A poor navigation system makes it difficult for your visitors to find what they are looking for. Also, make them confused to understand what content you offer which makes visitors annoyed and push them to leave your website. That means without a great navigation menu, you’ll lose visitors. On the other hand, a proper menu works like a map for your website that shows your visitors the way to find the content they are searching for.
While creating a menu, the main thing you should focus on is a simple yet effective structure. Theme’s default menu may provide links to top-level pages but your site menu also should contain other primary areas of your website. It should guide your visitors to the content they’re looking for. WordPress comes with a drag and drop menu interface that you can use to create a header menu, a menu with dropdown options. In this post, we’ll explain how to create a menu in WordPress, add the dropdown menu, add custom links to your menu Etc.
How to Create a Custom Menu in WordPress?
To create a menu in WordPress, first, you need to visit “Appearance > Menus” from the admin area. On the left side of this page, a few tabs hold all the available elements which can be added to a menu. On the right side, you get to create new lists and adjust their structure and settings.
The first thing you need to do to create a menu in WordPress is to give the menu a name, and then click the “Create Menu” button on the right side. This will expand the menu area.
Now, you can add categories, posts, pages, or custom links to your menu from the left side of your menu screen.
Click Save Menu to the right of the screen. Once saved, the menu will go live. Visit the website to see your menu in action.
How to Add Pages to Your WordPress Menu?
You can easily add Pages to your menu by clicking the pages tab under the “Add Menu Items” section. Click on “View All” on that tab. This will show you the list of all the published pages of your site. Click the check box for all the pages you want to add to your menu and click the “Add to Menu” button.
After you click the Add to Menu button, the pages will be added to your WordPress menu. Now, you may want to rearrange the pages just drag and drop to switch the place of each page.
If you don’t want to add any other item like posts, categories and customs link then press the ”Save Menu” button.
How to Add Posts to Your WordPress Menu?
As with adding pages, to add a post to your site menu click on the posts tab and click on the “View All” tab.
Select the posts you want to add to your menu and click on the “Add to Menu” button.
Drag and drop to rearrange and click on the “Save Menu”.
How to Add Custom Links to your Menu?
Adding pages and posts to the menu are quite similar. On the other hand, adding custom links is slightly different. You can use custom links to add your social media profiles, your online store, or in those cases where you want to link to a page that was not listed in the left column on the menu.
Click on the Custom Link tab to expand this tab. Once it expands, you’ll notice it only contains two fields. The first one is the “URL” and another one is “Link Text”.
Add a unique web address on the URL box and the name of the link in the menu on the “Link Text” box.
Finally, click the “Add to Menu” button.
How to Add Categories to your Menu?
If you have a blog page on your site, you may want to add your blog categories as a dropdown in your WordPress menu. You can easily do that by clicking the “Categories” tab on your menu editor on the left side of the screen.
Click on the Categories tab, you’ll see your categories listed there. Proceed in the same way you did with Pages and Posts.
Now, you might be thinking about how you can make a dropdown menu with those Categories. Let’s move forward to the next section, you will get your answer there.
How to Add Dropdown Menus?
If you have a bunch of menu items then it could get really messy. WordPress comes with a dropdown menu feature to give a better defined and detailed structure to your website. It’s a great way to make your menus shorter, cleaner, and easier to navigate.
To create a dropdown menu, first, you should know every menu items are draggable. All you need to do is to drag the item (which you want to make the submenu) a bit to the right under the item you want as its parent menu. Once you do that, you’ll see that it automatically becomes a submenu item with a dropdown. When you run your cursor over a parent item, all the child items will appear beneath it in a submenu. As you can see below, I’ve moved the categories menu we added to the menu under Blog, making them a submenu.
You can create more submenu under the existing submenu by repeating this process. I have created a submenu under the “Beginners Guide” submenu.
Now, press the “Save Menu” button and check your site preview. When you take your mouse to a parent menu, all of its submenus will show up.
How to Add Menus in Sidebars and Footers?
Using multiple menus across your site is always the better option. Adding menu in the places like sidebar, footer, and other widget-ready areas make navigation much quicker for visitors
You can add navigation menus in your sidebars, footer, and some other areas using widgets. To do so, go to “Appearance > Widgets”. There you will see the number of locations you can add your widgets. Click on the small arrow to the right of the area you want to add the custom menu.
Once the area expands, click on the “Add Block” and search the navigation menu. Now, select the navigation menu, it will be added to the area.
Next, add a title for the widget and choose the correct menu from the “Select Menu” dropdown list. Finally, hit the “Update” button to save your menu in that area.
If you find this way complicated and want to classic widget editor then install the Classic Widgets plugin. With this plugin, you can drag your custom menu from the list of available widgets to your sidebar or footer.
How to Edit your Menu Items?
Sometimes you may need to make changes to your WordPress menu. You can edit all the menu items by pressing the down arrow next to the menu item you want to modify. Go to your “Menu Structure” window and find the item you want to edit. Now, click on the small arrow to the right. Here, you’ll see a text box for changing the item title. If you’re struggling with the drag and drop interface, then you can also move the menu item around by clicking the appropriate “Move” link.
If you feel like you don’t need an item in your Menu, you can also remove it. To remove a menu item, click on the “Remove” button at the bottom right corner of that menu item. Finally, hit the Save Changes button to apply this new change to your menu.
I hope you’re no longer confused about how to create a menu, a drop-down menu, manage the menu location, customize a menu and add them to your site. But if you are – you can always leave a comment and we’ll try our best to help you out. To make navigation easier for your visitors, you can add a search bar on your site. In case your visitors still can’t find what they are looking for they can search and find it out.
Also, let us know in the comments below if you have any suggestions regarding what type of tutorial you want. We will love to hear your thoughts. We appreciate our visitor’s queries, comments, and suggestions.
Don’t forget to visit our WordPress Tips page to get more tutorials like Show Different Sidebar on Different Posts and Pages in WordPress and Add the WordPress Logout Link to Navigation Menu.
A poor navigation system makes it difficult for your visitors to find what they are looking for. Also, make them confused to understand what content you offer which makes visitors annoyed and push them to leave your website. That means without a great navigation menu, you’ll lose visitors. On the other hand, a proper menu works like a map for your website that shows your visitors the way to find the content they are searching for.
While creating a menu, the main thing you should focus on is a simple yet effective structure. Theme’s default menu may provide links to top-level pages but your site menu also should contain other primary areas of your website. It should guide your visitors to the content they’re looking for. WordPress comes with a drag and drop menu interface that you can use to create a header menu, a menu with dropdown options. In this post, we’ll explain how to create a menu in WordPress, add the dropdown menu, add custom links to your menu Etc.
How to Create a Custom Menu in WordPress?
To create a menu in WordPress, first, you need to visit “Appearance > Menus” from the admin area. On the left side of this page, a few tabs hold all the available elements which can be added to a menu. On the right side, you get to create new lists and adjust their structure and settings.
The first thing you need to do to create a menu in WordPress is to give the menu a name, and then click the “Create Menu” button on the right side. This will expand the menu area.
Now, you can add categories, posts, pages, or custom links to your menu from the left side of your menu screen.
Click Save Menu to the right of the screen. Once saved, the menu will go live. Visit the website to see your menu in action.
How to Add Pages to Your WordPress Menu?
You can easily add Pages to your menu by clicking the pages tab under the “Add Menu Items” section. Click on “View All” on that tab. This will show you the list of all the published pages of your site. Click the check box for all the pages you want to add to your menu and click the “Add to Menu” button.
After you click the Add to Menu button, the pages will be added to your WordPress menu. Now, you may want to rearrange the pages just drag and drop to switch the place of each page.
If you don’t want to add any other item like posts, categories and customs link then press the ”Save Menu” button.
How to Add Posts to Your WordPress Menu?
As with adding pages, to add a post to your site menu click on the posts tab and click on the “View All” tab.
Select the posts you want to add to your menu and click on the “Add to Menu” button.
Drag and drop to rearrange and click on the “Save Menu”.
How to Add Custom Links to your Menu?
Adding pages and posts to the menu are quite similar. On the other hand, adding custom links is slightly different. You can use custom links to add your social media profiles, your online store, or in those cases where you want to link to a page that was not listed in the left column on the menu.
Click on the Custom Link tab to expand this tab. Once it expands, you’ll notice it only contains two fields. The first one is the “URL” and another one is “Link Text”.
Add a unique web address on the URL box and the name of the link in the menu on the “Link Text” box.
Finally, click the “Add to Menu” button.
How to Add Categories to your Menu?
If you have a blog page on your site, you may want to add your blog categories as a dropdown in your WordPress menu. You can easily do that by clicking the “Categories” tab on your menu editor on the left side of the screen.
Click on the Categories tab, you’ll see your categories listed there. Proceed in the same way you did with Pages and Posts.
Now, you might be thinking about how you can make a dropdown menu with those Categories. Let’s move forward to the next section, you will get your answer there.
How to Add Dropdown Menus?
If you have a bunch of menu items then it could get really messy. WordPress comes with a dropdown menu feature to give a better defined and detailed structure to your website. It’s a great way to make your menus shorter, cleaner, and easier to navigate.
To create a dropdown menu, first, you should know every menu items are draggable. All you need to do is to drag the item (which you want to make the submenu) a bit to the right under the item you want as its parent menu. Once you do that, you’ll see that it automatically becomes a submenu item with a dropdown. When you run your cursor over a parent item, all the child items will appear beneath it in a submenu. As you can see below, I’ve moved the categories menu we added to the menu under Blog, making them a submenu.
You can create more submenu under the existing submenu by repeating this process. I have created a submenu under the “Beginners Guide” submenu.
Now, press the “Save Menu” button and check your site preview. When you take your mouse to a parent menu, all of its submenus will show up.
How to Add Menus in Sidebars and Footers?
Using multiple menus across your site is always the better option. Adding menu in the places like sidebar, footer, and other widget-ready areas make navigation much quicker for visitors
You can add navigation menus in your sidebars, footer, and some other areas using widgets. To do so, go to “Appearance > Widgets”. There you will see the number of locations you can add your widgets. Click on the small arrow to the right of the area you want to add the custom menu.
Once the area expands, click on the “Add Block” and search the navigation menu. Now, select the navigation menu, it will be added to the area.
Next, add a title for the widget and choose the correct menu from the “Select Menu” dropdown list. Finally, hit the “Update” button to save your menu in that area.
If you find this way complicated and want to classic widget editor then install the Classic Widgets plugin. With this plugin, you can drag your custom menu from the list of available widgets to your sidebar or footer.
How to Edit your Menu Items?
Sometimes you may need to make changes to your WordPress menu. You can edit all the menu items by pressing the down arrow next to the menu item you want to modify. Go to your “Menu Structure” window and find the item you want to edit. Now, click on the small arrow to the right. Here, you’ll see a text box for changing the item title. If you’re struggling with the drag and drop interface, then you can also move the menu item around by clicking the appropriate “Move” link.
If you feel like you don’t need an item in your Menu, you can also remove it. To remove a menu item, click on the “Remove” button at the bottom right corner of that menu item. Finally, hit the Save Changes button to apply this new change to your menu.
I hope you’re no longer confused about how to create a menu, a drop-down menu, manage the menu location, customize a menu and add them to your site. But if you are – you can always leave a comment and we’ll try our best to help you out. To make navigation easier for your visitors, you can add a search bar on your site. In case your visitors still can’t find what they are looking for they can search and find it out.
Also, let us know in the comments below if you have any suggestions regarding what type of tutorial you want. We will love to hear your thoughts. We appreciate our visitor’s queries, comments, and suggestions.
Don’t forget to visit our WordPress Tips page to get more tutorials like Show Different Sidebar on Different Posts and Pages in WordPress and Add the WordPress Logout Link to Navigation Menu.
Sidratul Sohrat