WordPress has a built-in menu system, which has been used for your navigation and other menus around your website.

This includes footer menus and sometimes account menus if you have a shop.

The Menu settings are found in Appearance > Menu in your WordPress dashboard in the left-hand menu.

1. Editing a current menu

Most of the time you will need to edit a menu, rather than create or remove one.

To edit a menu, choose the menu you wish to edit from the dropdown box at the top of the page and click select.

Depending on your set-up you might have quite a few menus to select from.

 

You should now see the menu load into the editor.

To move menu items around, you drag and drop the items.

To make an item a submenu, move it in one place from the left underneath the parent item. If you’re finding it tricky, you can use the edit item instead.

 

 

To edit an item click on the black down arrow next to a menu’s title.

It will give you the option to change the Navigation Label, Move the Item or Remove it.

To add a new item to the menu, find the page in the left-hand menus. Tick the checkbox and click “Add to Menu”

If you can’t find it, ensure you click View All, or one of the other categories below the main “Pages” box, for example, “Posts”.

 

2. Adding links that aren’t pages or posts

There are some items, which don’t show up automatically in your side options.

To view these, scroll to the top of the page and click “Screen Options”. Under here you will see more options. For example “Product Categories” if you have a shop.

 

If you still can not find an item you can add a “Custom Link”

 

3. Creating a Custom Link

To create a custom link, open the “Custom Links” Tab on the left-hand side.

Get the URL you wish to add and paste it into the first box. Ensure you remove the http:// before pasting in.

Then add a title for your item.

 

4. Creating a new menu

Very rarely you might have to create a new menu.

In order to do this, click “Create a new menu” next to the menu selector.

Give your menu a name that clear what its purpose is.

Add pages as you have done above.

Now you can select where you would like the menu to go, for example “Bottom Menu” would go into the footer of your website.

If you wish to add it using a widget, select nothing.

 

5. Removing a menu

Very rarely, you might have to delete a menu. When you do this, ensure you have replaced the menu throughout the site with another, to ensure it doesn’t break anything.

Once a menu is deleted it can not be retrieved.

Scroll to the bottom of the menu and click “Delete Menu”

6. Mega menus

Some website have “Mega Menus” set up. These are for very complicated navigation systems, for example, shops.

They work in the same way as regular menus, in terms of adding and removing items, however, there are a few extra options.

You can have 3 more levels of data for a mega menu for example.

PRIMARY ITEM

Secondary Sub Navigation Item

Third Navigation Item

 

For your main navigation item, when you tick “Mega Menu” it gives you the option to set a number of columns.

Secondary Sub Navigation Items are often used as signposts for the content beneath them. You can remove the links from these items if you want to keep them as sign-posts.

On Sub Navigation items, both Secondary and Third, you can get them to start a new row. This can help with the layout of a mega menu and make it clear for customers.

7. Saving your menu

Once you have finished editing your menu, click save and look at the changes on your website.