How to create and manage a menu in WordPress: complete guide

You’ve just installed WordPress and your site is starting to take shape. Your pages have been created, your posts published.

And yet, something isn’t quite right: your visitors can’t easily find what they’re looking for. The reason is often simple: your WordPress menu hasn’t been configured properly yet.

A well-built navigation menu is much more than just a list of links. It’s the guiding thread that leads your visitors, structures your content, and, incidentally, sends the right signals to search engines.

Neglecting this element means taking the risk of losing visitors within the first few seconds.

In this article, we explain everything you need to know about menus: how to create them, customize them, and position them. Whether you use a classic theme or a block-based theme.

As a bonus, you’ll also find tips to take their management even further.

Overview of WordPress menus and their role in navigation

A WordPress menu is an ordered list of links displayed in a specific location on your site. As stated in the WordPress documentation, it is “a section of the site that helps visitors navigate” your content.

In general, a menu is found at the top of the page (main navigation menu), as on the website of our WordPress agency, Maintenance WP: 

However, it can also appear in a page footer (footer), a sidebar (sidebar) or any other location defined by your theme.

Its primary role is to make navigation easier: a menu allows your visitors to quickly access the pages, categories, posts or URLs of their choice. But its importance goes far beyond this functional aspect.

Indeed, a well-structured menu is strategic for your site on several levels:

• User experience (UX): a clear menu reduces the bounce rate and increases the time spent on the site. Your visitors stay if they find what they are looking for.
• Search engine optimization (SEO): search engines analyze the navigation structure to understand your site’s architecture. A consistent menu makes it easier to index your pages and enhances your internal linking.
• Brand image: navigation reflects the organization of your business. A well-designed menu inspires trust and professionalism.

In practice, a WordPress menu can contain different types of items: pages, posts, categories, tags, custom links (to an external URL or a specific section), or even CPTs (Custom Post Types) if you have custom content.

It is important to note that WordPress allows you to create several separate menus on the same site, each assigned to a different location. This flexibility is a real asset for adapting your navigation to your needs.

What are the characteristics of a good menu?

In practice, creating a WordPress menu is not enough: it also needs to be truly effective. 

A poorly designed menu can frustrate your visitors and harm your SEO, even if your content is high quality. So, what does a good menu look like?

In our view, it must meet several essential criteria:

• Simplicity above all. An overloaded menu loses visitors. Limit yourself to 5 to 7 main items, reserving sub-levels for categories that truly warrant them. Each item must have a reason to exist.
• Clear and explicit labels. Avoid vague or creative wording such as “Universe” or “Discover”. Prefer direct labels — “Services”, “Blog”, “Contact” — that users understand immediately, without having to interpret them.
• A logical hierarchy. The organization of your menu should reflect the structure of your site. The most important and most visited pages should occupy the first positions. Submenus should group together content that is naturally related.
• Responsive navigation. More than 60% of global web traffic now comes from mobile devices. A good menu adapts to all screen sizes, with a functional hamburger menu on mobile and sufficiently large click areas.
• Consistency with your goal. Your menu should guide visitors toward your key pages, the ones that convert. If your priority is getting people to contact you, the “Contact” item must be visible and accessible in one click from any page.

In short, a good WordPress menu is invisible in the best sense of the word: it goes unnoticed because it works perfectly.

Visitors find what they are looking for without having to think about it. That is precisely the goal you should keep in mind when designing it.

Where can you create and edit a WordPress menu?

Speaking of which, there is one very important thing to keep in mind before you start creating a WordPress menu. 

The steps to follow will depend on the type of theme you are using. To understand this clearly, take a look at the two possible scenarios: 

1. If you use a classic theme (such as Astra, GeneratePress, or any theme developed before the block era), menus are managed from the WordPress admin interface, via the following path: Appearance > Menus. You have a dedicated, intuitive panel with drag-and-drop options.
   Another possibility: use the Customizer tool (Customizer) under Appearance > Customize > Menus. 
2. If you use a block-based theme (also called FSE for Full Site Editing, such as Twenty Twenty-Five, for example), menus are no longer managed via Appearance > Menus. This path no longer even exists in your dashboard. Navigation is managed directly from the site editor (Appearance > Editor), by inserting a “Navigation” block into your header or page templates.

Not sure what type of theme you are using? Go to Appearance in your dashboard. If you see a “Menus” option, you are using a classic theme. If you do not see it and an “Editor” option is available instead, you are using a block-based theme (FSE). Below, you can see that we are using a block-based theme, for example.

How to create a WordPress menu with a classic theme?

Step 1: Creating the WordPress menu

Go to your WordPress dashboard, then click Appearance > Menus. You will arrive on the menu management page.

Give your menu a name, for example “Main Menu”. This name is only visible in the admin area, not on your site. 

Continue by selecting a display location for your menu, for example “Main Menu”. Finally, click the “Create Menu” button to confirm.

Your menu has now been created. For now, it is empty. Let’s move on to the next step.

Step 2: Adding items to your menu

Once your WordPress menu has been created, the left-hand section (“Add menu items” menu) becomes editable (it is no longer grayed out).

This panel contains all the items you can add to your menu: pages, posts, categories, tags, and custom links.

To add items:

1. Check the boxes for the pages or content you want to include (for example: Home, About, Services, Blog, Contact).
2. Click the “Add to Menu” button.
3. The items then appear in the menu building area on the right.

By default, on every “fresh” WordPress installation, you can add pages, posts, custom links, categories, and tags to your menu. 

To add a custom link (for example, to an external URL or an anchor), expand the Custom Links panel, enter the URL and display text, then click Add to Menu.

By default, the interface only displays the most recent pages. If you cannot find a particular page, click the “All” tab in each panel, or use the search bar.

Step 3: Customize the menu

Once your items have been added to your menu, they appear one below the other in the right-hand section, in the “Menu structure” section. 

By default, the topmost item will be positioned on the left of your navigation menu, if we imagine that you are going to place it in your site’s header. 

You can place each item in your menu wherever you want, with a simple drag-and-drop action.

To customize a menu item of your choice, click the small downward arrow to open a context menu with different options.

When you are finished, remember to click the “Save Menu” button. 

How do you create a menu with a block-based theme?

With an FSE theme, the logic is different. There is no longer a dedicated menus panel. Everything happens in the Site Editor, which allows you to directly modify your theme’s templates, especially the header, where the main navigation is generally located.

Step 1: Adding a WordPress menu

From your WordPress back office, click Appearance > Editor. You will enter the full site editor.

Click “Navigation”, then the “Create a new menu” link located at the top right: 

Since your menu is empty, click the small “+” button to add items (blocks, pages, links, etc.).

Step 2: Customizing the menu

In practice, you can also create submenus (for drop-down menus) by dragging and dropping one item under another.

Visual customization is also done in the right-hand panel, through two different tabs.

The “Settings” tab (small cogwheel) gives you control over: 

• Layout: menu justification and orientation.
• The display of a Hamburger (overlay) menu either on mobile or on all screens.
• Adding additional CSS classes in the “Advanced” section.

In the “Styles” tab, you can change the color, typography, dimensions, and width of your WordPress menu.

Step 3: Choosing the menu location

In an FSE theme, the menu location is defined by the position of the “Navigation” block in the theme template.

If you placed it in the header, it will appear in the header. If you want a menu in the footer, you will need to edit the footer template and insert another “Navigation” block there.

Once you have made your changes, click the “Save” button at the top right of the Editor. Your menu is immediately published and visible across all the pages of your site.

Going further with managing and customizing WordPress menus

Now that you know how to create a WordPress menu, let’s see how to make the most of the available options to customize, organize, and optimize it.

The Screen Options menu

If you use a classic theme (e.g., Astra), there is one menu you absolutely need to know about. Especially since it is rather hard to spot.

When you are in Appearance > Menus, take a look at the top right of the screen. You will see a small tab called “Screen Options”.

This allows you to hide or display other customization options by checking the boxes you are interested in.

You can then select advanced properties for your menu, which will be displayed when you edit an item on a case-by-case basis: 

• Link target. Check the Open link in a new tab box so that the link target opens in a new browser tab. Leave it unchecked for it to open in the same browser tab.
• Title attribute. The value of the title attribute for the menu item link. It will be displayed when the cursor hovers over the menu item.
• CSS classes. Optional CSS classes for this menu item.
• Relationship with the linked site owner (XFN). Allows XFN attributes to be generated automatically so you can show how you are connected to the authors or owners of the site you are linking to.
• Description. Description of this link. The description will be displayed in the menu if the current theme supports it.

How to create drop-down menus?

A drop-down menu (also called a submenu or dropdown) lets you organize navigation across multiple levels. This is especially useful if your site has many pages grouped by topic.

With a classic theme, creating a submenu is intuitive: in the menu-building area, drag an item slightly to the right, underneath another item.

A small label appears (sub-item), indicating that this item becomes a child of the previous one.

The drop-down menu will automatically be displayed when hovering over the parent item, according to the style defined by your theme.

With an FSE theme, the logic is similar in the “Navigation” block: you select an item and drag and drop it below and to the right of a parent item to create the hierarchy.

We recommend not exceeding two levels of depth in your drop-down menus. Beyond that, the user experience deteriorates, especially on mobile.

How do you remove menu items?

With a classic theme, click the arrow to the right of the item you want to remove in the menu-building area.

A “Remove” option appears at the bottom of the item’s information. Click it, then save your menu.

If you wish, you can also remove several items at the same time by checking the “Bulk select” box: 

With a block-based theme, select the item directly in the Navigation block, then use the contextual menu (the three dots “…”) to remove it. Don’t forget to save.

How do you customize the design of a menu?

The visual style of a menu largely depends on your theme. But you still have several ways to manage certain settings yourself:

• Via the WordPress Customizer (classic themes): Appearance > Customize > Menus can give you access to visual options such as text color, font size, or the background color of the main menu.
• Via CSS classes: in the screen options of the Menus panel (classic themes), enable the CSS Classes column. You can then assign a custom class to each item and style it precisely in your stylesheet.
• Via the Site Editor (FSE themes): the “Styles” panel of the Navigation block offers direct design options, without touching the code, as we saw above.

How do you manage your menu locations?

A menu location is an area predefined by your theme where you can display navigation: header, footer, sidebar, mobile menu, etc.

The number and name of these locations vary from one theme to another.

With a classic theme, location management is done in two complementary ways.

The first is to assign a menu to a location directly from the Appearance > Menus page, in the Menu Settings section at the bottom of the page.

The second is through the “Manage Locations” tab, accessible at the top of that same page, which provides an overview of all available locations and the menus assigned to them. Handy for checking your overall navigation setup at a glance.

With an FSE theme, the concept of a location is handled differently: it is the position of the “Navigation” block in the theme template that determines where the menu appears.

You can therefore place a “Navigation” block in the header for your main menu, and another in the footer template for secondary navigation.

It is entirely possible to assign several different menus to several locations simultaneously.

For example, a main menu at the top of the page, a simplified menu in the footer, and a separate legal links menu. Each location can have its own independent menu.

How do you reorganize and configure your menu items?

The order of items in a WordPress menu is important for both usability and SEO.

Place the most important pages (and the most visited ones) first. On mobile, the first items are often the only ones visible before interaction.

In practice, apply the following tips:

• Limit your main menu to a maximum of 5 to 7 top-level items.
• Use short, clear labels (avoid vague wording such as “Learn more”).
• Think about the user journey: a discovery-oriented flow (Home > Services > References > Contact) or a conversion-oriented flow depending on your funnel.
• Regularly test the display on mobile. A menu that works well on desktop can become unusable on a smartphone if the hierarchy is too deep.

What options are there for creating a mega menu?

A mega menu is an enhanced version of a drop-down menu. When a parent item is hovered over, it displays a large structured panel with multiple columns, icons, images, or descriptions.

It is frequently found on e-commerce sites, portals, or content-heavy websites, such as the Nike brand site below: 

WordPress does not offer a mega menu feature natively. To create one, several approaches are available:

• Some themes include it natively, such as Astra (yes, again), for example.
• Dedicated plugins make it possible to add this feature to any theme (see below).
• Custom development can be considered if you have very specific needs in terms of design or behavior.

Which plugins can improve WordPress menus?

The WordPress ecosystem is full of plugins dedicated to improving menus. Here are a few that can be especially useful depending on your needs:

• Max Mega Menu: the go-to plugin for creating responsive mega menus, with an intuitive visual editor and broad compatibility with popular themes.
• WP Menu Cart: adds a cart icon to the menu, very useful for WooCommerce sites.
• If Menu: lets you show or hide certain menu items based on conditions (logged-in user, page type, role, etc.).
• Nav Menu Roles: similar to the previous one, but focused on user roles. Useful for restricted-access sites or intranets.
• Sticky Menu & Sticky Header: makes your menu fixed as the page scrolls, improving accessibility on long pages.

Installing too many plugins can slow down your site. Choose the ones that meet a specific need, and deactivate those you don’t use. Also check, before installing one, that your theme does not already offer a similar feature, to avoid duplication.

Summary

In conclusion, a well-designed WordPress menu helps improve your visitors’ user experience.

Whether you are creating main navigation with a classic theme, using the “Navigation” block in an FSE theme, or configuring dropdown menus and mega menus, WordPress gives you great freedom of organization.

The key is to keep two priorities in mind:

1. Clarity for your visitors.
2. Consistency for search engines.

A structured menu, with clear labels and a logical hierarchy, is a practical way to improve your site.

If you want to go further—whether to redesign your site’s navigation architecture, customize your theme in depth, or optimize your WordPress SEO—Maintenance WP is here to support you.

Need to know more? Our team is available to answer your questions.