Pros and Cons of Using Mega Menus in WordPress

If you are about to use mega menu in WordPress, then check these Pros and Cons before finalizing your decision. Personally, I’m a big fan of these complex and giant mega menus but everything has its own limitations. There are many WordPress Themes with Mega Menus out there, but you have to know the advantages and disadvantages before actually using them.

So before proceeding further I highly recommend you to check demos of some mega menus and this way you can better understand this article.Once done with the checking of demos you will get a clear idea on working and functioning of mega menus. Now see the pros and cons of using those mega menus in WordPress.

Pros of Using Mega Menus in WordPress

Here are some interesting things related to mega menu that will make you say WOW at the end. As mega menus are at just starting point and not everyone knows about them, so I considered some major advantages only.

Great Look and Feel: In most of the cases, mega menus look attractive with vibrant colors and cool backgrounds. Just check some WordPress Themes with Mega Menus and normal horizontal menus. You can immediately notice the difference between them. Also some elements like graphic icons, call-to-action buttons, columns etc will be there in mega menus and they are the reason behind great look and feel.

User Experience: Mega Menu gives better user experience and whenever mouse is hovered complete items will be displayed. The tall standing mega menu will be attractive and the things included in it will get better visibility. And when the mouse is moved away, normal horizontal menu will be displayed (this is how mega menus work). So this complete mega menu can be considered as a clutter free widget or add-on.

Better Conversions: Based on many experiments and case studies, its concluded that Mega Menus helps to get better conversion rates. Lets consider an eCommerce store and some products listed in the mega menu. Whenever user clicks on the menu, products will be displayed immediately which will surely grab the user attention. So chances of turning visitors into customers are high.

And many other small things which can or cannot be considered based on the particular requirements. So enough with the pros and now lets move on to check some cons also.

Check out other useful articles in our “Pros and Cons” series.

Cons of Using Mega Menus in WordPress

Well there are quite a few Cons also which will make you think to decide whether to go for mega menu or not. These points can also be considered as disadvantages of using mega menus in WordPress.

Not Necessary: It is not always necessary to have a mega menu. So first of all, you need to check whether there is a need to implement mega menu or not. If your website is not related to eCommerce, then you can list things in a single page rather than going for a mega menu. There is lot of code and functionality behind mega menu, so if you don’t need it, then simply forget about it. This way you can also improve page loading speed.

Not Good for SEO: A mega menu whether it’s a smaller one or a bigger one will certainly includes too many links that are pointing towards the same websites. So having those many internal links at a single place is not good as it makes search engine crawlers take more time to crawl them all. Chances of considering those bulk links as SPAM will be high. So any mega menu should be a mix-up of links, text, images etc.

Not Easy to Setup: Yes, its not that easy to setup a mega menu and I have personally experienced this. It will surely take more time to add elements to every single column. In most of the premium WordPress themes shortcodes are available and they can be used in the mega menus too. If you are including images, videos etc media stuff into the menu then you have to take care of their width and height properties.

These days there is a lot of buzz for responsive WordPress themes and any sort of menus whether it’s a simple horizontal one or a highly complex mega menu, only links to the parent elements will be displayed on mobile devices.

Apart from these any mega menu uses some CSS, JS files which will effect the loading speed of WordPress. So if you are looking to Speed Up WordPress then use WP Minify Plugin.

All these things are based on my personal experience and I think I have covered all important aspects. If I missed anything or if you want to share your personal experience in using a mega menu then raise your voice by dropping a comment here.