Undoubtedly it is an absolute nightmare for any business owner or website owner when their website visitors complain about difficult website navigation. It’s important for your WordPress website menus not to confuse your visitors.
That’s why you need to design your WordPress navigation menu in a way that avoids unnecessary confusion while using the website. For your better comprehension, we’ve included some useful tips to design the WordPress navigation menus, so read on.
Setting up menus in the admin dashboard
You must be familiar with the built-in features of WordPress to configure and add menus to the admin dashboard. You must understand that WordPress is a CMS that offers you sufficient flexibility when it is to setting up navigation menus. Therefore, everything on the menus, from additions to changes to the names and order, is in your hands.
Let’s now see how a leading provider of WordPress website development services in India suggests configuring the menus.
- Creating a menu and adding menu items: You must select the create menu button to set up the menus of your website. But first, double-check that you’ve given your menu a name.
The next step is to add items to your freshly constructed menu. Consequently, you may decide which pages to include in your navigation menu.
After choosing the pages and checking the appropriate boxes, select the Add to Menu option at the bottom. Posts, categories, and custom links are more features that you can configure. Custom links will undoubtedly be useful if you want to give your website users some external URLs.
- Modifying the menu items: It is not enough to add menus. You also need to organize them properly. Simply using your mouse, drag and drop the options to arrange the options in the desired order. The menu labels can also be modified in WordPress. You can easily alter it to suit your needs.
- Take the help of the screen option: You can personalize the website navigation menu using the screen option located at the top of the screen. Technical expertise is undoubtedly required to use this option. However, it truly aids in tag addition and other kinds of content or taxonomies to the website.
- Publishing: Once designing the menus is done you can publish them. Either go to the Menu settings and choose a display location or go to the ‘Appearance’ option.
The second option allows you to choose the ‘widgets’ option from where you can drag the Navigation Menu widget to any available widget area. Then, select a preferred menu from the drop-down list. The procedure of posting the menu is then complete.
Creating WordPress website navigation menus: Advanced method
The methods discussed so far are unquestionably the conventional techniques for building website navigation menus. However, a top WordPress website development services provider in India would advise using some advanced methods.
Check out some of them that we have highlighted below:
- Choosing the right CSS selector is crucial: You need the right CSS selector when you want to alter the navigation menu completely. Using browser developer tools might also help you locate the best alternative for you. Find the ideal one, and then modify the menu to suit your needs.
- Changing the menu background: To make changes to the menu colour, you can change the menu background. But keep your theme in mind when trying to modify the background. To achieve a better result, select the elements following the theme.
- Modifying font colours: Changing the colour of the background means you need to change the colours of the fonts. This change in the font colour requires a proper CSS code. Such code helps you to add effects to the menu items.
- Changing menu position: Website owners often request that the menu be placed in a different location. You must register the additional menu locations to make them visible on your site. Consequently, you need to understand your site’s menus better. Checking the function.php files of your parent themes is the first thing you must do. Knowing your theme name helps you identify its location within your theme’s file. Moving the navigation menu to a more advantageous spot will also be helpful.
- Creating transparent menus: Making the navigation items visible on your website is also vital. That’s why you should focus on building a clear navigation menu. This will make it easier for users to view and recognize all the options on your website. You may easily make transparent menus by adding custom CSS code to your theme.
You can also make different changes to produce visible menus such as altering the header picture location. The image should enclose the menus’ rear portions fully to make them properly visible.
- Sticky navigation menus: With WordPress plugins, you can easily add such menus. Moreover, utilizing plugins to create similar menus is the easiest way to complete this task. So first you must download a Plugin, which is called Sticky menu on scroll.
Once you activate it you can go to settings and then choose the Sticky menu. Then you need to enter the CSS ID of that particular menu you want to make sticky.
However, creating sticky navigation menus is also possible manually. First, you need to go to Appearance and then choose a customizer. This will assist you in opening the theme customizer.
After that, you must choose ‘Additional CSS’, and enter the custom CSS code. The navigation CSS ID should be used in place of the #site-navigation. Finally, click on the Save and Publish buttons. After that, you can easily find your WordPress website’s sticky navigation menus.
Conclusion
Your strategy for designing an intuitive website with thoughtfully constructed navigation menus will determine how successful your WordPress website turns out. So, decide accordingly and create an effective website that impresses your users and gives them a user-friendly experience.
