A Complete Guide To Using a Navigation Menu in WordPress

The WordPress menu system is one of the best parts of WordPress. It makes creating and adding a navigation menu to your blog an easy thing to do. Menu’s aid in navigation by helping your readers find the content they are searching for.

In this post we”ll discus the most popular menu topics including:

1. Create New Menu – How To Create Your First Menu
2. Add pages to menu – Adding Pages to your Menu
3. Custom Links menu – Adding Posts, Links, Categories & Tags to your menu
4. Activate menu – Adding a Menu to your blog
5. Create a drop down menu – Creating Multi Level menus
6. Arrange order of pages – Customizing the order of your menu links
7. Custom Menu Widget – How To Add a custom menu in your sidebar or footer
8. Custom Menu Video – How To Create a Custom Menu
9. Free WordPress menu plugins – Advanced menu features
10. Premium Menu plugins – Add the Ultimate Menu to your WordPress site

Depending on the Theme you have installed, you can add a menu:

1. Before your header
2. After your header
3. In your Sidebar
4. In your Footer

Most free themes only allow for one menu to be used so if you need more menus i suggest you take a look at some premium themes which are more flexible and provide technical support. You can create as many menus as you like however you can only use one menu at a time unless your theme allows for the use of multiple menus

Create a New Menu

You’ll need to create a menu before you can start adding posts, pages, external URL”s and other features of the menu system.

1. Login to your Dashboard

2. Locate the Appearance tab in the left sidebar and click on the Menu link

3. Click on the + tab and add a Menu Name

4. Click Create Menu

How To Add Pages To Your Menu

1. Click Add to Menu from your list of existing pages by selecting which pages you want to include in your menu. You may select from your Most Recent pages, View All pages or use the Search box to start adding Pages to your menu. Save your menu after adding pages to it.

How To Add Posts, Categories, Tags & Custom Links To Your Menu

Use the Custom Links panel to add Posts, Categories and Custom URL’s to your menu. Simply add the destination URL and a label for the tab then click Add to Menu and the link will be added to your menu.

How To Add a Menu To Your Blog

1. Under Theme Locations, select the menu you would like to use, highlight it and click Save. This will activate the menu you have chosen to be displayed in the default location on your blog. You can create as many menus as you like but are limited to how many you can display depending on the theme you are using.

Arrange Drop Down Menu-SubMenu

Adding a drop down menu to WordPress is very easy. Simply Add New Pages, Posts, Custom Links etc to your menu then arrange them in the order you want them in the drop down.

Hold down your mouse pointer on the items you want in a sub menu and drag them a little to the right, underneath the parent you want them included in the drop down.

This creates  sub menu items under a parent page or Heirachy as some call it.

How To Change The Order of Your Menu links

The WordPress menu system also allows you to easily and quickly change the order of all your menu links, pages, posts etc. Simply drag them into any position you choose.

How To Add a Custom Menu Widget in your Sidebar

You can also use the default custom menu widget and drag it into any widget area your theme offers. Then its simply a matter of selecting which menu to display and clicking Save. Navigate to Appearance > Widgets and drag the Custom Menu widget into any widget area.

1. Drag the Custom Menu widget into your widget sidebar

2. Select menu from the drop down and click Save. You can also add a catchy title.

Custom Menu – Video

Watch the video on how to use a Custom Menu. This video refers to the WordPress.com free hosted blogging platform however, the same applies to WordPress.org free software for self hosted bloggers.

Free WordPress Menu Plugins

Many WordPress developers create both free and premium menus for WordPress. Not unlike themes, premium menus offer free technical support and upgrades for life. You’ll find a range of free Menu plugins in the WordPress plugin directory however the default menu system included in your WordPress installation is excellent.

WP Page Navi is the most popular free page navigation plugin for WordPress: It replaces the basic ← Older posts | Newer posts → links with a more advanced paging navigation interface.

You’ll need a basic understanding of both PHP & CSS code editing to use this page navigation plugin.

Premium WordPress Menu Plugins

UberMenu – WordPress Mega Menu Plugin

The Uber menu plugin for WordPress is the most popular premium menu plugin and allows you to add image icons to your menu. If your not familiar with CSS & PHP coding then this plugin is for you. Preview Uber Menu here.

The Thesis theme for WordPress offers you the flexibility to add multiple menus before and after your header as well as add a menu your footer.

 More WordPress Menu Resources

1. How To Add a New Footer Menu To The Thesis Theme for WordPress
2. How To Add a Second WordPress Navigation Menu In Thesis Using Custom PHP Script
3. How To Add a New Footer Menu To The Thesis Theme for WordPress