The Navigation Menu in WordPress is one of the most essential features of a website. As the name suggests, it helps in navigating the users to the place they want to visit on the site.
It helps make the site more appealing, and without the navigation menu, every website looks incomplete and bland.
So, if you want to add a navigation menu in WordPress and you do not have any idea about how to do that, there is no need to worry.
Here, we will show you how you can add a Navigation Menu to your WordPress Website.
There are a total of three ways to add a navigation bar to a WordPress website that are:-
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How to Create a Menu in WordPress without Plugins
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How to add Menu in WordPress Plugins
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How to Create Menu in WordPress using Elementor
Let’s go ahead with this and understand these methods and how they will be able to help us make our site more appealing.
How to Create Navigation Menu in WordPress without Plugins?
Positioned under Appearance & Menus , this section lets you create menus, add items, and build up menu locations without any additional tools or plugins.
You can use the built-in Customizer (Appearance > Customize > Menus) to create and manage menus. This provides a live preview of changes as you make them.
Features
- Create simple navigation menus using existing pages, posts, categories, and custom links.
- Assign menus to predefined locations in your theme (e.g., primary, footer).
- Adjust menu item order and hierarchy with drag-and-drop functionality.
How to add a Menu in WordPress with Plugins
Creating a Navigation Menu in WordPress with plugins gives you more flexibility than doing without plugins. You can add different styling options, effects, elements, icons, etc. There are a number of plugins to choose from.
Here, we have a few for you, and you can read what features they provide and choose from them.
Max Mega Menu
Creating a mega menu in WordPress enhances the capabilities of standard default menus already present on the site. You can include multiple columns, icons, and advanced styling options.
Provides extensive styling options for submenus, including background colors, borders, and hover effects, drop-down menu, etc.
UberMenu
Provides extensive customization options, including responsive design, advanced styling, and integration with custom post types.
Customize multi-column mega menus with detailed content control. Customize submenu appearance and set conditions for display based on criteria like user roles or specific pages.
WP Mega Menu
It supports various menu layouts and styles and includes advanced submenus styling, such as background images, hover effects, and typography settings.
Supports adding interactive elements like widgets, forms, and icons to submenus.
If Menu
This lets you create conditional menus and submenus based on user roles, specific pages, or other criteria.
Provides options to hide or show submenu items based on conditions (e.g., user roles, pages).
How to Create Menu in WordPress using Elementor
Now that you have understood both methods of adding a navigation menu in WordPress with or without plugins, we will now jump on the Real Deal, which is adding the Elementor Navigation Menu Widget to your website,
This is the best way for you if you’re a beginner in content creation but want to make your website look more professional.
There are two ways to add a navigation menu in WordPress through Elementor, with Elementor FREE and PRO.
Here, we present you both ways.
Elementor Free
As this version of Elementor is free, it has only limited features, but you can still definitely try it. Go PRO once you are satisfied with the page builder.
Here are the features mentioned that Elementor provides its free users to add a navigation menu in WordPress;
Its free version is a basic custom NAV menu WordPress plugin that allows users to integrate and style WordPress menus within Elementor’s visual editor.
You can place this widget anywhere on a page or template. It also has basic styling options available, such as changing colors, typography, and spacing.
However, it does have some limitations, like Design Control not supporting advanced features like multi-column layouts or mega menus and the lack of the Theme Builder feature, which means you cannot create or customize headers and footers site-wide.
Elementor Pro
Here, we present you all of its features and elements so that you can decide for yourself why one needs to have the Pro version if they want to add a navigation menu bar on their site.
- All Free Features
- Advanced Widgets & Pro Templates
- Theme Builder
- Advanced Responsive Design
- Custom Fonts & Advanced Typography
- Global Settings
As Elementor is one of the best page builders out there, it is quite evident that its Pro version will naturally be one of the best ways to add a Navigation menu in WordPress.
Advanced NAV Menu Options
An enhanced version of the navigation menu in WordPress offers more advanced features for adding a custom menu in WordPress options.
It provides extensive styling options, including custom fonts, colors, spacing, and hover effects. This allows users to create visually rich and highly customized menus.
It also supports advanced menu layouts, including horizontal and vertical alignments and multi-level dropdowns.
Theme Builder
This feature allows you to design custom headers and footers, which can include menus. It enables you to create a uniform and fully customized navigation menu in WordPress that lets your users experience your site.
Dynamic Content
You can integrate dynamic content with your menus, allowing you to include site-wide elements and custom conditions.
Elementor Pro supports more complex dropdown menus with customizable styles and layout options, including full-width dropdowns and mega menus. It also has an advanced drag-and-drop editor for designing menus with live previews.
Key Features
It is also a WordPress responsive menu plugin that allows different types of menus to appear on different devices, like WordPress mobile menu, WordPress tablet menu, etc., to ensure a responsive and user-friendly design.
Conditional logic for showing or hiding menu items based on user roles, pages, or other criteria. Includes animation effects for menu transitions and interactions, enhancing user engagement.
Conclusion
- As we understood in the blog, adding a navigation menu in WordPress is important for improving the user experience and making it look professional.
- Now, whether you use the built-in Customizer, plugins for additional flexibility, or Elementor for advanced customizing features, each method offers different benefits to fit your needs, some better than others.
- Explore these options to find the best fit for your website and enjoy a seamless navigation experience!
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