Many beginners discover the need to add a drop down menu in WordPress to create navigation menus with sub-menus (also known as dropdown menus). WordPress makes it very easy for anyone without technical expertise to create such menus. In this guide, we’ll go through the step-by-step process of achieving this.
Step 1: Choosing your Navigation Menu
First, go to your WordPress admin area and visit Appearance » Menus. You need to ensure that your theme supports the dropdown menus. If it does, you should see the ‘Menus’ sub-item under ‘Appearance.’
Next, decide which WordPress menu you want to edit. From your ‘Menus’ screen in the WordPress dashboard, select the menu you want from the dropdown list and click the ‘Select’ button. If you haven’t created a menu yet, then you can create one by entering a menu name and clicking the ‘Create Menu’ button.
Step 2: Adding Pages to Your Menu
To add a page to your menu, tick the box next to it and click on ‘Add to Menu’.
Note: You can add several items to your navigation menu including posts, pages, categories, custom links, and more. Just switch to the tab that you want.
Under the ‘Menu structure’ area, you can drag and drop menu items to rearrange them.
To make one menu item a subordinate of another, you simply need to drag it slightly to the right under the parent item.
Step 3: Turn Your Menu into a Drop Down
In order to create a drop down, drag an item just under and slightly to the right of another item and it will become a subitem.
For example, if you have a blog section on your website and you want separate subcategories in a dropdown menu like travel, food, and lifestyle, first add the page or custom link ‘Blog’ to your menu. Then, underneath that, add ‘Travel’, ‘Food’, and ‘Lifestyle’ and slightly drag those items to the right to make them subitems.
Your primary menu item is your parent category, while the items within the dropdown are the children or subcategories.
Step 4: Setting Up Your Menu
After you’ve arranged your menu structure, you should specify your display location. Most WordPress themes have at least one menu display location.
From the dropdown menu under ‘Display location’, you can choose where you’d like your menu to appear on your site. Most themes will have a primary menu that appears at the top of the screen.
Once you’re done setting up your menu, make sure to click the ‘Save Menu’ button.
Helpful Tools
WordPress doesn’t restrict you to manually creating menus. Instead, a number of plugins are available that can simplify the process and add even more advanced features. For example, Max Mega Menu could help you style your WordPress menus.
Remember to check WordPress Codex if you need more help with navigational menus.
Conclusion
And voila, we’re done! You’ve just created a functional drop-down menu for your WordPress website. You can repeat this process to create different menus or keep editing and arranging them according to your site structure.
WordPress dropdown menus are intuitive and make your website look organized, giving it a professional appearance, so it’s a skill that’s definitely worth learning!
Happy WordPressing!