Navigation is how visitors move around your site: the menu at the top of every page and the links in the footer. Every site has one Navigation and one Footer, shared across all pages, and each has its own editor. You do not need to touch code to change them.
- Design → Navigation in the sidebar edits the menu.
- Design → Footer in the sidebar edits the footer.
The logo and site name in both come from Site identity, so change them there.
Edit the menu
The Navigation editor has two tabs, with a live preview beside them. Use the device toggle above the preview to check desktop and mobile.
- Menu: your menu items and buttons. Add an item, give it a label, and choose where it goes. Use the arrows to reorder items, or remove one you no longer need.
- Settings: how the menu looks. Choose a layout (for example logo left with links right, or logo centered with links below), whether to show the logo, whether the menu sticks to the top when visitors scroll, and the dropdown style.
A menu item can hold dropdown items underneath it. Choose Mega menu (full width) as the dropdown style and you can also group dropdown links into sections with a heading and an optional image, and add a panel with an image, heading and link (for example "Most popular" and "View all services"). Menus go up to three levels deep.
Buttons sit beside the menu for your main call to action, such as Contact or Book now. Each button can be solid or outline.
Edit the footer
The Footer editor works the same way. The Links tab holds your link columns, each with a title and its own links. The Settings tab sets the layout (link columns, logo left with links right, centered, or a single minimal row), whether to show the logo and tagline, and the copyright text. Leave the copyright text blank and it is filled in automatically with the current year.
Your social accounts are also managed in the Footer editor. They are the same accounts as in Site identity, so changing them in one place changes both.
Saving applies straight away
Unlike pages, the Navigation and Footer editors have no draft step. When you click Save, the change appears on every page of your live site at once. Use the preview before saving, and check both desktop and mobile.
For a large rework of the menu that you want to review before it goes live, make the change on a staging site and promote it when you are happy. The menu and footer move across with everything else.
Decide what goes in the menu
Keep the main menu short. Five to seven items is a reasonable ceiling. Every item you add makes the others harder to notice, and on a phone a long menu becomes a scrolling list.
A few things that consistently work:
- Name items after what the visitor wants, not after your internal structure. "Pricing" beats "Commercial Information".
- Put the thing most people came for early in the menu.
- Use a button for one clear action (Contact, Book, Get a Quote) so it stands apart from the rest.
- Group related pages under a parent item rather than listing eight services across the top.
The footer can carry more: secondary pages, your privacy policy and terms, your address, social links. Nobody expects the footer to be short.
Link to internal pages properly
This is the one thing on this page that will save you real trouble later.
Every link in the Navigation and Footer editors can point at a Page or a URL. When a link goes to one of your own pages, choose Page and pick it from the list rather than typing its address. A link created that way is bound to the page itself. If someone later changes the page's slug or moves it under a different parent, the link follows and keeps working.
A typed address is just text. It does not know it points at your page. Rename the page and the menu item quietly starts leading to a not-found page. This is easy to miss, because you are unlikely to click your own navigation while testing the page you just renamed.
If you are auditing an existing site, checking that internal links use Page rather than a typed URL is a good use of an hour.
Add external links
External links point somewhere off your site, such as your Google Business profile, a booking system or a social account. Choose URL and paste the full address including https://. An address without it can be treated as a page on your own site and go nowhere.
Turn on Open in new tab for booking systems and social profiles, so the visitor does not lose your site. Do not do it for links between your own pages; opening a new tab for those is disorienting and clutters the visitor's browser.
External links break without warning when the other site reorganizes. Check them a couple of times a year.
Check navigation after saving
- Load your live site and click every menu item and footer link once. Two minutes here catches most problems.
- Check on a phone. Menus collapse at narrow widths, and one item too many can push the layout around.
- Make sure the page you are currently on is indicated in the menu if your design does that.
If you remove a page that is in your navigation, check the Page Usage information on that page first. It shows where the page is referenced, so you know what will be left pointing at nothing.
Changing the design
The editors cover the content and the common settings. To change how the menu or footer is built, click Edit design in the editor. It opens the component's code, which saves as a draft and goes live when you publish, like any other component. See Working with components.
If you see a "Heads up" note at the top of the editor, it means something stops your settings from reaching the site. Either a layout does not include the navigation or footer, or a layout passes fixed values that override the editor. The note names the layout to fix. A setting marked Not used by your design has no effect because a customized design does not use it.