Have you ever tried to add navigational menu and failed?, if yes then do not worry because we will take you
WordPress comes with a drag and drop menu interface that you can use to create header menus, menus with dropdown options, and more.
WordPress comes with a drag and drop menu interface that you can use to create header menus, menus with dropdown options, and more.
In this article we will show you how to easily add a navigation menu in WordPress.
How to Add Navigation Menu in WordPress
But first lets get to know what a Navigation Menu is?
A navigation menu is an arrangement of a links directing to important sections of a website. They are usually presented as a horizontal bar of links at the top of every page on a website but some uses verticla bar such as youtube.
Navigation menus give your site structure and help visitors find what they’re after on your site. Here’s how the navigation menu looks on OnlineBillonaires:
The OnlineBillonaires navigation menu
WordPress makes it really easy and fun to add menus and sub-menus. You can add links to your most important pages, categories or topics, blog posts, and even custom links such as your social media profile.
The exact location of your menu will depend on your WordPress theme. Most themes will have several options, so you can create different menus that can be displayed in different places.
For instance, most WordPress themes come with a primary menu that appears on the top. Some themes may include a secondary menu, a footer menu, or a mobile navigation menu as well.
Creating Your First Custom Navigation Menu
To create a navigation menu, you need to visit the Appearance » Menus page in your WordPress admin dashboard.
Creating a menu in WordPress
First, you need to provide a name for your menu, like ‘Top Navigation Menu’ and then click the ‘Create Menu’ button. This will expand the menu area, and it will look like this:
A newly created menu in WordPress
Next, you can choose the pages you want to add to the menu. You can either automatically add all new top-level pages, or you can select specific pages from the left column.
First, click the ‘View All’ tab to see all your site’s pages. After that click the box next to each of the pages you want to add to your menu, and then click on the ‘Add to Menu’ button.
Adding items to the navigation menu
Once your pages have been added, you can move them around by dragging and dropping them.
Dragging and dropping an item to move it in the menu
Take Note: All menus have their items listed in a vertical (top to bottom) list in the menu editor. When you put the menu live on your site, it’ll either display vertically or horizontally (left to right), depending on the location you select.
Most themes have several different locations where you can put menus.
After adding pages to the menu, select the location where you want to display the menu and click on the ‘Save Menu’ button.
Selecting the display location for your menu
Heed: If you’re not sure where each location is, try saving the menu in different places, then visiting your site to see how it looks. You probably won’t want to use all the locations, but you might want to use more than one.
Creating Drop-Down Menus in WordPress
Drop-down menus, sometimes called nested menus, are navigation menus with parent and child menu items. When you run your cursor over a parent item, all the child items will appear beneath it in a sub-menu.
To create a sub menu, drag an item below the parent item, and then drag it slightly to the right. We’ve done that with 3 sub-items beneath ‘Services’ in our menu:
Add menu items as a sub-men
Here’s the sub-menu live on the site:
A drop-down sub menu in the site's navigation
You can even add multiple layers of dropdown, so that your sub menu can have a sub menu. This can end up looking at bit cluttered, and many themes do not support multi-layer drop-down menus.
In this consideration, you can see that ‘Logo Design’ (a child item of ‘Services’) has two child items of its own.
A nested drop-down menu
Adding Categories to WordPress Menus
If you’re using WordPress to run a blog, then you may want to add your blog categories as a drop-down in your WordPress menu. We do this on onlineBillonaires:
The OnlineBillonaires menu showing the categories drop-down
You can easily add categories to your menu by clicking the Categories tab on the left side of the Menus screen. You may also need to click the ‘View All’ tab to see all your categories.
Simply select the categories you want to add to the menu, and then click the ‘Add to Menu’ button.
Adding categories to your menu
The categories will appear as regular menu items at the bottom of your menu. You can drag and drop them into position. We’re going to put all of these categories under the Blog menu item.
Putting the categories under the 'Blog' menu item
Adding Custom Links to Your WordPress Navigation Menus
Aside from categories and pages, WordPress also makes it super easy to add custom links to your menu. You can use it to link to your social media profiles, your online store, and / or other websites that you own.
You will need to use the ‘Custom Links’ tab on the Menu screen. Simply add the link along with the text you want to use in your menu.
Adding a custom link to Twitter to the menu
You can even get creative and add social media icons in your menu.
Social media menu
Editing or Removing a Menu Item in WordPress Navigation Menus
When you add pages or categories to your custom navigation menu, WordPress uses the page title or category name as the link text. You can change this if you want.
Any menu item can be edited by clicking on the downward arrow next to it.
Expanding a menu item to edit its name
You can change the name of the menu item here. This is also where you can click ‘Remove’ to take the link off your menu altogether.
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.
Adding WordPress Menus in Sidebars and Footers
You don’t have to just stick to the display locations for your theme. You can add navigation menus in any area that uses widgets, like your sidebar or footer.
Simply go to Appearance » Widgets and add the ‘Navigation Menu’ widget to your sidebar. Next, add a title for the widget and choose the correct menu from the ‘Select Menu’ drop down list.
Adding a menu as a sidebar widget
Going Further with Navigation Menus
If you want to create a truly epic menu with loads of links, we’ve got a tutorial on how to create a mega menu in WordPress. This lets you create a drop-down with lots of items including images.
Mega menu preview
Mega menus are a great option if you have a large site, like an online store or news site like ours an example is menubar named 'recommended'. This type of menu is used by sites like Reuters, Buzzfeed, Starbucks, etc.
Further QuestionsAbout WordPress Menus
Here are some of the most common questions we hear about WordPress navigation menus from viewers.
1. How do I add a homepage link to a WordPress menu?
To add your homepage to a navigation menu, you’ll need to click the ‘View All’ tab under Pages. From there, you should see your homepage.
add homepage to WordPress navigation menu
Check the box next to ‘Home’ and click ‘Add to Menu’. Don’t forget to save your changes.
2. How do I add multiple navigation menus in WordPress?
In WordPress, you can create as many menus as you like. To place a menu on your website, you’ll need to add it to one of your theme’s menu locations, or to a widget area as we showed above.
To add multiple navigation menus to your WordPress site, first create the menus following our tutorial above.
To place them on your site, click on the ‘Manage Locations’ tab.
manage menu locations in WordPress
From here, you can select which menu you’d like to display in the menu locations that are available in your theme.
If you want to add a new menu location to your site, see our tutorial on how to add custom navigation menus to WordPress themes.
We hope this article helped you learn how to add a navigation menu in WordPress. You may also want to check out our guides on how to style navigation menus in WordPress and how to create a sticky floating navigation menu in WordPress.
If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for financial video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook
Further QuestionsAbout WordPress Menus
Here are some of the most common questions we hear about WordPress navigation menus from viewers.
1. How do I add a homepage link to a WordPress menu?
To add your homepage to a navigation menu, you’ll need to click the ‘View All’ tab under Pages. From there, you should see your homepage.
add homepage to WordPress navigation menu
Check the box next to ‘Home’ and click ‘Add to Menu’. Don’t forget to save your changes.
2. How do I add multiple navigation menus in WordPress?
In WordPress, you can create as many menus as you like. To place a menu on your website, you’ll need to add it to one of your theme’s menu locations, or to a widget area as we showed above.
To add multiple navigation menus to your WordPress site, first create the menus following our tutorial above.
To place them on your site, click on the ‘Manage Locations’ tab.
manage menu locations in WordPress
From here, you can select which menu you’d like to display in the menu locations that are available in your theme.
If you want to add a new menu location to your site, see our tutorial on how to add custom navigation menus to WordPress themes.
We hope this article helped you learn how to add a navigation menu in WordPress. You may also want to check out our guides on how to style navigation menus in WordPress and how to create a sticky floating navigation menu in WordPress.
If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for financial video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook