research before you build
Find a few websites that sell a similar type of product to yours. Look at them on desktop, then on your phone, and ask yourself:
- What’s the first thing they want me to do?
- How many clicks does it take me to find a product?
- Can I easily tell their categories apart?
- If they sell multiple brands, can I browse by brand as well as product type?
- Is their mobile menu actually easy to use?
Not to copy them, but to understand how customers already expect to shop in your category.
Rule 5: Work within Shopify’s three levels
Shopify navigation gives you three levels to work with: your main menu item, then two dropdown levels beneath it.
Keep it clear. Don’t build a menu so deep that customers have to dig for what they came for. Use sub-collections so people can browse almost instantly from the menu. If you can’t explain where a collection belongs in three levels or fewer, your store structure probably needs simplifying.
Where to find menus in Shopify
In the Shopify admin, go to Content → Menus. Your main menu and footer menu live there, and your theme’s header settings decide which menu shows where.
Your action for this week
Write down a list of goals your customer might have on your store. (Tip: they have more goals in mind than just “buy something”.) Then make sure your menu gets them to each one in as few clicks as possible.
Want a hand?
If you’re building from scratch, From Stuck to Selling walks you through the whole Shopify build in the right order. If your store is live and customers can’t find things, navigation is one of the quickest wins in a 3-hour optimisation sprint.
Written by Kiah Bush
Shopify Partner and founder of Kida Digital, a Shopify and web design studio in Norwest, Sydney. 12+ years in web design and 30+ Shopify builds, website designs and optimisations for small Australian businesses.
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