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18+ Popular Sidebar Navigation Menu WordPress Themes

Last Updated on March 5th, 2024

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Is the content on your website disorganized? Or Are there a lot of navigation issues on your website? Then, the best way to get out of this issue is to leverage the best WordPress sidebar navigation menu theme. 

By integrating any of the WordPress themes with sidebar, you can keep the entire content on the site organized, thus offering a pleasing user experience. Whether you are a blogger, developer, WordPress enthusiast, or business owner, the right WordPress sidebar menu theme can change the entire trajectory of your site, draw audience attention, offer them enhanced user experience, and keep them engaged. 

With so many WordPress themes for sidebar, it becomes challenging to choose one. Don’t worry, as we have done the homework for you. We have scoured the entire web and tested many themes to shortlist the best ones. 

Here we have the best WordPress themes with sidebar navigation. We have mentioned their features, pros, and cons so that you can decide which one is best for you. All of the WordPress sidebar menu themes we included in this guide are beginner-friendly, but experts can also use them

1. OceanWP

ocean wp wordpress theme

Ocean WP is a lightweight, beginner-friendly WordPress theme with great features. 

The best thing is that the theme comes with 220+ demos, 22+ extensions, 7 customizable header styles, a top bar, three mobile menu styles, and custom sections are some of its most notable features. Moreover, this theme offers a custom page layout, ocean Elementor widgets, fonts, global site layouts, and typography. It has been designed with the best SEO practices in mind. 

In addition, you can integrate it with Toolset, Brizy, Beaver Builder, Divi, and WPML. What’s great about Ocean WP is that it is WooCommerce-ready. The theme doesn’t need you to have coding expertise, as it has been designed for beginners and experts. The best part is that you don’t have to spend a dime creating sidebars, adding widgets, or using other features. 

Pros

  • It can be customized
  • It is fully responsive
  • It is accessibility-ready
  • It is translation ready
  • It is fast loading

Cons

  • It lacks compatibility with speed optimization plugins
  • The customizer can be overwhelming for some users

Get OceanWP

2. Divi

A truly multipurpose flagship theme from Elegant Themes, the Divi theme enables any WordPress developer to build beautiful sites, through its useful set of high-quality templates and the powerful drag-and-drop website builder tool. 

Use Divi themes layouts combined with the builder’s point-and-click interface to create custom page designs. Its content and design editor facilitates arranging elements on each page and processing photos too! 

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The Divi sidebar menu theme has powerful options, including a side menu, mega menu, global elements, and styles, featuring multiple page layouts, left menu, top header, header layout, shortcodes, unlimited header, title area layouts, footer, parallax image, and title layouts. Furthermore, it’s compatible with most page builders too! 

There’s also a no-questions-asked, 30-day money-back guarantee on all purchases. Because of this, you can try the themes and plugins risk-free.

Pros

  • Highly Customizable
  • Tons of premade designs
  • Now includes a popup builder
  • Retina Ready
  • Responsive & Speed Optimized
  • 24/7 support

Cons

  • Certain Divi elements cannot be nested within other Divi elements within a web page.
  • SEO integration is not the best
  • Some Divi specific plugins may not mesh well

Get Divi

3. Kadence Theme

Kadence Theme helps you to simplify the WordPress site development. By importing starter templates, users can directly customize content using Kadence blocks, ensuring efficiency. 

This versatile theme from Kadence WP boasts a neutral visual design, allowing flexible adjustments through starter templates. With both free and Pro versions available for the theme and blocks, Kadence accelerates website building while providing aesthetic pre-designed layouts and extensive customization options. 

The Kadence theme offers a header and footer builder for creating the header and footer of the website using a drag-and-drop interface. Along with that, the theme supports custom layouts, which enables you to define the sidebar or completely remove the sidebar. It enables the customers to navigate to crucial areas in your website.

The Advanced Heading block introduces enhancements, including dual-color headings, to the KadenceWP suite. The pro blocks in Kadence are: the image overlay block, the post grid/carousel block, split content block, product carousel block, modal block, video pop-up block, and the ‘on-scroll’ animation. 

Each KadenceWP product is backed by premium support and a 30-day money-back guarantee, fostering a risk-free user experience. Enhance your website effortlessly with KadenceWP’s powerful features and user-friendly design.

Pros

  • Ease of Use
  • Very clean dashboard of features & functionality
  • Compatibility Fully compatible with almost every theme and plugin along with WordPress’s latest version. 

Cons

  • A bit tricky to handle or align features or functionality
  • Updates may modify current tasks

Get Kadence Theme

4. Astra

Astra, a renowned theme, stands out for its adaptability, speed, and user-friendly layout, suitable for diverse websites, from personal blogs to eCommerce giants. Astra Pro, the premium version, delivers a modern design with versatility and flexibility, catering to websites of all sizes. 

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Its lightweight and performance-optimized nature ensures an efficient, fast, and seamless user experience. The theme offers numerous customizable features, allowing for the creation of sleek and attractive websites. 

With elegant aesthetics, Astra Pro themes are designed to captivate visitors, and with over 180 ready-to-import demo templates, setting up your site is quick and easy. 

Supporting page builder tools, Astra facilitates intuitive editing, and its one million-plus active installations are evidence to its popularity and reliability.

Pros

  • A lightweight and performance-optimized WordPress theme.
  • Multiple sidebars for different pages, posts, or categories. 
  • Seamless integration with Woocommerce.
  • Built-in Accessibility features like high contrast modes and larger font sizes 
  • More than 180 demo sites in gallery, compatible with major page builders.
  • Multiple customization options available.
  • Very affordable pricing
  • Regularly updated bug fixes and new enhancements.

Cons

  • Beginners might feel lost at the start.
  • Using too many Astra pro plugins slows the site down.
  • Most customers complain about its support team and response times.
  • Not the best choice for those with more advanced design needs.

Get Astra

5. Olsen Theme by CSSIgniter 

Olsen has two versions. Olsen Light and Pro theme by CSSIgniter falls under the Sidebar Navigation Menu WordPress themes. It is basically a fashion/lifestyle theme based on WordPress. The theme ensures to offer the best reading experience.

The Olsen light theme allows you to set up the website quickly. Here, you just need to activate the theme along with the menu and widgets, and you are good to go. 

Using this theme, you can integrate a highly interactive Frontpage slideshow. You can showcase various popular posts from different categories.

If you choose to go with the pro version, you will get 11 highly exquisite layouts to offer an attractive appeal to your blogs. Besides this, the pro version provides 80 customization settings to modify the theme.

The Olsen pro version even enables you to integrate your store with a blog with the help of WooCommerce. You need to activate the WooCommerce plugin, start adding products to convert your blog into an online store.

The Olsen theme offers two sidebars: Blog Sidebar and Footer Sidebar. Blog Sidebar enables you to display pages & posts. While, the Footer Sidebar allows you to showcase the widget provided by the WPZOOM Social Feed Widget plugin.

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Pros 

  • The theme works well with popular page builders like Elementor and Block Editor.
  • It supports one-click demo import. Hence, you can just replicate your existing demo site by importing the sample content file.
  • The theme gets updated regularly as per the latest WordPress versions.

Cons

  • WooCommerce support is only available in the pro version.

Get Olsen Theme

6. Bullet

bullet minimal wordpress theme

Bullet is a minimal WordPress theme with a pretty layout and vertical menu. In addition, this WordPress sidebar theme is suitable for businesses, portfolios, blogs, etc. 

Its features include a vertical navigation menu, bootstrap grid, Bullet transformations, bullet skins section, video background, essential grid plugin, parallax image, revolution slider, one-click demo import data, twitter-bootstrap, visual composer, PSD file support, Google fonts, etc.

This theme is also WPML compatible, and it offers cross-browser support. You can choose from six skins and four background patterns.

Pros

  • It is retina ready
  • It is user friendly
  • It is SEO optimized
  • It offers shortcode support
  • It is customizable
  • It is translation ready
  • It is fully responsive
  • It is WooCommerce ready

Cons

  • None

Get Bullet

7. Divergent

divergent wordpress theme

Divergent is an easy-to-use WordPress theme. It offers features like HTML5, slide-in menu sidebar, additional blog pages, fonts, one-click demo import, custom widgets, page layout, horizontal and vertical tabs, custom Google maps, testimonials, social media integration, XL page, and PHP 7 template. It is compatible with the WPML plugin. The theme looks great on all browsers and is well-documented. Divergent is best used for resumes, CVs, and showcasing portfolios.

Pros

  • It is widget ready
  • It is user friendly
  • It is SEO optimized
  • It can be customizable
  • It is translation ready
  • It is fully responsive 

Cons

  • It is not Gutenberg optimized

Get Divergent

8. Trail

best wordpress themes with a sidebar navigation menu

Trail is one of the best WordPress themes with a sidebar navigation menu. It is multipurpose and comes with a full-screen vertically scrolling parallax homepage. 

It also features shortcodes, theme options, localization support, and a portfolio section. Theme’s functionalities also include google maps, a home page slider, web fonts, custom post types, video support, contact forms, and Google fonts, among others. Moreover, this theme is integrated with social media icons. It is widget-ready and allows users to embed videos hosted on all major video platforms.

Pros

  • It is bold
  • It is user friendly
  • It is stylish
  • It is speed optimized
  • It is clean
  • It is responsive
  • It is SEO optimized

Cons

  • None found

Get Trail

9. Ink

ink is a clean and elegant wordpress theme

Ink is a clean and elegant WordPress theme with a sidebar navigation menu. You can create a slideshow, design a button or make a tab with its free shortcodes plugin. 

Like most WordPress themes with a sidebar, Ink offers a screen background image, localization, video support, extensive documentation, contact forms, and Google fonts. It is compatible with all the major browsers and stag custom sidebars. However, the theme isn’t free, and you must pay a fee if you want to use it.

Pros

  • It is responsive
  • It is user friendly
  • It is SEO optimized
  • It is Gutenberg optimized
  • It is mobile ready
  • It is retina ready

Cons

  • None found

Get Ink

10. Palermo

palermo is a beautiful wordpress theme

Palermo is a beautiful WordPress theme. It comes with custom widgets, a sidebar menu, a layout, a grid layout, etc. 

This WordPress theme is best for hotels, restaurants, and other businesses in the hospitality industry. Its features include full-page backgrounds, extreme customizations, perfect backgrounds, and one-click demo import, to mention a few. Most importantly, it offers a wide array of functionalities because it is compatible with popular page builders like Beaver Builder, Elementor, WP Forms, Advanced custom fields, Yoast SEO, WPML, MailChimp, NextGen Gallery, and Divi. The theme provides block editor support and is translation-ready.

Pros

  • It can be customized
  • It is SEO optimized
  • It offers speed optimization
  • It is user friendly
  • It offers premium support
  • It is WPML ready

Cons

  • None found

Get Palermo

11. Bramble

bramble multipurpose wordpress theme

Bramble is a customizable and multipurpose WordPress theme. It includes a  page builder, slider revolution, one-click demo import, and video backgrounds.

Options like Google fonts, menu icons, google maps, header layouts, unlimited widget areas, custom colors, and parallax backgrounds give you complete control of the theme’s visual identity. This WordPress sidebar theme has nine pre-built home page layouts, a slider plugin, and a slider revolution tool. It is WPML-ready, and users can combine it with all the popular page builder plugins.

Pros

  • It offers 1-year of support and updates
  • It is fully responsive
  • It is user friendly
  • It offers constant and excellent support
  • It provides regular updates
  • It is WooCommerce ready

Cons

  • None found

Get Bramble

12. Infinity

infinity minimalist wordpress theme

Infinity is a minimalist WordPress theme that is best for showcasing creative work. 

Some of its most notable features are infinite scrolling for blog posts, multiple screen resolutions, and pagination options. 

Its Instagram slider helps users establish a social media presence, while footer widgets and shortcodes enable you to introduce different functionalities effortlessly.  

You don’t need previous experience to customize theme options. What’s more, localization or video support and contact forms options allow you to create a unique experience for the site’s visitors. The Infinity theme gives you access to stunning typography, and you can use it with the Elementor page builder.

Pros

  • It is fully responsive
  • It is SEO optimized
  • It is translation ready
  • It is user friendly
  • It is WooCommerce ready
  • It is flexible

Cons

  • None

Get Infinity

13. Side Box

side box wordpress sidebar theme

Side Box WordPress sidebar menu theme is responsive and has a minimal layout. It is best suited for architects, graphic designers, and creatives in general. 

It offers a variety of options such as infinite scroll, slide box, full-screen gallery, unlimited domain dosage, customizable menus, and CSS compatibility. Built-in social media icons let you connect your Instagram or Facebook account to your website easily. The Side Box theme is SEO optimized and performs well on all major browsers.

Pros

  • It is mobile-friendly
  • It is customizable
  • It offers support
  • It is great for beginners
  • It is user-friendly
  • It has a minimalist design

Cons

  • None

Get Side Box

14. Sol

sol wordpress theme

Sol is a WordPress sidebar menu theme for creative agencies. It features a page, portfolio page, and full-width page templates users can easily customize before going live.

You can enrich the theme with css3 animations, featured service sections, front-page layouts, widget-ready sections, or custom-styled CSS elements. Sol is optimized for tablets, mobile phones, laptops, and desktop computers. Moreover, this theme is compatible with the Contact Form 7 plugin.

Pros

  • It is responsive
  • It is integrated with social media font icons
  • It is user friendly
  • It is mobile friendly
  • It offers lifetime support

Cons

  • None

Get SOL

15. Alternate

alternate sidebar wordpress theme

You should consider installing Alternate if you’re a fan of minimalistic design. This sidebar WordPress menu theme is ideal for anyone who wants to create an online presentation of their work.  

The filterable portfolio option allows you to organize the projects you’d like to showcase into different sections so that the visitors can choose which portion of your portfolio they want to see. The theme has a customizable menu system and background panel, as well as two widget-ready locations and a photo library. Alternate is compatible with Contact Form 7 plugin and all major browsers. Moreover, this theme is supported by computers and Smart devices

Pros

  • It is responsive
  • It is translation ready
  • It offers support
  • It is integrated with social icons

Cons

  • None found

Get ALTERNATE

16. Vector

vector wordpress theme

Vector WordPress theme offers great support and updates. It doesn’t restrict website usage and offers XML demo content. The theme’s layout is minimalistic and includes a scroll motion slider. Its sidebar menu features social media icons and several pre-built submenus. The theme’s look and feel best match business sites. What’s great about the Vector theme is that it has a money-back guarantee.

Pros

  • It is fully responsive
  • It is user friendly
  • It is SEO optimized
  • It is mobile friendly

Cons

  • None found

Get Vector

17. Corner

corner multipurpose wordpress theme

Corner is a multipurpose WordPress theme aimed primarily at creative-industry professionals who need an easy way to manage their portfolios. 

The block editor, excellent typography, and flexible layouts enable you to build a site that presents your work in the best light. Moreover, you can customize this theme with page builders like Beaver Builder, Elementor, or Divi.

Other notable features include one-click demo import, global sections, custom side width, color scheme options, google fonts, flexible headers, sticky menu, post, and page templates. Corner WordPress sidebar theme supports integrations with WPML, advanced custom fields, Toolset types, MailChimp, and Yoast SEO plugins.

Pros

  • It is WooCommerce ready
  • It is user friendly
  • It offers premium support
  • It is translation ready
  • It is SEO optimized

Cons

  • None

Get Corner

18. Cobalt

cobalt wordpress sidebar theme

Cobalt is best for creatives, but individuals, agencies, and businesses can also use it. This WordPress sidebar menu theme is fully responsive and clean. 

It has six homepage layouts, three single blog layouts, and 12 color schemes. Cobalt supports HTML5 and CSS3 files, and it features a revolution slider.

It is compatible with WPBakery, so building pages won’t take much time, and it allows you to create and manage contact forms with the Contact Form 7 plugins. This theme is well-documented, which makes it easy to find out how to perform different tasks.

Pros

  • It is fully responsive
  • It is retina ready
  • It is easy to use
  • It is translation ready
  • It is multilingual ready

Cons

  • It is not Gutenberg ready

Get Cobalt

19. Contrast

contrast responsive wordpress theme

Contrast is a responsive and easy-to-use WordPress theme for photographers, painters, and all creatives who produce visual content.  

Its core features are Full-screen layout, CSS3 and JavaScript techniques, Flexible portfolios, Unlimited image gallery, Custom shortcodes, One-click demo install, Font awesome icon set, Revolution slider, Three header styles, Mega menu, Fixed/full-page layout, WPML support, Customizable color scheme, Horizontal and vertical homepage grid layouts, Smooth animations, and more.

You’re unlikely to experience any problems while installing or customizing this theme; nevertheless, the documentation is readily available if you do.

Pros

  • It is SEO ready
  • It is WooCommerce ready
  • It is social media-friendly
  • It offers RTL support
  • It is customizable

Cons

  • None found

Get Contrast

20. Photo Maker

photomaker wordpress theme

PhotoMaker is a WordPress theme for photographers with an easily accessible sidebar menu that features built-in Portfolio, Blog, or Services submenus.  

It has a full-page slider, a custom contact form, a full-width contact page map, and various other functionalities that improve the visitor’s UX. 

The predefined color options help you create the site’s visual identity, while the unlimited business service functionality assists site owners in attracting new clients. Social media icons are integrated into the theme, allowing you to promote your work on different social networks. The theme is mobile-ready, optimized for high conversion, and offers constant updates and support.

Pros

  • It is SEO optimized
  • It is user friendly
  • It is speed optimized
  • It comes with social icons
  • It is simple to install
  • It is fully responsive
  • It is retina ready

Cons

  • None found

Get Photo Maker

21. Native Church

Native Church is one of the best WordPress navigation menu themes for charity, church, non-profit, or religious websites. The incredible thing about the theme is that it is super easy to customize and offers support through a dedicated support system. 

It has various features like slider revolution, mega menu, Google calendar events integration, multiple footer layouts, multiple slider effects, audio/video support for sermons, working contact form, Isotope Galleries, and more.

Pros

  • It is cost-effective
  • It is retina-ready and responsive.
  • The theme is documented well for quick editing.
  • It offers a range of shortcodes.
  • Compatible with modern browsers
  • SEO-Optimized

Cons

  • Support is available through email only

Get Native Church

Final Thoughts

We hope that you liked our list of WordPress sidebar menu themes. These themes have pros and cons, and each theme works well for specific businesses. Choosing the right theme for WordPress sidebar navigation can improve user experience, navigation and transform your website. 

Now, it’s time to explore the entire list and choose the theme that aligns well with your website. Ultimately, creating suitable sidebar navigation with the right theme helps you offer exceptional user experience, increase engagement and conversion rate, and take your site to a whole new level.

Frequently Asked Questions about WordPress Themes with Sidebar Navigation

What is a Sidebar in WordPress?

A sidebar is a vertical or horizontal column located below or next to the page’s content. It usually contains the navigation menu, but it can also be used to give visitors quick access to the website’s services, promote different products or display other information the page’s visitor should see.

This element can also contain sign-up forms, contact data, or information about the website’s owner. Online stores and sites with high amounts of content commonly feature sidebars. 

How to Add Sidebars in WordPress?

You can’t see a sidebar if it doesn’t contain widgets. So, to make a sidebar visible in a WordPress theme, you have to add one or more widgets to it. You can do this from the CMS’s dashboard:

  • Click on the Appearance menu and select the Customizer option. 
  • Open the Widgets submenu in the Customizer window. Click on the widgets you want to add to the sidebar.
  • All widgets you selected will be located in the panel on the left side of the screen. Proceed to customize them and click Done when ready. You can reorganize widgets by dragging them to the desired position in the widget panel. 
  • Hit the Publish button to add a widget to a theme. 

A team of WordPress experts that love to test out new WordPress related software, WordPress plugins and WordPress themes.