Add & Manage Items In Your Footer Navigation

The Footer is an important element for any website. Unless you’re utilizing specific pages as landing pages where you might not want to show your website’s Footer (or Header), in most cases, you’ll likely want to showcase your Footer. Not only can you include helpful information that any visitor can quickly find (like your church’s location, contact information, or privacy statements), you can also include a navigation in your Footer that’s entirely separate from your Header (Main) Navigation Menu.

While it’s not necessary to showcase a navigation menu in your Footer, it can be helpful to keep your Header (Main) navigation menu clean and decluttered, and to also provide easy access to other pages (or next steps) on your website instead of scrolling all the way back up to the top to access the Header navigation. Certain Nucleus Web themes (like the Life Theme) are also designed with showcasing a navigation menu in the Footer in mind, so it’s always good to try it out to see how it fits with your website 😎

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

As explained in our Overview Of Web Navigations, you can choose between three different navigation menus to showcase in your Footer. For simplicity’s sake, let’s stick with showcasing the Footer Navigation Menu (as opposed to the Main or Sitemap.)

In your Design Panel, select Footer in the left sidebar. Click here for a quick link.

Scroll down to Layout & Style. Here, you can select which navigation menu you wish to showcase. Go ahead and choose Footer.

Note: Unlike how you need to toggle on/off to showcase a navigation menu in your Header, the Life Theme is designed to showcase a navigation menu, so there’s no need to toggle on/off to showcase a navigation menu in your Footer

And that’s it! Now whatever you add to your Footer Navigation (which we’ll explore soon) will showcase in your website’s Footer.

Go ahead and click Exit, and then Save & Close.

On any page of your Nucleus Website, you can choose whether to have the Footer (and Header) visible or not. In this guide, we’re exploring how to add a navigation menu to the Footer of your website.

This means when you want to preview your navigation menu (after following the steps below), you’ll need to make sure that the Footer is visible on the page you’re previewing.

The easiest way to do this is by ensuring that the Footer is visible on your homepage. That way, whenever you go to your Preview URL (which takes you to your homepage), the Footer will be visible.

You can quickly do this by going to the Pages Panel in Nucleus Web, and clicking on Edit Homepage. Click here for a quick link.

Next, click on Customize in the left sidebar and make sure the Show Site Footer option is selected. If not, select it.

Then, click Exit and then Save & Close.

11 Types Of Navigation Items

While creating any menu, you have the option of adding 10 different types of items. Each item/action has unique options, so let’s quickly explore each one.

None

Choosing None is great for creating placeholders if you don’t yet have a page or Flow created to connect to this item.

You can also use it as a main item that you anticipate parenting other items under to create a submenu.

Page

Adding a Page item is a great way to link directly to another page on your website. Once selected, you can choose from a dropdown menu of all the pages you’ve created.

Info Card

Adding an Info Card item, you can then select a particular Info Card that you’ve already created in Next Steps here.

When someone clicks on this item, it will open The Launcher to that specific Info Card.

To learn more about what Info Cards are and how to use them, click here.

Flow

Adding a Flow item, you can then select a particular Flow that you’ve already added in your Flows here.

When someone clicks on this item, it will open The Launcher to that specific Flow.

To learn more about creating Flows, click here.

Prayer

Adding a Prayer item, you can then connect either the Prayer Hub or PrayerFlow to that item.

When someone clicks on this item, it will open The Launcher to either the Prayer Hub or PrayerFlow.

To learn more about Nucleus Prayer and how to add the Prayer Hub or PrayerFlow to The Launcher, click here.

Giving

Adding a Giving item, you can then connect your GivingFlow to that item.

When someone clicks on this item, it will open The Launcher directly to the GivingFlow.

To learn more about Nucleus Giving and how to set up your processing account (if not done so already), click here.

Sermons

When you add a Sermon, you can choose a location in your SermonHub to direct people to.

Link to a specific page in your SermonHub, a unique Sermon, a custom created Playlist, or sermons with specific Topics or Scriptures!

URL

Adding a URL item, you can then connect any website link/URL to that item.

Simply type in the specific URL (with the appropriate http:// or https:// in front) and choose whether you want the URL to open in a new tab.

File

Adding a File item, you can upload any typical document, audio, video, or image file that’s 50 MB or less.

Simply drag and drop the file to the designated spot in your Nucleus Dashboard, or click +Add a File which will open a file explorer window on your device.

Email

Adding an Email item, you can add an email address so that, when someone clicks on that menu item, it automatically opens up their dedicated mail app to compose an email on their device with that address pre-populated in the “To” field.

Note: If someone does not have a dedicated email app already programmed into their device, clicking this link will likely not do anything. But by and large, most people have a dedicated email app on their device (especially if using a mobile device).

Phone

Adding a Phone item, you can add a phone number so that, when someone clicks on that menu item, it automatically initiates a phone call sequence on that person’s device.

Note: If someone is using a device that does not have calling capabilities, clicking this link will likely not do anything for them.

To add an item to your Footer Navigation Menu, go to your Navigation Panel in Nucleus Web. Click here for a quick link.

Because it’s not necessary to showcase a navigation in the Footer of your website, you have the option to toggle on/off whether it shows up in your Navigation Panel. If you don’t see your Footer Navigation, simply click Turn On/Off. Make sure Footer Navigation is selected and click Apply Changes (or Cancel if you didn’t make any changes).

Once you can see your Footer Navigation, click to Edit it.

Now you can begin adding items to your Footer. 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.

To add an item that lives “under” a main navigation item, go through the exact same process as explained above. Only this time, before completing that process, click the dropdown menu under Parent / Add Under. Here, you can now add the item you’re currently working on so it exists “under” that item.

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. Below is an example of what that could look like.

After you create your parented item, click Add New.

You’ll notice an arrow beside the name of the item you just added. This denotes that this item is parented under the next item above without that arrow.

You can add as many items under a main item as you’d like. But be careful not to add too many sub items, lest your menu becomes cluttered and feels overwhelming 😰

Reorder & Manage Your Footer Navigation Menu

Once you have multiple items created in your Footer 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.

To delete a navigation item, click the down arrow beside the type of item, and select Delete Nav Item.

Then click Yes, Delete Now.

If you decide you want to delete a main navigation item that has sub-navigation items, doing so will delete all the parented items attached to it. So if you want to still keep those items, you’ll need to edit each one and remove the parent option.

To unparent an item, click on the item’s name. Then click on the Parent dropdown menu, and select the “blank space” at the top of the dropdown list.

Then click Done.

Preview & Publish Your Footer Navigation Menu

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.

As long as you followed the above steps to showcase the Footer Navigation Menu in the Footer of your website, you should now be able to see your navigation items in your 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.

What Next?

Now that you’ve learned how to create a Navigation Menu that appears in your Footer, you can decide whether you want to have a split navigation between your Header and Footer, if you only want navigation items in the Footer, or if you’d rather show no navigation in the footer altogether. Whatever you choose, I’m sure your website will look great!

Now you might have seen the ability to showcase and add items to your website’s Sitemap. This is an advanced feature that most people won’t need to touch. But if you’re interested in learning more about it, we have a guide for that - and others that will help you on your journey to building your Nucleus website!

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