Menus aren't the most exciting topic, but they're a critical component of any successful website. In this slide deck from the Melbourne WordPress User Meetup, I cover all of the basics for creating and managing menus in WordPress, along with a few tips and handy plugins.

1. Setting up and Managing
Your WordPress Menus

2. Setting up and Managing
Your WordPress Menus
Melbourne WordPress User
Meetup, April 2015
@chrisburgess

3. Outline
• Importance of user experience (UX), information architecture and
navigation
• Impact of theme on navigation options available
• Creating pages and ordering
• Creating a WordPress menu for your theme navigation
• How to add custom link to your menu
• How to add a category to your menu
• Creating WordPress menus for widget areas
• Menu plugins and mega menus

4. WordCamp
Brisbane
30-­‐31
May

5. Importance of User Experience
(UX), Information Architecture
(IA) and Navigation

6. Why should you care?
Because it will affect your
conversions.

7. Before you start building…plan
• Do your research, see what others have done
• Keep terms simple and intuitive to the user
• Avoid confusion with labels (e.g is it ‘Shop’ or ‘Shop Locations’)
• Use standard conventions (e.g ‘Contact’, ‘About’, ‘Products’ etc.)
• What are your categories? Map them out by parent and child.
• Use keywords/keyphrases if natural (e.g for SEO and usability)
• Avoid multi level menus. Try and stick to one sub level menu.
• Use hover effects like colour or highlight indicate where the cursor is.
• Think responsive. Review how your menu looks on the mobile
version of your theme. Commonly you’ll see these collapsed into a
single ‘menu’ button or a ‘hamburger’ menu

8. “While content is supposed to be
unique, surprising and exciting,
navigating to it is supposed to be
as simple and predictable as
possible.”
Anastasios Karafillis, Smashing Magazine

9. Impact of Theme on
Navigation Options Available

10. Different themes offer different navigation
locations – check documentation for this
• Twenty Fifteen theme navigation locations
• Genesis – Magazine Pro Theme

11. Creating Pages and
Ordering

12. Before you create a menu - create pages
• Note depending on your theme and settings, sometimes pages are
automatically added to your menu, you can override this in the menu
section we cover next.

13. Good practice - order your pages to match
your navigation to help you easily
reference your content
1
2
3
0
0
0

14. Creating a WordPress Menu
for your Theme Navigation

15. Go to Appearance > Menus

16. Give your menu a name > Create Menu

17. Tick the pages you want to add > Click add
to menu
• You can search by ‘most recent’ or ‘view all’ or ‘search’ to find the page you
want to add

18. Click and drag to reorder the menu items
> Save Menu

19. To create a sub level > drag the menu
item to the right
Second
Level
Third
Level

20. Customising the Menu Label
• If you click on the arrow and drop the item down you can edit the menu
text

21. Select the theme location for your menu
• If you want your menu to appear in the main navigation area tick ‘primary
menu’

22. You can also manage your theme
navigation locations here…

23. Then you’ve created your menu!

24. Screen
OpBons

25. Plugin - CMS Tree Page View
• https://wordpress.org/plugins/cms-tree-page-view/

26. How to Add a Custom Link

27. Menus > Links
• Enter URL
• Create a label for the menu item
• Add to menu

28. Then it will appear with your pages in
the Main Menu we created

29. You can create custom links for…
• External URLs
• Pages
• Categories
• Tags
• Custom Post Types and Taxonomies

30. How to Add a Category

31. Simply click on Categories > Tick > Add to
Menu

32. Creating WordPress Menus for
Widget Areas

33. Go to Appearance > Widgets
• There is a default ‘Custom Menu’ widget you can use

34. Click to drag into a widget area
• Give your menu a name e.g ‘Browse by Category’
• Select the menu you have already created back in ‘Menus’ from the drop
down list of available menus

35. Then we have a category menu on our
sidebar

36. Mega Menus and
Menu Plugins

37. Mega Menus
• Drop down or ‘fly out’ from main navigation as a multi column sub level menu

38. Mega Menu Example - Home Page
• Before hover on menu item

39. Mega Menu Example - Home Page
• After hover on menu item

40. Plugin – Uber Menu
http://wpmegamenu.com/

41. Plugin – Max Mega Menu
https://wordpress.org/plugins/megamenu

42. More?

43. Mega Menu Example - Home Page
• WordPress Codex
• https://codex.wordpress.org/WordPress_Menu_User_Guide
• https://codex.wordpress.org/Appearance_Menus_Screen
• https://codex.wordpress.org/Navigation_Menus
• Essential Navigation Checklists for Web Design
• http://www.sitepoint.com/checklists-web-design/
• Efficiently Simplifying Navigation, Part 1: Information Architecture
• http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2013/12/03/efficiently-
simplifying-navigation-information-architecture/

44. Thanks!
• I’ll upload these slides to Meetup.com
• Any questions, contact me on:
• http://chrisburgess.com.au
• @chrisburgess