Understanding Your Website Navigation & Categorisation

A clear, intuitive navigation structure is crucial for guiding your shoppers to the products and information they need. This article outlines how AB Commerce enables retailers to manage and customise their main navigation, sub-categories, and header/footer menus, ensuring an effective browsing experience for customers.

Before you make any changes to your website navigation or categorisation, we strongly recommend speaking with the Magico team first.
Our team can advise you on the best approach to structuring your categories, sub-categories, and menu items. This ensures your changes align with eCommerce best practices and enhance your customer journey rather than disrupt it.

🧭 Main Navigation Overview

Your website’s main navigation is displayed as a horizontal menu bar at the top of each page. It is typically made up of product categories such as Electrical, Men’s Shoes, Gifts, etc. These categories are essential for helping users quickly find the types of products they’re looking for.

Each category can include:

• A title (what the user sees),
• An associated URL,
• Images or icons (optional), and
• Dropdown sub-categories, which are shown when a user hovers over a main category.

This menu is controlled from within your AB Commerce admin dashboard and reflects the structure you’ve set up for your site.

📁 Categories & Sub-Categories Setup

To set up or manage your main navigation categories and sub-categories, follow these core principles:

1. Use Department Groups

Categories are structured using “department groups” (e.g., “Paint”, “Ladies Shoes”) that determine what appears in the top navigation. You assign categories to these groups in your admin panel.

2. Assign Display Order

Each category has a Display Order which determines its position from left to right across the top of your site. Sub-categories can also be ordered in this way.

3. Enable as ‘Top-Level Category’

Ensure the category is marked as a Top-Level Category if you want it to appear in the main menu.

4. Sub-Categories Structure

These appear as dropdowns under their main category. You can:

• Create as many sub-categories as needed. (Note : Adding too many sub-categories can overwhelm customers, make navigation confusing, and negatively impact the user experience. Focus on clarity and logical grouping instead of excessive granularity )
• Nest categories into multi-level hierarchies (e.g., Paint > Interior > Ceiling).
• Assign products to multiple categories for more flexibility.

Tip: Sub-categories can have their own landing pages, including banners and custom content blocks.

📌 Setting Up Header and Footer Menus

Beyond product categories, AB Commerce allows you to add custom links to both the header and footer menus. These are ideal for linking to non-product pages such as:

• About Us
• Delivery & Returns
• Contact
• Terms & Conditions
• Privacy Policy

How to Add These Menus:

1. Navigate to Web Content > Menus in the admin panel.
2. Choose either Header Menu or Footer Menu.
3. Add menu items with:
   • A name (link label),
   • A URL (internal or external),
   • Optional targeting (e.g., open in new tab),
   • Display order.

Header menus are ideal for pages like Blog, Book Appointment or Size Guide.
Footer menus typically contain legal, policy, and informational links.

🛠 Best Practices for Navigation

• Keep it simple: Too many top-level items can overwhelm users.
• Group logically: Make sure categories follow a shopper’s mental model.
• Use clear labels: Avoid jargon or overly generic terms.
• Highlight promotions: Add seasonal or promotional categories as needed.
• Monitor performance: Use analytics to track which categories are most used and make adjustments accordingly.

🔄 Keeping Your Navigation Up to Date

Regularly review your navigation setup:

• Remove outdated categories.
• Update links to reflect current offers.
• Adjust structure based on stock changes or seasonal trends.

AB Commerce also supports bulk editing tools for easier large-scale updates

 Before you embark on any navigation changes we strongly recommend that you speak to the Magico team first !