Navigation menu help

[Hardwickehunter]

I'm struggling as my theme shows as 'no navigation header' - in the global content editor it shows the menu pillars but on the live site the menu is hidden.

How do I get the navigation menu to show up?

[Hardwickehunter]

 As a note, I have tried removing anything after the .com to nominate the new home page - this doesn't make a difference. For some reason the server wont dismiss the old home page even though its been deleted and its confusing google.

[Hardwickehunter]

It's not in draft it's very much published, I made a new page and deleted the old one. Changed the slug but now it won't identify it as the home page - how do nominate a new home page? Seo keeps showing the old page as a priority and because it doesn't exist anymore it wont show the website.

[Jnix284]

@Hardwickehunter can you share a URL so I can see what's happening directly.

And what do you mean by confusing Google? Did you submit a new sitemap to Google Search Console?

[Hardwickehunter]

Sitemap also wont open the file properly for me is the right url https://wheretogowithendo.com/sitemap.xml ? I entered this into google console and it says couldnt fetch.

If this is wrong where do i find the right url to add to google console? I tried to open the xml code on the hubspot sitemap page and it shows as this

[Hardwickehunter]

Hi Jennifer,

The site url is - wheretogowithendo.com

The site appears if you type it in or paste it into the web bar, but has issues appearing as the main version via seo.

When I run an seo checker it shows a homepage I have deleted (this isn't within hubspot an error isn't shown)

I haven't submitted a new site map to google console could you explain how to do this and what this does?

Does this mean google will identify the new page as the home page? On seo the old delete home page shows as priority 1 and the new home page isn't yet assigned to be a home page, so it shows as any other page - if this makes sense?

[Jnix284]

Hi @Hardwickehunter, thanks for the link and additional details.

The website does in fact work, and the reason it isn't appearing via SERPs is because it isn't indexed - this only happens if you submit your sitemap to Google Search Console .

What SEO checker are you using? The one within HubSpot or an external tool? The old page could still be showing due to caching of the results.

I'm really not following what you mean here, "On seo the old delete home page shows as priority 1 and the new home page isn't yet assigned to be a home page, so it shows as any other page - if this makes sense?"

Can you share a screenshot of what you're referring to as "seo" - this means search engine optimization and is a little vague.

[Hardwickehunter]

Hi Jennifer,

I've now submitted the site map to google console and it shows as fetched - is there another step to make this indexed or does it happen automatically?

does this take a while for it to show up on google? Can you check serps again to see if this has been updated as indexed?

[Jnix284]

Hi @Hardwickehunter yes, that's the correct URL, not sure why it didn't work the first time.

It will take a LONG time to index, your website has little to no domain authority, so the priority for Google to index it is likely very very low on the list.

Expect weeks, if not months.

[Hardwickehunter]

Also just confirming this showed up on serp now? As I'm not sure to do this, trying to find out if switching the settings means my new home page is now visible instead of the old one - thanks 

[Jnix284]

SERP is "search engine results page" and there is nothing that would make your new page show other than indexing, but I also can't find your old page.

If you can see your old page in search results, it is likely because it knows you are the website owner and the search is cached (stored in your browser's memory).

With your old page removed, there is no way for anyone outside of you to access it.

[Hardwickehunter]

When you say little to no domain authority what does this mean? Is there anyway of increasing my chances of appearing quicker?

[Jnix284]

Domain Authority is a score that determines how likely you are to rank in search.

Your website has none, it's too new. This takes time to build, which is true of any "authority" you have to prove your content is valuable to your audience and searchers.

There's no way to speed up indexing, anything you do in Google Search Console (resubmitting the sitemap) will only slow it down because you'll move down in the queue because you've made them think something has changed when it hasn't.

The only thing you can do is have patience, build great content, start getting people to visit your website (link in social, email, etc.), build backlinks and be patient some more 🙂

[Hardwickehunter]

Yeah I keep seeing backlinks are the trick but I don't know how to get them - I don't have many people with websites I can ask a few

You've been super helpful

though when you've asked questions it's made me search, and find the answer in places I probably wouldn't have known to look so thank you!

[Jnix284]

You're welcome @Hardwickehunter, happy to help!

There are a lot of amazing resources out there, definitely check back in with the community if you have questions or want to share something you've learned!

[Hardwickehunter]

Hi Jennifer,

Really sorry thought I'd figured this out but on mobile the navigation menu doesn't show.

I've literally only started using HubSpot 3 weeks ago so I'm still learning it, I'm meant to launch tomorrow but if people can't even see the rest of the website I'm not sure what I can do - can I not edit the mobile version? It says you are in responsive editing move with a lock on it

[Jnix284 · Accepted solution]

@Hardwickehunter typically in a theme you don't set the navigation for mobile from the view you're in, it's usually defined in the theme settings or in the global header - where did you set the desktop menu?

I'm not familiar with the theme you chose (Relxo), but looking at their demo site they have a mobile responsive menu.

Since you were having trouble getting the menu to appear in the first place, I'm wondering if the settings are properly configured within the theme.

The global partial that is showing in the code is showing a variant with no navigation:

I don't know how you created the menu you have currently, it doesn't look like it's using the global header settings though.

I downloaded the theme, here's a quick video to show how to set the desktop and mobile menus in the global header.

[Hardwickehunter]

That link doesn't work do you have another? Thanks 

[Jnix284]

@Hardwickehunter I'm sorry, I cleaned up my loom account and must've deleted the video since it was a few months old. Were you able to get the menu configured within the settings or are you still having trouble?

[Jnix284]

Hi @Hardwickehunter happy to help with your navigation header missing and getting it to show!

If you built the advanced navigation menun in the settings and selected it in the header and it is linked to pages that are in draft, it won't show.

Any draft pages are always hidden from the advanced menu to avoid unpublished content from returning a 404 error.

When you're building your website, you can configure the menu with the "no link" option as shown here:

Which will make the text visible so you can preview it before everything is published.

Then when you're ready to publish your pages, you can update the navigation back to page links:

If you didn't build your menu with the navigation settings (Settings > Website > Navigation Menus) as shown here:

And you built it directly in the header (a simple menu), please share a screenshot of the header settings and I'll be happy to help further.