Header links help visitors find your products, pages, and other content from anywhere on your site. You can add single links, or group related links into a dropdown menu.
In this article, you’ll learn how to add links and dropdown menus to your site’s header.
Overview
Your header links appear on every page that shows your site header. You can add two kinds of links:
Links: Take visitors to a page on your site, one of your products, an email address, a phone number or any web address.
Dropdown menus: Group several links under one link in your header. Visitors open the menu to see the links inside it.
Dropdown menus go one level deep. A link inside a dropdown menu can’t have its own dropdown menu.
The top link of a dropdown menu can work in two ways:
Menu title: Opens the dropdown menu instead of going to a page.
Link: Goes to its own page, and visitors can still open the dropdown menu.
On phones, your header links move into the menu icon at the top of your site. Visitors tap a menu title, or the arrow next to a link, to see the links inside a dropdown menu.
Your changes are saved automatically, but they won’t be visible to visitors until you click Publish.
Adding a link to your header
Here’s how to add a link to your header:
Click directly on the header or use the pen icon on the right to make changes (The site header is the first section of your site!).
In the Links section, click Add link. A link called My Link will be added to the end of your list, and its settings will open.
Enter a name in the Label field to choose the text visitors will see for your link.
Use the link field to enter the URL of the page you want to link to, or select a path from the quick links menu.
Check Open in new tab in the same menu if you’d like the link to open in a new browser tab.
Click Publish at the top of the site editor to publish your changes when you're done.
Creating a dropdown menu
You can create a dropdown menu by dragging links onto another link, or by adding links from a link’s settings.
Adding links from a link’s settings
Here’s how to add new links to a dropdown menu:
In the Links section, click the link you want to use as the dropdown menu.
In the Menu links section, click Add link. A new link will be added to the dropdown menu, and its settings will open.
Enter a Label and a URL for the new link.
Click the back arrow to go back and add more links if you want to.
You can also click Add link under a dropdown menu in the Links section.
Dragging links into a dropdown menu
Here’s how to move a link into a dropdown menu:
In the Links section, click and hold the drag handle next to the link you want to move.
Drag the link onto the middle of the link you want to use as the dropdown menu. That link will be outlined.
Release the link. It will move into that link’s dropdown menu.
Repeat these steps to add more links to the dropdown menu.
Making a dropdown menu’s top link a menu title
By default, the top link of a dropdown menu goes to its own page. Turn it into a menu title if you only want it to open the dropdown menu.
Menu titles show a folder icon and the words Menu title.
Here’s how to make a link a menu title:
In the Links section, click the top link of your dropdown menu.
Toggle on Menu title only. The URL field will be hidden, and the link will open the dropdown menu instead of going to a page.
Reordering links
Here’s how to change the order of your header links:
In the Links section, click and hold the drag handle next to the link you want to move.
Drag the link to the top or bottom edge of another link. A line will show where the link will land.
Release the link to drop it in its new position.
To move a link out of a dropdown menu, drag it between two links in your main list.
To reorder links inside a dropdown menu, drag them within the menu or within the Menu links section of the menu’s settings.
Deleting a link
Here’s how to delete a header link:
Deleting a menu item or dropdown menu also deletes all the links nested within it.
In the Links section, click the link you want to delete.
Click the trash icon at the top of the link’s settings.
Changing your dropdown menu colors
Dropdown menus have their own background and text colors.
By default, the background uses the lightest color in your palette, and the text uses the darkest. The hover and border colors are automatically based on the text color.
To customize these colors, change the Dropdown background and Dropdown text colors. Learn more about changing your site's colors here.
FAQs
Can I add a dropdown menu inside another dropdown menu?
Can I add a dropdown menu inside another dropdown menu?
No. Dropdown menus go one level deep, so a link that already has its own dropdown menu can’t be moved inside another one.
How do dropdown menus work on mobile?
How do dropdown menus work on mobile?
On phones, header links appear in the menu icon at the top of your site. If a dropdown menu’s top link is a menu title, visitors tap it to show the links inside.
If it’s a link, visitors tap its name to go to its page, or tap the arrow next to it to show the links inside.
Why is my dropdown menu white or light gray?
Why is my dropdown menu white or light gray?
This is expected. Dropdown menus use the lightest color in your palette as their background until you change it.
You can pick a different color by following the steps in the Changing your dropdown menu colors section above.
Which font do dropdown menus use?
Which font do dropdown menus use?
Dropdown menus use the same font as your other header links, which is the navigation font. You can change it by following the steps in Managing your site fonts.