7 plugins to boost your WordPress menu

When you sit at a restaurant table, there is inevitably one element that you look forward to: the presentation of the different menus.

An appealing menu makes you salivate and whets your appetite. It makes you want to take a first bite, right? Yummy.

On a WordPress site, it’s quite similar. An attractive menu with content adapted to the needs of your visitors makes it easier to navigate, and encourages them to continue visiting your pages.

To achieve such a result, it is wise, even essential to enable a plugin to improve your WordPress menu, or to manage it more finely.

To help you find your way through the jungle of plugins available on the official directory, I have selected 7 plugins.

Thanks to them, you’ll be able to add options to your menu that WordPress doesn’t offer natively.

Have I made you drool? Let’s start the tasting right now!

How to create a good menu on WordPress?

Before we get into the presentation and study the different plugins to improve WordPress menus, it is necessary to lay the foundations.

Looking to improve your menu is fine, but there is a prerequisite. You need to know how to design a good menu. It goes without saying, right?

What exactly is a good menu? Let’s just say that it has certain key characteristics:

• It must be clear and concise, with clear and understandable headings. For example, the item (a clickable link, in fact) leading to your Contact page should not be called “Contact details”.
• It should not contain too many elements. For a classic showcase site, try not to exceed 6 to 7 headings at most, otherwise the whole thing will become indigestible.
• It should include few or no sub-menus, always with the idea that the general understanding for your visitors will not be sacrificed. A menu that is too cluttered and full of elements is rarely readable. Moreover, sub-menus can complicate the work of crawl (exploration of your pages) of search engines like Google.
• Its appearance must be impeccable, with clearly visible elements and, if possible, in line with your style guide.
• It must be responsive, that is to say that its display must be impeccable on any type of device (computer, smartphone, tablet).
• The most important elements must be positioned at the beginning of the menu, most of the time on the left of your header.
  Why? Well, because we remember more easily the elements we see first. Pages related to your business (e.g. presentation of your services) should be located at the beginning of your menu, which is why you rarely see the “Contact” section at the beginning.

Having a well-designed menu is very effective for the UX (user experience) that you will offer to your visitors. If the navigation is simple and they can easily find what they are looking for, you multiply the chances to keep them on your site. In return, you give yourself more opportunities to:

• Limit your bounce rate, which search engines don’t like very much.
• Increase your conversions, by encouraging your visitors to perform the action you want them to perform in priority (e.g. buy a product, subscribe to your newsletter, etc.). If you have a WooCommerce store, this is very important.

To put all of this into practice in real life, and design a great menu, I have a great resource for you: our tutorial to teach you how to manage and optimize WordPress menus like a pro.

Why add features to the WordPress menu?

By now, you may be asking yourself one question, related to the theme of this post: why add features to your WordPress menu?

In fact, there are two main reasons why you might want to do so:

• The customization options natively offered by WordPress are not sufficient, compared to your aspirations. For example, you can’t create a mega menu without getting your hands into the code.
• Depending on the theme you use, you will have more or less settings to enrich and customize your menu.
  While some themes like Astra or Kadence offer advanced settings, you may not find the features you need.

7 plugins to improve WordPress menus

So, this time, we are there. Let’s review 7 plugins to improve WordPress menus. As it was impossible for me to present you all the plugins on the subject, here are the criteria I chose for this selection:

• The Plugin should be on the official WordPress directory, so that you can enjoy a free version, at least.
• The plugin should have been tested at least with the last three major updates of WordPress. An up-to-date plugin, and more generally an up-to-date WordPress site, is essential to avoid compatibility issues and to reinforce the security of your site.
  This criterion naturally excluded a plugin like If Menu from this test, for example.
• The WordPress menu plugin had to display an overall rating of at least 4 stars out of 5. Plugins that have already won over a good panel of users are often a guarantee of quality.
• The plugin had to register at least 5,000 active installations, which is why you won’t find any trace of FullScreen Menu, for example.

Max Mega Menu, the plugin to create a WordPress mega menu

Active installations: 400K+

Max Mega Menu “automatically converts your existing menu into a mega menu”. But what is a mega menu?

It is an expandable menu, which is revealed for example by mouse hovering, showing all the navigation options at a glance. It is often found on large ecommerce sites, which offer many categories and sub-categories of items.

A mega menu is not suitable for all sites and must be used wisely. In other words, if you have a classic showcase site with a handful of pages, don’t go for it. It would have no interest at all.

If your site hosts a lot of contents, then why not. In this case, Max Mega Menu can be a great ally.

It is the most popular plugin in the directory for designing this type of menu. At this point, you can imagine that it has a few advantages.

In Max Mega Menu, we appreciate:

• The integration of the settings to the native WordPress menu interface.

• The drag and drop system, which makes the plugin easy to use and suitable for beginners.
• The possibility to specify your responsive breakpoints, for a perfect display on different screen sizes.
• The numerous settings, especially for the appearance of your mega menu. You can for example define the background color, add icons on the different elements of your menu, etc.
• It is possible to organize your sub-menu items in rows and columns.
• Automatic support of native touchscreen events.

The little extra: you can enable the display of the mega menu on mouseover or click.

Max Mega Menu also has a premium version, available from $29/year for one site.

Among the dozen or so additional options offered, there is the possibility to design a sticky mega menu (fixed to scroll), change the orientation of the menu from horizontal to vertical format, or integration and support for WooCommerce and Easy Digital Downloads.

What about other mega menu plugins? If Max Mega Menu is the most popular plugin in the official directory to set up a mega menu, it is not the only one. 😉 You can also find QuadMenu or WP Mega Menu. For information, I present them to you in this detailed test.

Download Max Mega Menu:

WP Mobile Menu, to design a responsive menu

Active installations: 100K+

WP Mobile Menu is a WordPress menu plugin that offers to enhance the engagement of your visitors on the mobile version of your site, in other words when they visit it on their smartphone.

To do this, it offers different options to customize the appearance of your menu, and make it more attractive, with the aim of encouraging your visitors to click on the links.

Offering an effective menu on smartphones should be part of a more global objective, aiming at making your site optimized for all screen sizes.

It is fundamental for the user experience, since you will facilitate the navigation through your contents.

It is also fundamental in terms of SEO, since Google takes into account the mobile version of your site when browsing and indexing your pages in its directory.

Depending on the theme you use, the options to create a responsive menu on mobile will not always be very appealing. WP Mobile Menu can fill this gap, as you will see just below.

In WP Mobile Menu, we appreciate:

• The settings interface, pleasant to use, practical and clear (there is a video to get started).
• The possibility to choose between two mobile menu styles (“hamburger” and “header”), and also two options to display your menu (on the left or on the right of the screen).

• The fact that no code knowledge is required to make adjustments to your mobile menu.
• Extensive options for the font of your menu items. For example, you can adjust the spacing between letters.
• The possibility to hide some menu items very easily, with a simple click.
• The import-export of your menus is proposed.

The little extra: You can add an overlay, that is to say a layer of color of your choice, on the background of your menu.

WP Mobile Menu has a paid version starting at $6.49/month for use on one site. You can for example disable your menu on some pages, or make it visible only to logged-in users.

The pro version of this WordPress menu plugin is interesting, but can be pricey (up to $89.99/year).

Be sure to check the options offered by your theme before considering an investment, knowing that the cheapest premium license does not offer WooCommerce features (i.e. you won’t be able to add a Shopping Cart icon in the menu).

What about other plugins to create a mobile menu? Among the competitors of WP Mobile Menu on the official directory, I came across WP Responsive Menu and Responsive Menu.

Download WP Mobile Menu:

myStickymenu, to build a fixed menu on top of the screen

Active installations: 100K+

Look at the header of this WordPress site. This site has implemented a very practical process so that its menu stays permanently at the top of the screen.

Colloquially speaking, we call it a sticky menu. Concretely, as soon as a visitor scrolls a little on a page, the menu remains visible at the top of the screen.

Always displayed on the screen, the menu helps visitors to navigate easily between your contents and to find their way if they get lost.

In order to set up this kind of nice menu, you can rely on the myStickymenu plugin, which does not lack benefits.

In myStickymenu, we appreciate:

• The sober and efficient dashboard of the plugin’s settings. To enable your sticky menu, you just have to enable the relevant option.

• The settings: there are not a lot of them and it’s not all bad news. Here, we go to the essential to avoid getting lost in complex menus.
• The possibility to disable the sticky menu from a certain screen size (in pixels).
• You can change the text and background color when your menu is pinned.
• You can set up fade or slide effects when the pinned menu appears.

The little extra: as a bonus, myStickymenu has an option to display a welcome bar at the top of your screen. Of course, it will belong to the sticky menu as well. 😉 You can use it to display an information or a promotional message, for example.

A Pro version of this WordPress menu plugin is available from $25/year for use on 1 site.

You can for example disable the “sticky” effect on desktop or mobile, add effects (opacity, fade, slide), or exclude pages on which you do not want the sticky menu to appear.

What about other plugins to create a sticky menu? If myStickymenu doesn’t suit you, have a look at one of its competitors: Sticky Menu & Sticky Header. I found its interface less easy to use than myStickymenu, but you could still like it. For your information, we have tested it on the blog.

Download myStickymenu:

Menu Icons, a plugin to add icons to your menu

Active installations: 200K+

Need to spice up your menu, especially in terms of visual appearance? Stop everything you do (except reading), I may have what you need in store.

My new find allows you to add icons to your menu items, with just a few clicks.

With this, you will be able to offer a more visually appealing menu, as long as you don’t overuse the icons. Remember: the whole should remain consistent and readable.

For your information, Menu Icons (that’s the name of the plugin) is developed and maintained by the ThemeIsle team, which is also behind the Neve theme (300K+ active installations). 

In Menu Icons, we appreciate:

• The integration of options to the native WordPress menu interface (if you don’t use a Full Site Editing compatible theme).
• The ease of use and handling. Once enabled, this WordPress menu plugin does not require any setting. You just have to select the icons you want in the menu items of your choice.

• The different types of icons offered, with integration to Font Awesome, Genericons or Fontello, for example.
• The strength of the plugin, available since 2014 and regularly updated by a committed team.
• The excellent user reviews (4.9/5 at the time of writing). This is the highest rated plugin for adding icons to a WordPress menu on the official directory.

The little extra: All the options of Menu Icons are available for free.

What about other plugins to add icons to your WordPress menu? Do you want to test the competition and see what they have in store? Test the Menu Image and WP Menu Icons plugins, for example.

Download Menu Icons:

User Menus, a plugin to control the visibility of your menus

Active installations: 100K+

Next name on our test list: User Menus. This WordPress menu plugin will not help you to improve or customize the visual appearance of your menu.

However, it does give you extensive control over the visibility of your menu items. You can choose to display them or not, according to certain criteria, among which:

• Whether the visitor is logged in or not.
• The user role.

By default, WordPress offers several roles (e.g. Administrator, Editor, Author, Contributor and Subscriber), each of which can perform different tasks.

In User Menus, we appreciate:

• The ease of use of the plugin. You don’t have to enter any preliminary setting before you can take advantage of the options of User Menus.
• Like Menu Icons, User Menus features are integrated into the native WordPress menu interface.
• The possibility to choose which roles can view all or part of your menu items.

• The absence of a premium version. You can enjoy all the options of the plugin for free.

The little extra: It is also possible to add a sign up or login/logout button in the menu of your site, with the possibility to redirect to the URL of your choice.

What about other plugins to control the visibility of your menus? For your information, you should know that the Nav Menu Roles plugin offers roughly the same options as User Menus.

Download User Menus:

Login Logout Menu, to add a login/logout button to your menu

Active installations: 20K+

When presenting the previous plugin, I told you about the possibility to integrate a login/logout button to your menu.

Now that you’re in the thick of it, let’s dive in! The WordPress menu plugin I talk about now specifically offers this action.

Namely, as detailed in its description on the official directory, “Login Logout Menu plugin will help you to add the dynamic login and logout menu to any menu of your WordPress website“.

This feature can come in handy if your site has a membership area, for example.

In Login Logout Menu, we appreciate:

• The quick and easy handling. Again, even if I’m repeating myself, this plugin offers these options on the native WordPress menu creation interface.
• You can add up to 6 additional links in your menu: Login, Logout, Login/Logout, Register, Profile and User.
  For the record, while WordPress does offer a handy native “Login/Logout” block, it only allows you to display that option.
  So you have a few more options with the Login Logout Menu.
• Each navigation label can be modified with the text of your choice.

• The plugin is able to dynamically adapt the display of the label of the login/logout items. For example, when a user is logged in, he will only see a link to log out. Inversely, only a link to log in will be visible when they are logged out.
• The plugin is 100% free.

The little extra: it is possible to add the links of your choice in any page or article, using a shortcode.

Download Login Logout Menu:

Elementor, to design advanced menus… but not only

Active installations: 5M+

Now let’s talk about a plugin of a special kind, since it is a page builder.

With more than 10 million users, Elementor is the most popular page builder in the WordPress ecosystem.

Among its many options, this hyper powerful tool allows for example to create very advanced menus in its premium version, called Elementor Pro (affiliate link).

Sit back, it’s time for the show.

In Elementor, we appreciate:

• The fact that you can use the page builder without touching a single line of code.
• The real-time visualization of all the additions and changes made to your menu.
• The advanced customization options ranging from the layout of your menu (horizontal or vertical), to its visual appearance, or to the various animations you can add (e.g. mouseover).

• The very fine management of the responsive of your menu, with the possible adjustment of the various breaking points according to the size of the screen of your visitor.
• In general, the possibility to create your site from scratch with Elementor, and not only a complete menu.

The little extra: the ecosystem around Elementor. If you don’t use Elementor Pro, there are many add-ons that help you to create an advanced menu, sometimes for free. Discover our selection on the WPMarmite blog.

Elementor is available in a free version, but it is logically limited in terms of options: it does not offer a widget to create a menu.

To design professional WordPress sites with limitless possibilities, Elementor Pro will be essential. It is offered from $49/year for a use on 1 site.

What about other page builders? In the page builder family, there are other must-have tools. Most of them also offer options and modules to create and enhance your menu. For more details, find our presentation of 10 page builders. For example, Divi Builder or Beaver Builder.

Download Elementor:

They could also have been on the menu of this test

As you can imagine, it is impossible to talk in detail about all the plugins that allow you to create or customize menus on WordPress. We would be overwhelmed.

As a bonus, I wanted to share with you some additional plugins that came up during my research.

They could very well meet some of your expectations. For example, I could mention:

• WooCommerce Menu Cart, to automatically add a button displaying the Shopping Cart of your WooCommerce store.
• Iks Menu is a menu plugin on WordPress to design an accordion-like menu, to be integrated for example in a sidebar.
• Duplicate Menu and Menu Duplicator to duplicate your menus in a few clicks.
• Menu Item Visibility Control to enable/disable the display of some menu items on front-end (the visible interface of your site).
• Advanced Sidebar Menu to generate a menu that automatically integrates the hierarchy of pages or categories.

Which WordPress menu plugin to choose?

As you’ve seen throughout these lines, there are a multitude of plugins to improve menus on WordPress.

You can use them to create a sticky menu or a mega menu, or even to add icons and control the visibility of some items.

When making your choice, I recommend to pay attention to the following elements:

• Your needs. Don’t install a WordPress menu plugin because it looks good to you or because your best friend uses it. It must first solve a problem you have.
• The options offered natively by WordPress and especially by your theme. The theme you are using may well offer advanced options to customize your menu. Ensure to check this out before activating a plugin that could be duplicated.
• Look at the ratings and user reviews. The more positive they are, the more likely you are to find an effective plugin.
• Choose a regularly updated plugin over one that has been left behind. It’s safer in terms of security.
• Read the description of the plugin to understand exactly what features it offers. And make sure they are appropriate for your needs.
• Make your own opinion by testing the plugin(s) you are interested in. Just because a plugin has an excellent reputation and very good user feedback doesn’t mean it will work for you. To avoid any risk of incompatibility, enable them first on a test environment (locally or on a staging site, for example).

Is it all good for you? The floor is now yours.

Which WordPress menu plugin do you use, and why such a choice? I look forward to hearing from you in the comments.