The fundamental principle of navigation design is that you should design for the reader – the person who uses the website.  To be effective, website navigation should first be easily understood by the average web user. When designing web navigation elements, you need to always remember the main purpose of the site and the target audience.

Different readers have different preferences on how they like to navigate around a website. Some readers like to navigate geographically. Others navigate by subject matter. And some want to read the most recent documents similar to those they have just read. Therefore, to accommodate a variety of readers and their navigation requirements, a range of navigation options should be offered.  So by using multiple classifications you can allow the reader to navigate the content in any manner they wish.

Home page navigation should provide context for the reader. It is not simply about functional navigation such as hypertext and search. The home page should take content highlights from the content archive, presenting them as features. For navigation to provide the best possible context, you need to ensure that all content is properly classified; allow for a variety of product/selection homepages that publish the most relevant and positive content for that particular product or section; use related navigation at the end of a document that gives links to similar documents or websites.

From the homepage, each page on the site should be reachable within two or three clicks. Vital pages should be only one click away. Navigation should let readers know where they are going.  There are a number of ways to achieve greater clarity. Some examples: Consider drop-down navigation, showing lower levels of the classification. This allows the reader to navigate further into the website if they wish. Change the color of a link when the mouse rolls over it. This is helpful when there are many links placed close together. Because the link changes color, the reader knows exactly which link they are about to select. If the user is asked to participate in a process, such as purchasing a product online, show a progress chart to assist in navigation. This shows the user how many stages there are in the process, and what stage they are at.

To help users navigate your site – you should also consider placing a ‘Search’ box on every site page. It should be placed on the far right of the masthead.

Good website navigation can increase the viewing of your web pages. This will in turn lead to increased signups, sales, customers or members.

Businesses need to focus less on the anchor text of their links and more on how they can get those links on pages with strong relevance to the keywords in which they want to rank.

For example, if your business website’s main keyword is “web design.” There are a variety of different link options on pages that are relevant to the website design industry and you can use your business name as anchor text with the same result.

There are a number of places where businesses can find a home for relevant links.

• Website Directories: Website directories offer specific category relevance. Using the example of a website design company, the business owner would look for categories within the directory that are specific to website design. Companies must make sure that all of the sites listed in that category are related to their specific industry or the link will not be as effective.

• Other People’s Blogs: Guest blog posts are becoming a popular way to gain authority, build brand identity and garner links that will bring traffic back to your website. It should go without saying that companies should only post on blogs that are relevant to their particular industry.

• Social Media Mentions: Major search engines now use updates from social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook in their calculation of what’s popular, so businesses should use them to their advantage. However, use relevant keywords in tweets and Facebook updates, as these can be related to the link in the update.

• Link Requests: When trading links with other webmasters, a great way to get relevant links, ensure that the page that is hosting your business’s link is relevant to your keywords.

Essentially, what a business needs to do is gain links on high authority pages to increase their own authority. When focusing on link location, rather than obsessing over anchor text, the company will increase its website’s authority, build a solid brand reputation, and avoid Google penalties for overuse of keywords.

Instagram, the photo sharing app owned by Facebook has roll outed a new policy and terms of service following an outcry by users late last year. Instagram tried to institute a policy which would have given them the right to sell users’ photos without payment or notification. The whole fiasco cost the company a lot of users so following the adverse reaction, Instagram has backed tracked and altered this new policy. Instagram says the new version is a roll back of its user agreement to the previous version, with some minor change. The following is Instagram’s new policy:

Instagram does not claim ownership of any Content that you post on or through the Service. Instead, you hereby grant to Instagram a non-exclusive, fully paid and royalty-free, transferable, sub-licensable, worldwide license to use the Content that you post on or through the Service, subject to the Service’s Privacy Policy, available here, including but not limited to sections 3 (“Sharing of Your Information”), 4 (“How We Store Your Information”), and 5 (“Your Choices About Your Information”). You can choose who can view your Content and activities, including your photos, as described in the Privacy Policy.

The policy also points out that Instagram owns the trademark for its logo, page headers, custom graphics and button icons. Here is more from the policy page:

“Instagram Content is protected by copyright, trademark, patent, trade secret and other laws, and, as between you and Instagram. Instagram owns and retains all rights in the Instagram Content and the Service. You will not remove, alter or conceal any copyright, trademark, service mark or other proprietary rights notices incorporated in or accompanying the Instagram Content and you will not reproduce, modify, adapt, prepare derivative works based on, perform, display, publish, distribute, transmit, broadcast, sell, license or otherwise exploit the Instagram Content.”

The photo sharing service takes time to point out in a blog “nothing has changed about your photos’ ownership or who can see them.”  It says that the new policies are designed to make the app more easily integrated with Facebook and to prevent spam.