How do I create a navigation menu?

Introduction

A website’s navigation  menu allows users to quickly jump between different sections of your website. Menu items  generally link to the most important pages such as, Home, Contact Us, Blog etc. 

While Elementor provides you with many cool and creative ways to present your menu to users, the menu itself is a WordPress function and has to be created via the WordPress dashboard. 

Building your menu

The top level menu

To build your website’s navigation menu:

1. Select Appearance>Menus from the WordPress dashboard.
   
2. Give your menu a name and click Create Menu.
   
   At this point you can choose to have the menu automatically appear in the header and/or footer. You can also set up the menu to automatically include newly created top-level pages in the menu. Top-level pages are the main page of a section and often have sub-pages under them.
   Once you create the menu, you’ll be able to add pages to it. 
3. Use the checkmarks to select which pages will be included in the menu.
   
4. Select Add to Menu.
   

After adding pages to your menu, they will appear in the Menu structure section. 

You can rearrange the order of the menu by dragging and dropping menu items. Click the arrow next to the menu item for additional options such as renaming it. After making changes, remember to click Save Menu.

Note: You can also add posts, custom links and entire categories to your menu. 

Submenu items

In many cases, you’ll want to create submenus (sometimes called children) for menu items. For instance, you may have a general Contact Us page with separate subpages for each department, which you want visitors to easily access.

To create these submenus:  

1. Select Appearance>Menus from the WordPress dashboard.
2. Use the checkmarks to select the subpages and click Add to Menu.
   
3. Once these subpages become part of the menu, you can drag them under and slightly to the right of the top-level page.  
   

This same procedure can also be used to create subsubmenu items.

Next steps

Now that you’ve learned how to create a menu, check out how to style your menu with the Nav Menu widget, how to create a hamburger menu, and other cool ways you can use your menu such as creating a dropdown menu.

To get the most out of Elementor, check out the Elementor Academy and our YouTube channel for helpful learning resources. If you come across any issues or need help, please contact our Support Center.