A good website is the one that has a clear, useful navigation menu. WordPress has a default feature that allows you to create a menu. You can then place the menu you created whether to the header, footer, or even the sidebar of your website. In case you are new to WordPress, this article will show you how to create a new menu in WordPress.
Creating a new menu in WordPress
A brand new WordPress installation has no menu. Before being able to add a menu to the header, footer, or sidebar, you need to create one first. First, login to your WordPress dashboard and go to Appearances -> Menus.
Give your menu a name on the Menu Name field and click the Create Menu button.
You can add the menu items to the menu you have just created from the Add menu items panel. You can add items from the existing pages on your website, categories, or posts. There is also an option to add a custom link in case you want to place an external link to your menu.
Let’s take an example by adding a new menu item from a category. On the Add menu items panel, open the Categories block. Select the categories you want to add to the menu and click the Add to Menu button.
To change the label of the menu item you have just added, you can go to the Menu structure panel. Click the arrow icon on the menu item you want to change its label to expand it and then replace the current label with your preferred label.
You can repeat the steps above to add more items to your menu. To change the order of the items, you can simply drag them upward and downward. To set a certain menu item as a sub-menu item, you can simply drag it slightly to the right when dragging it.
Once you are done creating the menu, click the Save Menu button to apply all of the changes you made.
In WordPress, you can create multiple menus according to your needs. To create a new menu, simply click the create a new menu link.
Using the menu you created
Header is a common part to place a new menu. But actually, you can also add the menu on the footer, sidebar, or other parts of your site. In WordPress, the options to add a menu are varied, depending on the theme you use. Paid themes like Divi and Newspaper X have a theme panel to customize your site header. You can add a menu from there. If you use a page builder plugin that has a theme builder feature (Elementor for instance), you can also add a menu when creating a custom header template.
But in general, here is how to use an existing menu on your WordPress site. On your WordPress dashboard, go to Appearance -> Customize and click Menus.
Click View All Locations. To add the menu to the header, you can select the menu you have created on the Primary section. To add the menu to the footer, you can select the menu on the Footer section.
Click the Publish button to apply changes you made.
The bottom line
To make your navigation menu looks more attractive, you can try some variations like an off-canvas menu, a full-screen menu, or even a mega menu. Unfortunately, WordPress has no default feature to create those types of menus. You can install a menu plugin to create a more attractive menu on your WordPress site. JetMenu is one of the plugins you can install. You can use it to create a mega menu and an off-canvas menu.
