Create Your Website Navigation Menu(s)

After you’ve set up your homepage and created all your web pages, it’s time to make it easy to access them all. Not only is a navigation menu a great way to accomplish this, but anyone familiar with browsing the web has come to expect some form of navigation menu on any website they go to (with the exception of a landing page). So whether you want to fill yours with lots of items or keep it simple, we highly recommend creating at least one on your website.

In this guide, we'll cover the following topics. Click on any one to jump ahead.

2 Places To Access Your Navigation

With Nucleus Web, you can add a navigation menu to your site’s Header and Footer. While you aren’t required to have menus in both locations, we recommend having a menu accessible in at least one of those places. That way, people are able to access all the wonderful pages you’ve taken the time and effort to create. (Oh, and that way people are more likely to be able to take their next step toward Christ!)

While editing the Design of your website, you can manage what section of your website (Header and/or Footer) shows a navigation menu. And from there, also select which navigation menu it displays.

Header Navigation

To display a navigation menu in the Header of your website, go to your Design Panel, and select Header in the left sidebar. Click here for a quick link.

Then click on Turn On/Off Content.

Select Navigation and then Apply Changes.

Note: You may have already done this earlier in your website creation journey. Just be sure that Navigation is selected / turned on.

Now, there should be an area title Navigation where you can select which menu you want to display in the Header of your website: Main, Footer, or Sitemap.

While you can technically choose whichever one you wish, we recommend selecting Main just for simplicity’s sake.

While the Footer Navigation Menu will simply exist in the Footer, a Navigation Menu showcased in the Header will actually be "hidden" behind a toggle switch in the top right corner.

When clicked on, it will open an overlay, revealing the navigation menu chosen to be showcased.

On desktop, the menu will load on the right side, with an image on the left side.

To edit the image showcased in the Header Navigation Menu, while still editing the Design of your Header, scroll down to Style & Behavior.

Under the color palettes, you can upload a new image from your device and choose how to scale and tile the image.

Footer Navigation

To display a navigation menu in the Footer of your website, go to your Design Panel, and select Footer in the left sidebar. Click here for a quick link.

Scroll down to the Layout & Style area. Here, you can choose which menu you want to display in the Footer of your website: Main, Footer, Sitemap, or None.

The Design Panel of Nucleus automatically saves any changes you make, so once you’re happy with your navigation choices, click Exit and then Save & Close.

3 Types Of Navigation Menus

As explored above, you can choose from three different types of navigation menus to showcase in your website’s Header and Footer: Main, Footer, or Sitemap. (You could technically showcase the same menu in both locations, or mix it up and put the Footer Navigation in your Header, but why make it more confusing for yourself? 😄)

To find your navigation menus, click Navigation in the main menu. Click here for a quick link.

Here, you can manage and build each of your menus for your website.

If you plan on not utilizing one or more of your menus, you can turn them off entirely by clicking Turn On/Off and deselecting them from the list. Then click Apply Changes.

When you’re ready to start building your menu, click on the Edit button.

If you’ve published changes to a menu that you wish to change back, you can click the down arrow and select Revert.

Build & Manage Your Navigation Menu(s)

No matter which navigation menu you choose to build, the process is exactly the same. To begin, go to your Navigation Panel in Nucleus Web, and click to Edit on the menu you wish to build.

Then, click the + Add New button to reveal all the types of actions you can link to each item in your navigation menu.

First, give your item a name. Then choose which type of action you want for the item and complete the unique option that appears for each type of action. Then click Add New.

Fantastic! Now that you’ve created your first navigation item, let’s create another.

Clicking again on the + Add New button, follow the same steps laid out above. Only this time, you’ll notice there is now an option to Parent / Add Under. This allows you to choose whether this new item will exist on its own or if you want to add it under the item you just created.

Using the Parent option is helpful if you have several navigation items and need to file them together in groups. For instance, if you have a navigation item titled “Small Groups”, you could have individual items parented under “Small Groups”, each for a different small group your church offers.

Once you have multiple items created in your navigation menu, you can reorder them so they appear in your desired sequence. Simply click the two lines on the item, drag it up/down to your desired spot, and release it there.

Preview & Publish Your Navigation Menu(s)

Once you’re happy with your navigation menu, you can publish it immediately by clicking the Publish button. Unlike when publishing pages, there are no options to set a “publish in the future” date/time, so when you click this button, it will immediately publish the changes you’ve made to that particular navigation menu.

But don’t worry! You can always revert the published changes. (More on that below.)

Regardless if you’ve published your changes or you’d rather just save them and publish them later, you can click Exit and then select Save & Close. (Or Discard Changes if you’d rather not save any of the edits you just made.)

This takes you back to the main Navigation Panel where you can build and manage all your other navigation menus in the exact same way you just did.

If you published your navigation menu and wish to revert those changes, click the down arrow on the menu in question, and select Revert.

Here, you can type REVERT in all caps and select Yes, Revert Changes.

If you’re more cautious and would rather preview your navigation menu before publishing your changes, before you click the Publish button, click Exit and then Save & Close.

Then, click on View Site in the main menu and select Preview URL.

Depending on what navigation menu you just edited, and depending on where that navigation menu appears on your site , you can either click on the hamburger menu icon in the top right corner of your website or scroll down to the bottom to your Footer. (i.e. In the above section 2 Places To Access Your Navigation, did you link it to your Header or Footer?)

Note: Clicking on the Preview URL opens a new tab. To go back to your Nucleus Dashboard, simply click on the correct tab in your browser.

Manage Your Sitemap (Advanced)

Your Sitemap is a type of navigation that search engines (like Google) can use to properly file your website and understand how your website is linked together.

But unless you have an extremely large site (i.e. 500 pages or more), and as long as your website contains a good navigation menu (i.e. not too simplistic) and your pages are thoroughly linked (i.e. you don’t have a bunch of standalone pages with no way of getting to them), the chances of you needing to worry about creating a separate sitemap is very slim.

To learn more about sitemaps, Google has a great explanation here.

You can build and manage your sitemap navigation menu in the same way that you create your Main (Header) and Footer Navigations, so you can follow the steps laid out above here.

Whether you create your own sitemap in your Navigation Panel or not, you can decide exactly which navigation Nucleus uses for your website’s sitemap.

To begin, under Manage, choose Site Settings. Then select Sitemap.

With Use Navigation (Default) selected, you can choose between using the Sitemap, Main, or Footer navigation for the sitemap that Nucleus presents to search engines.

If you don’t have a unique sitemap navigation created, choose the most comprehensive navigation here.

Note: You can choose to not have a sitemap presented to search engines by select None. However, this will present less information for search engines to use for search results, which will impact how well people can find your website online.

Don’t forget to save your changes!

What Next?

Once you have the basic design of your website taken care of, and all your pages and navigation menus built, you’re well on your way to having a fully functional website!

At this point, it’s good to go back to your Design Panel here and finetune all the options available to you there. Now that you have a good bulk of your website built (namely your pages and navigation), you can better see what options affect which elements of your website.

Otherwise, you’re close to completing your website and might soon be ready to present it to the world! But before you get too carried away, why don’t you check over any other settings you might have missed.

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