How do I manage my navigation menus in WordPress?  If you have a blog design template or custom blog design, your navigation menu will have been created and styled by your blog designer.  But as you grow your blog, there may be times you will want to add to your menu as you create new blog post categories or pages.  Where is the navigation menu in my custom blog design?
Your navigation menu appears at the top of your custom blog design or custom website design template.  So how do you make changes to it?  Remember, you can click on each image in this tutorial to enlarge the screenshot!  First, in your WordPress dashboard, go to Appearance > Menus:

Step 1:

First, choose the menu that you want to edit.  Most of our blog designs have a menu above and below the header.  The menu above the header is the Primary Navigation Menu.  The menu below the header is the Secondary Navigation Menu.  You may also have footer menus, maybe Links or Categories.  You should be able to tell which menu is which by what links are included in the menu.  

To add a page to a menu, simply select the page you want to add under the “Most Recent” tab, and then click the gray Add to Menu button.  You may also click on the blue View All tab to view all pages on your blog design template or custom website design, or you can click on the Search tab to search for a specific page to add.

Step 2:

The page you have added will automatically appear at the very bottom of your page list.  You can simply click on the page and drag it into place.  It is HIGHLY suggested, particularly if your blog or website has a blog design template by Little Blue Deer, that you add any new pages as child items.  This way, the main structure of the menu is not disrupted.  I will demonstrate what a child item is vs. a parent item in the next step, but to set your new page as a child item, simply choose the main page you want your new page to appear beneath, and drag it slightly to the right.  The page will appear beneath the main item, indented slightly to the right.

Step 3:

You can see how this works by looking at this screenshot of my live website.  The new page that was added, Tutorials, appears in a dropdown menu beneath the main parent item, Services.  This way, you can add as many pages, categories or links as you want without causing the main menu to get too long and disappear off the side of the page.  If Little Blue Deer is the blog designer for your custom blog design, the spacing and padding between the menu items will have been set up during the design process.

Step 4 (optional):

You will notice, in Step 10, above, that the page name, Tutorials, appears on the live menu.  However, I named my page WordPress Tutorials.  If you want to give your menu item, including categories and custom links a shorter name that appears only on the navigation menu, you can.  Just enter the name you want to appear on the LIVE website or blog in the Navigation Label box.  You can always view the original page name below.  You can leave the Title Attribute box blank.

Step 5 (optional):

You can also add a custom link to your menu (eg. a link to a shop, a social media site or another website) by clicking to expand the Custom Links box and pasting in the URL of the site, and then adding the name of the link as it will appear on the menu in the Link Text box.  Then click add to menu.

Step 6 (optional):
You can also add a category to your menu.  You can choose from Most Used, you can View All (categories will be listed alphabetically) or you can search by category name to add it.  Adding a category is the same as adding a page or a custom link.

Step 7:

You are done!  To save your menu, simply click on the blue Save Menu button.  You can go back and edit your menu at any time, including changing how the menu item name appears on your site and clicking and dragging to reorganize your menu.

If you have taken the time to invest in a custom blog design or custom website design, you want your blog design template to remain updated and functional.  Whether you are a serious blogger or just blogging for fun, you have hired a blog designer to assist you with setting up your blog design and you want to maintain the custom blog design elements while of course growing your blog.  Blog growth means new pages and categories as the goal of a blog design template is to expand your content, offering more interesting articles and advice for your readers, so adding to your navigation menu makes it easy to give your readers a simple way to find your latest content!