Navigation Menu : How to Add a Menu in WordPress
Do you want to know how to create a navigation menu in WordPress? The WordPress menu is crucial when it comes to navigation on a WordPress website.
The purpose of this article is to teach you how to create and modify a menu on a WordPress website. We can add pages, categories, and custom links to the navigation menu of WordPress.
This article will provide you with answers to the following questions.
How do add a menu in WordPress?
How do edit a menu in WordPress?
Importance of a Navigation menu?
The navigation menu helps visitors move from one page to another page or sections of a website.
The primary objective of a navigation menu is to offer users a structured and organized means of navigating through the different sections, pages, or features of a website or application.
The presence of navigational menus is essential for user-friendly navigation, enabling users to locate and access the content or functions they require.
WordPress Menu Overview.
In WordPress, it is very easy to add navigation menus. WordPress creates navigational menus automatically according to the settings made by us.
The location of the menu depends on our setting and theme design. Also, menu design and appearance are automatically generated by the theme. We only select the location of the menu according to theme availability.
Some themes allow to display of the same menu in multiple places.
For instance, most WordPress themes come with a primary menu that appears at the top. Some themes may include a secondary menu, a footer menu, sidebar menu or a mobile navigation menu as well.
Themes may have different names for locations of menu. They name the top bar menu as the primary menu or main menu and the footer menu or the secondary menu the menu that appears in the footer.
How to Create a Custom Navigation Menu in WordPress
To create a navigational menu, Go to the left pan of the WordPress admin dashboard.
1. Select option Appearance.
2. Click Menu.
3. Enter the name of your menu.
4. Click the button Create Menu.
After clicking the Create Menu button, you can see, a menu has been created, as shown in the next picture.
Now empty menu has been created, we have to add pages to Main Navigation Menu.
1 Select View All – This shows all created pages.
2 Select the Check box of pages, that you want to add to your menu.
4 Click the button Add to Menu.
1 Now you can see the pages have been added to the Main Navigation Menu.
2 Now select the location of the menu. You can select the location and number of menu items for a particular location.
Note: Different themes may have different names for locations. In our theme, the Main Menu represents the top menu bar and footer for the future menu list.
Some themes name the top menu bar location as the Primary menu and secondary menu for the footer. There may be a side menu for a sidebar.
3 Click the Save Menu to save the steps we have done.
You can see live and edit the menu by clicking the Button Manage with Live Preview
In the next picture, you can see how your menu looks, Appearance may be different in your case, it depends on your theme.
We can customize the navigation menu using CSS.
Add, Remove, and Edit Menu Items in the WordPress Navigation Menu
Now we can add remove or change the order of menu items. We will explain in an easy step all the operations.
To add a new item to the menu
1 Select the menu item you want to add to the menu. For example as in the picture we have selected Blog (Posts Page) to add in menu.
2 Click the button Add to Menu.
To remove the Menu Item
3 Click the Page drop down list.
4 Click Remove to remove an item from the menu.
Change Position of Navigation Menu Items
5 You can Click Up one, Down one, Under Home, or To the top to move a menu item.
6 Don’t forget to save by clicking the button Save Menu, otherwise all changes will lost.
Creating Sub Menus or Drop-Down Menus in WordPress
The drop-down menu is a valuable tool for arranging our posts or pages into categories and subcategories.
drop-down menus or Sub menus are used to group menu items that are similar.
A drop-down list of sub-menu items displays when we hover over a main menu item. This is commonly known as a drop-down menu or sub-menu.
These sub-menus are nested within the main menu and are considered child menus of the main menu( parent menu ).
We have the option to either leave the main menu empty or add a redirect link to the main category page.
The main menu title can have a main category and sub-categories can be added to sub-menu items.
Whenever someone clicks or hovers over the main menu item, all children’s menus will appear, which are subcategories of the main category.
In WordPress, we can easily create a drop-down menu.
Follow the steps to create a drop-down menu.
We will add a few more pages.
1 Select the pages to add
2 Click Add to Menu
You can see the pages are added, as seen in the next image.
Now arrange them in order, under the main menu title.
1 bring Our Location and Send a Message pages under Contact Us menu item.
2 Now move both menu items slightly to the right. For that click and hold the left mouse button and drag them to the right side. This operation will convert them into sub menu items. As shown in the picture below.
3 Save the change by clicking the Save Menu.
The sub menu will appear as shown in the picture below.
When visitors hover over Contact Us a Drop down list will appear with
Our location and Send Message items
Adding Categories to WordPress Menus
You can also add your WordPress Categories to the main menu or sub-menus. Add categories to main menu and subcategories to sub menu.
Follow the steps below to add categories to the main menu.
1 Select the Categories in the pan Add menu items.
2 Select the View All.
3 Select the check box of categories, that you want to add to your menu.
4 Click the button Add to Menu.
5 Click Save Menu to save the changes
Now you can see all categories are added to the Main Navigation Menu.
Now click the button Save Menu
You can see all categories are added to the Main Navigation Menu.
Now examine that our header is full of menu items. It is not organized properly.
So to organize all menu items we can group categories into main categories by making main menu and sub menus.
In the next section, you will learn, how you can make category drop down menus.
Create Sub Menus in Categories
As we have added categories to the main menu in the last step, we do some further steps for arranging them into subcategories.
1Arrange categories in order under the main menu title in which you want to add subcategories. bring Our Location and Send a Message under Contact Us
2 Now move menu items slightly to the right, menu items you want to make sub menu items. For that click and hold the left mouse button and drag them to the right side. It will convert them into sub menu items. As shown in the picture below.
3 Save the change by clicking the Save Menu button.
Now you can see the sub-menu under the Blog main menu by however on it on the website.
Creating Multi-Level Sub Menu
You can add multiple to the sub-menu. Follow the steps below.
1 Arrange the menu items in order under the menu item which will be the main menu and move it slightly to the right.
2 Now click the Save Menu button to save the change.
You can see the hierarchy or sub-menu in the next picture.
Under the blog section, there are many categories of blogs. These are Content Writing, Blogging, Digital Marketing, SEO, and WordPress.
We make SEO further sub-category of Digital Marketing.
Conclusion
WordPress navigation menu is a very important function for navigating between pages and posts.
In this article, we have discussed simple ways step by step to create a WordPress navigation menu. We hope it helps you to create a navigation menu for your WordPress website or blog.