Add a WordPress Menu-Bar to Your Blog

There are many ways to add menubars to your WordPress blog.

You can certainly modify your WordPress theme template and have unlimited flexibility in creating a menubar from scratch, but that usually requires a lot of time and work.

Here, we explore how you can easily add menubars to your WordPress blog right from your WordPress dashboard. No CSS, Javascript, or PHP knowledge required, and no editing of your WordPress theme files needed.

There are four easy ways to do this -

This method is simple, but the results are not very pretty, and the menubar is limited to a list of links.

1. Click on Appearance >> Widgets.
2. Click and open up your menubar widget area on the right column.
   
3. Pick a Text Widget from the middle column and drag and drop it into the widget area on the right.
4. Open up the Text Widget and paste the HTML code below into it. Change the HTML links and link text to your own sites.
5. Refresh your blog and a list of links will appear in your menubar widget area.

If you are not familiar with Text Widgets, consider reading Add Google AdSense to Your WordPress Blog for a visual step by step tutorial on Text Widgets.

There are a variety of WordPress themes that come with built-in menubars. First, create a menubar by going into Appearance >> Menus (WordPress 3.0 and above). Drop custom links, pages, or categories into your custom menubar. Then assign your custom menubar to your theme in the Theme Locations box (top left area of the Appearance >> Menus screen).

Using a theme with a built-in menubar will allow you to create compelling menubars for your blog with very little time and effort. In addition, the menubar will fit in well with the visual design of your entire blog because it is part of the blog theme.

However, its strength is also its weakness. Different themes may provide different menubar functions, and some of them may be limited to just single links, with no drop-down menu support. In addition, the native WordPress menubar interface does not allow you to easily add page, category, or archive trees from your blog.

If you like the functions provided by the menubar of a given theme, you must also accept other aspects of the theme, including its visual design. Because of this, having a menubar that is integrally tied to your blog theme may limit the flexibility of other aspects of your blog functions and design.

This is a great way to get menubar support because it is not theme specific. You can use any WordPress theme that you like, and your menubar functions, settings, and design will move with your from theme to theme.

There are a variety of menubar plugins. The Shiba menubar plugin extends native WordPress custom menu functionality so that you may easily add page, category, and archive trees from your blog into your menubar. The plugin also includes javascript to enable drop-down menu capability.

To install the Shiba menubar plugin, just go to your WordPress dashboard.

1. Download the plugin zip from http://shibashake.com/wordpress-theme/wordpress-menubar-plugin.
   
2. Open your WordPress Dashboard. Click on Appearance >> Plugins >> Add New.
3. Click on the Upload link at the top.
4. You will be asked to select a plugin file. Pick the shiba-menubar.zip file that you downloaded on step 1.
5. After selecting the zip file click on Install Now.
6. Click on the Activate Plugin link.
7. Once the plugin is active, you will be able to add page, category and archive trees from your blog using the standard WordPress Appearance >> Menus interface. Assign your menubar to your theme as you would normally, and drop-down menus will be automatically enabled using the MenuMatic javascript that comes with the plugin.
   

The easiest and most flexible way to include a menubar into your blog is to use a menubar-ready WordPress theme. I.e., a theme that automatically supports a menubar plugin.

The Shiba WordPress theme is menubar-ready. It will automatically create a style for your menubar that changes color according to the color scheme of your blog.

In short, all you have to do is install and activate the menubar plugin.

1. Then, go to Appearance >> Widgets.
   
2. Get a Custom Menu Widget and drop it into the menubar widget area to the right.
   
3. Pick the custom menubar you created for your blog. Click on the Save button on the Menubar Widget.
   
4. Refresh your blog and a menubar should appear right below the header image.

You can change the color scheme of your blog anytime you want using the Custom Colors interface in the Shiba theme, and your menubar will update its color accordingly. If you change themes, you menubar plugin and all of its settings will remain intact.

When properly applied and styled, menubars can significantly improve the maneuverability of your blog, and enhance the blog experience for your users. Enjoy your menubars!

Join HubPages and use it to help drive traffic to your home blog or website.