{"id":68078,"date":"2022-12-22T09:04:00","date_gmt":"2022-12-22T09:04:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/morningtrain.dk\/megamenu-the-domino-effect-of-increased-visibility\/"},"modified":"2026-04-17T12:47:23","modified_gmt":"2026-04-17T12:47:23","slug":"megamenu-the-domino-effect-of-increased-visibility","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/morningtrain.dk\/en\/megamenu-the-domino-effect-of-increased-visibility\/","title":{"rendered":"Megamenu | The domino effect of increased visibility"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Digitalisering<\/p>

22. december 2022<\/p>

Megamenu | The domino effect of increased visibility<\/h1><\/div>

In this post, we take a closer look at the \u201cmegamenu\u201d and menu dropdowns, and explore best practices as well as the pros and cons of this menu structure. <\/p><\/div>\n\n

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\n Indhold\n <\/p>\n \n Introduktion\n <\/a>\n \n Datagrundlag\n <\/a>\n \n Hvad vinder du\n <\/a>\n <\/div>\n

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A bit of history about the origins of the megamenu<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

In the early days of the internet, site navigation often consisted of an increasingly large dropdown menu. You would typically land on the homepage, and most of the user journey<\/a> was designed around finding your way through large\u2014and not always intuitive\u2014top menus. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For a long period afterwards, top menus were streamlined, and users were allowed to navigate partly on the site, but also by letting Google<\/a> do the first part of the work\u2014so users could land directly where they had a need.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You can see this type of menu on most websites today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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But what happens if you have a very large website where the goal is to showcase many products or services?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You can get far with internal links, which will not only be part of your SEO<\/a>, but will also naturally guide users through the buying journey. But what happens if an impatient visitor lands on your main page and struggles to find the specific product or service? They will most likely give up the search. The user will not be presented with your service\/product page\u2014one you have undoubtedly spent a lot of time and energy creating. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you search for menus based on design and UX<\/a>, the recommendation will most likely be to keep it under 6 menu items. However, in recent years we have experienced a trend towards using large pop-up menus with many items, also known as megamenus<\/strong>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A megamenu<\/strong> is a large, complex menu most often used on e-commerce websites. It is a list of links displayed in multiple columns when you hover over a menu link. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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We are one of the companies that has moved away from a single-line horizontal menu in favour of a megamenu with nearly 50 items. It would not be like us to simply follow our intuition and ignore the data afterwards. So, in true Morningtrain spirit, we analysed the data four months after implementing the megamenu. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our expectation\u2014which proved to be correct\u2014was that our page views would increase and that the pages would gain better visibility.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I know what you are thinking right now\u2014\u201cNo shit Sherlock, I could have told you that myself.\u201d And yes, I partly agree, but guesswork and intuition will only get you so far. What I value most is data. After all, many agencies claim to have a data-driven approach<\/a>, so why not show that it is not just sales talk. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The data that confirms the gut feeling<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The data we collected painted a clearer picture of the impact of replacing a horizontal navigation bar with a megamenu.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The main benefit\u2014and the expected outcome\u2014of the above was higher visibility for the pages that are now shown in the menu.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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To be more precise, we could see that the new pages now in the menu increased their visibility by an average of 135%.<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

For the pages that were visible in the old menu and in the new megamenu, visibility dropped by 38%, which is not unexpected. Visitors now have significantly more options and can go directly to the page they are interested in without having to go through the more general pages\u2014which are typically the ones shown in a single-line menu. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the data showed more than just changes in visibility. The increased visibility of the many pages affected other important metrics on our website. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first was the number of pages the user visited per session<\/a>. Pages per visit increased by 13.5% across the entire website.<\/u> The increase is entirely natural, as we now presented users with more options in the menu and therefore encouraged them to visit more pages during their visit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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In addition, the duration per visit increased by 37% across the entire website.<\/u> An increase that may be due to several factors.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

One reason may be that when we improve the user experience, we make it easier for users to find the page they are looking for. We therefore managed to reduce the number of frustrated users who would leave the site without finding the answer they were looking for. Another reason may be that users found a page that matched their search intent and therefore spent more time reading through the page content. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So what do you gain by using a megamenu?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Our data, combined with UX best practices, provides a better overview of the advantages and disadvantages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Advantages of a megamenu:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n