How To Setup Menus In WordPress?

Do you want to learn how to add menu in WordPress? Let me help you through this post!

First, I would like to tell an essential thing for you to focus!

You have to make your readers feel comfortable on your site and help them find out the needful things through easy navigation. By doing so would make them become a loyal reader of your blog.

Yes! A site design with poor navigation would annoy and confuse the visitors and nudge them skip your site forever.

However, WordPress platform provides you the solution for every single problem!

You can create WordPress multiple menus from your admin panel within few minutes, and you may add the menu at the header, footer, and sidebar of your site. 

I hope that you are aware of the basic WordPress settings like creating Posts, Pages, Categories and Tags. 

Now you might have the following questions in mind,

How to setup menus in WordPress?

How to show the pages, posts and categories on the navigation menu?

How to create drop-down menu in WordPress?

How to rearrange the fields in Menu or how to remove items from Menu.

How to create

So, let me reply to your queries.

How To Add Menu In WordPress?

Just you need to follow some easy going steps to create the navigation menu for your WordPress site.

All you can handle it from your WP dashboard. Let me instruct you including the items so that you will learn how to add menu in WordPress

Step 1:- Go To WordPress Dashboard > Appearance > Menus

Click, Screen Option and make sure that you have selected all the items to be available on the Menu settings page to add your preferred items.

Step 2 :- To add navigation menu in WordPress, you have to create the name of the menu. It can be done by clicking on the blue option “create a menu“.

After that, you will be asking to fill the name of the WordPress menu. In the required field, fill the name and click on the “save menu” button.

You have successfully created a new menu in WordPress. But your work has just started; you have to choose the data to add in the navigation menu.

Step 3 :- Look at your left-hand-side, you will be able to see options including pages, posts, categories, custom links, and format (What you have chosen in the screen option).

Now it’s your choice whether you want to show the categories of the posts in the menu or your want to add the pages.

To insert the pages, click on the “pages” option and you would see the most recent used pages. To see all the pages available on your blog, just choose the “view all” option.

All the available pages will be showing to you. To add those pages, you just have to check the checkbox beside their names and finally, click on the “Add to Menu” button below.

Step 4 :- If you want to add the posts in the navigation menu of your WordPress website then the same procedure should be followed. Click on the “posts” option and after seeing the list, click on the checkbox beside each post and “Add to menu.”

You can see the results in the right-hand-side of the page under the name of the menu. The posts you have just added will be showing the pages you have added in the recent step.

Step 5 :- In most of the websites, site founders would like to display the categories to engage their readers. (Categories to classify the content)

To add the categories, just follow the above procedure and you would see the names of the categories with the pages and the posts.

Step 6 :- There is a custom field option using which, you can add the link to any of the pages you want. Just fill the URL, the link text and then “Add to Menu“.

How To Rearrange Navigation Menu fields?

Don’t you think you have done something messy here? All the posts, pages, and the post formats are added randomly. To arrange them in a particular order, you can choose the position for each field. If you want to show the post format in the first place in the menu, then you can drag and drop it.

Just click on the desired field and drag it from its place and drop it in any position in the list. Suppose you have the category named “WordPress” and you want it to show on the first position of the navigation menu. Just pick it up and drop on the top of the list.

How To Create Drop Down Menu in WordPress?

What if you want to add the children for any item shown in the navigation menu? It is called a drop-down menu or submenu in WordPress. You have already learnt about it when you tried to re-arrange the menu items. It is similar to that.

To create the drop down menu in WordPress, just pick up any of the menu items and put it under any other item. The one thing to notice about is that after dropping the item, you should see a “sub item” written tag along with the item name. And you would see that the position of the sub items had shifted towards the right.

After altering the position and the drag and drop process, click on the “Save Menu” button and you would see your navigation menu on your WordPress blog.

The drop down menu will only be supported if your theme developer has designed your theme for a responsive navigation menu. Otherwise, you have to create it by adding the codes in the functions.php file.

If you are using a WordPress theme which supports the drop down menu, then there wouldn’t be any problem. Sometimes the user fret when they don’t see any results after adding the sub items.

So it’s better you know the fact about the menu and create submenu in WordPress.

How To Remove The Menu Items?

You have added the items and sub-items in the navigation menu. But what would you do if you won’t need any item in the menu? There is an easy way to remove any item.

Just click on the down arrow of the item shown on the list and you will see an option to “Remove” the item from the list. You can remove any item or the sub-item.

How To Add Footer Menu In WordPress?

If you want to create a menu at the footer of your WordPress, go to WordPress Dashboard > Appearance > Widgets.

Click Custom Menu > Footer > Add Widget 

Then you will get the option to choose which menu to display at the footer section of your WP site.

Follow the same procedure to add menu on the sidebar Custom Menu > Sidebar > Add Widget

How to Assign Primary/Secondary Menu in WordPress?

# Most of the WordPress themes would let you add the Primary and Secondary menu so that you will be able to display the newly created menu through the secondary menu options. 

For example: 

Create a new menu with some pages/posts/categories and name it as “Secondary Menu” (Whatever you want)

Now, click “Manage Location” and assign the newly created menu as the secondary navigation menu. 

Just click the drop down option of the “Secondary Navigation Menu” and select the menu that you have created newly. 

Your Primary menu will appear on the top of your website and the secondary menu will be displayed according to the theme settings. 

# Some WordPress themes allow you to add the social profile links of your website on the secondary menu.

# If you still want to create a custom WordPress menu, you have to add the relevant codes in the functions.php file. 

Final Words in Adding WP Nav Menu

With the features of WordPress CMS, you can do almost anything! Presenting a well-organized navigation feature for your readers would guide your readers to get the exact information what they look for.

Structuring the categories and the pages with easy-to-use WordPress menu would make sense. Don’t overwhelm them by creating a cluttered menu; Avoid the overuse of drop down menu.

Site navigation is more important to grab a huge reader base! I hope that you are clear with the guidelines how to add menu in WordPress. If you still face any problem in creating the WP nav menu, then I am here to help you. Share your thoughts in the comment section.