WEBSITE NAVIGATION 101

Website Navigation 101

RM2 Project Blog:
written by Tammy Kollinger
Website navigation should be as simple and as easy as possible. Visitors to your site should be able to naturally go where you need them to go, as opposed to having them hunt down the information they need. In short, hunting equals shorter time spent on your site and a potential loss of customers.

Considering the time and effort you spend trying to get people to go to your site in the first place, the last thing you want is to have folks wondering what to do or where to go next. Visitors should be able to understand your menu and access pertinent information right from the home page. Additionally, your main menu should be accessible from every page.

Common Navigation Problems
• Undefined links (when a link leads to nowhere)
• Too many links and navigation bars within one page leading to the same result (several links leading to an order form, for example)
• Too many navigation bars/menus
• Pages that force visitors to use the back button
• Navigation that focuses on the company’s structure rather than meaningful information for the visitor that could lead to a sale

Correcting and Enhancing Your Website’s Navigation
In some cases, websites may require a complete restructuring of the layout and menus. If this is the case, chances are you may also be due for a re-design of the entire site. Enhancing your navigation, getting a website makeover and bringing your website to Web 2.0 standards all at the same time would probably be the most cost-effective way to tackle the problem. On the other hand, if you simply have a broken link here or there, or just need to “clean up” your site a bit for better navigation, you might be better off consulting with your designer on the best item-by-item approach.

Determining Your Audience for SEO Work

Determining Your Audience for SEO Work

RM2 Project Blog:
written by Tammy Kollinger
When optimizing your website for Google, Yahoo, Bing or any other search engine, it’s extremely important to determine your target audience. Knowing your target audience helps you make educated choices when first brainstorming the keywords for your website and then later narrowing down your list.

So how do you do determine your target market? First of all, you must know where your best customers for your product or service are located. In other words, are you looking for local, national, or worldwide business? To give you an example, RM2 Project is located and serves Miami Beach. Some of our keywords are “Miami Beach web designer”. Essentially, we’ve looked for ways to regionalize our products and services for our target audience.

Another way to determine your target market is to look at whether your target audience is male or female, their age and/or income bracket. Your SEO keyword phrases should reflect some of this information. Additionally, listen to how other people in your industry talk about the type of product or service you offer. What you’re ultimately looking for are the phrases one commonly might search for on Google or any other search engine.

RM2 Project Blog:
A Solid foundation of SEO for your website is more important than anything else in order to keep organic traffic flowing in. Think of it as building a house. You would never build a house without a foundation. It might look pretty from the outside but sooner or later it’s going to crumble without a foundation and that’s what will happen to your website with out proper SEO. We have proven techniques and knowledge of how to help improve your website rankings in Google Bing and other search engines. Feel free to call us at 1.800.301.5420 to setup an appointment for a free quote on SEO work for your website or email us
To see some of our SEO clients and their websites please visit our Portfolio
RM2 Project Blog

Use of Color in Marketing

RM2 Project Blog:
written by Tammy Kollinger

I found a great little article on the Psychology of Color in Marketing. A woman by the name of June Campbell wrote it, and it’s worth the read, especially if you are thinking of starting a new business or re-inventing you marketing.www.nightcats.com

What colors have you chosen for your marketing materials? What were your reasons for making that particular choice? Was it because you liked those particular colors, or did you have a particular marketing message in mind? While visual appeal is an important consideration, your color choices could be sending a specific message to the people who view them. Are you sure you know what that message is?

You’d be wise to consider the psychology of color when designing your marketing materials. Be it business card, brochure, web site, posters or other material, you’ll be making color choices. Colors not only enhance the appearance of the item — they also influence our behavior. You will do well to consider the impact that the colors you use will have on your target audience.

For instance, have you noticed that most fast food restaurants (McDonalds)are decorated with vivid reds and oranges? It’s no accident that these colors show up so frequently. Studies have shown that reds and oranges encourage diners to eat quickly and leave — and that’s exactly what fast food outlets want you to do.

It’s also no accident that you see a lot of reds and blacks on adult web sites. These colors are thought to have sexual connotations.

Ever notice that toys, books and children’s web sites usually contain large blocks of bright, primary colors? Young children prefer these colors and respond more positively than they do to to pastels or muted blends.

Market researchers have had a field day identifying the colors and the likely effect they have upon us.

However, the effects of color differ among different cultures, so the attitudes and preferences of your target audience should be a consideration when you plan your design of any promotional materials.

For example, white is the color of death in Chinese culture, but purple represents death in Brazil. Yellow is sacred to the Chinese, but signified sadness in Greece and jealousy in France. In North America, green is typically associated with jealousy. People from tropical countries respond most favorably to warm colors; people from northern climates prefer the cooler colors.

In North American mainstream culture, the following colors are associated with certain qualities or emotions:

Red –excitement, strength, sex, passion, speed, danger.
Blue –(listed as the most popular color) trust, reliability, belonging, coolness.
Yellow –warmth, sunshine, cheer, happiness
Orange — playfulness, warmth, vibrant
Green — nature, fresh, cool, growth, abundance
Purple –royal, spirituality, dignity
Pink — soft, sweet, nurture, security
White –pure, virginal, clean, youthful, mild.
Black –sophistication, elegant, seductive, mystery
Gold — prestige, expensive
Silver — prestige, cold, scientific

Market researchers have also determined that color affects shopping habits. Impulse shoppers respond best to red-orange, black and royal blue. Shoppers who plan and stick to budgets respond best to pink, teal, light blue and navy. Traditionalists respond to pastels – pink, rose, sky blue.

Want to test some of this out? Check out web sites belonging to companies with marketing budgets that allow for extensive research into what sells best.

Jaguar (Visit Website)

A luxury car with a luxury web site. There’s a predominance of black (sophistication) and silver (prestige). Jaguar markets to people with high incomes who view themselves as sophisticated and look for a prestigious vehicle.

Volkswagon Microbus (Visit Website)
Check out the predominance of yellow (happiness) and orange (playfulness). Matches the type of owners that Volkswagon is trying to attract, don’t you think?

So how can you put this information to use?

First, think about your target market. Let’s say that you are selling books for young children, but you are marketing to grandparents. You’d probably design the books in bright, primary colors (reds, blues, yellows) to appeal to the children who will use them. However, the marketing materials (web site, brochures, etc.) would be designed with grandparents in mind. You might decide to go with blues (trust, reliability), pinks (nurture, sweet, security) and yellow (happy, playful).

Of course, you would test your ads and colors on a small market segment before rolling out a large scale campaign.

Give some thoughts to the message you want to send and to the psychology of the recipient. Then choose your colors accordingly.

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RM2 Project Blog: Good Ideas!

Understanding LOGO Design

RM2 Project Blog Entry
written by Tammy Kollinger
Whether you’re starting a new business or trying to re-invent your marketing and brand, a great logo goes a long way. Your logo represents your company; it’s the icon that people will think of when they think of your products and services. A logo is the image that should have staying power in the consumer’s mind.

Coming up with a great design for a logo is more than just picking a cool font and a nice picture. There is a lot of thought that should go behind a great design. Is it simple enough to have staying power? What is your target audience taking away? Complicated logos might look good, but they are easy to forget. Simple logos are easier to remember, which will hopefully come to mind when your audience needs your services.

The color and shape of your logo are important at the subconscious level. Certain colors make one feel a certain way, and certain shapes bring on specific feelings. Do the shapes and colors of your logo combine to bring the right feel for your company?

And what about the font? The font is extremely important because if spells out your business name, which ultimately, you want the consumer to remember. Therefore, it needs to be clean, crisp and easy to read. If you think about well-known company logos with staying power, you’ll see the fonts are straight (as opposed to curvy or curly) and quick to read.

Finally, your logo should be transferable–meaning that it can easily be reduced for the web or a promotional pen, or enlarged for a billboard. Consider current and future uses of your logo before you settle on a particular design.

One final thought: If you’re paying good money for your logo, make sure you get the bang for your buck–and that doesn’t mean a complicated logo with all sorts of bells and whistles.  It means simplicity and it  means staying power. This is the foundation to helping build your brand.

Check our portfolio for examples of our Logo Creations Portfolio

Findings About Social Networking Sites

RM2 Project Blog:
written by Tammy Kollinger

I’ve been doing some research on social networking services and came across some very interesting information. A June 2009 article from Anderson Analytics mentioned the results of their May 2009 study. So if you haven’t heard about these findings in the news by now, here it is in a nutshell:

• An estimated 110 million people in the US using social network services sites (SNSs) regularly.
• Facebook and MySpace have the highest numbers of regular users. Twitter and LinkedIn are in third and fourth place.
• Women (55)% are more likely than men (45%) to use SNS.
• The majority of SNS users are less than 35 years old.
• LinkedIn has the oldest and MySpace the youngest average regular user.
• Users on average login to the sites 5 days a week, 4 times a day and spend about 1 hour on SNS each day.
• Non-users think they do fine keeping in touch with people without using SNS. Tech-savviness is not a critical factor.
• The most common reasons for using an SNS site? To stay in touch with people you know.
• GenXers and Boomers are most likely to use SNS for business/job related reasons.
• Users tend to have a primary site, like Facebook or MySpace, and use other SNSs for special purposes, such as LinkedIn for job/business related activities or Twitter for promoting blogs.
• Overall, male and female SNS users engage in similar activities online.
• Male SNS users tend to share information about their hobbies, interesting articles or work related topics; female users tend to share photos, broadcasts about what they are currently doing or post about their pets.
• Male users tend to have a greater number of connections and are more adventurous in connecting to strangers online; in addition, they are more likely to use SNS for business.
• 50% of the SNS users have followed a commercial service, product, or brand on an SNS site.

So there it is, folks. Business owners, pay close attention! This is the direction the world is heading. For more information about the findings of the study, click here.
RM2 Project Blog:
You should really keep up with the trends if you want to stay ahead of the game and sell your products to the masses.
to see some of our SEO clients and their websites please visit our Portfolio
RM2 Project Blog

DJ Lessons: So You Want to be a DJ

DJ Lessons written by Ryan Morales
So you want to be a DJ? Well, I’ve been a DJ for over 20 years. I’ve played at some of NYC’s and Miami’s most famous clubs. For the last 3 years I have played at Ultra Music Festival and have been featured in various media publications. People always think it’s easy to be a DJ but it’s really not. DJing is an art and requires a lot of time and dedication to actually become good. Also, new technologies are awesome, but knowing your roots is just as important. So here is a beginner lesson in DJing:

DJ Lessons

Lesson 1:
Learn your equipment & its basic functions. Get to know all the knobs and buttons, and what they do.

CD Player:

Power on & off, play, stop, skip, & search songs, loop, tempo adjust, vinyl or CD mode, ejecting disk, time display, BPM counter.

Mixer:

Power ON & OFF, master volume, line volumes, gains, EQ’s, headphone cue, stereo or mono switch, cross fader, effects section, designate input lines.

DJ Lessons: What is the “Magic Number” ?

When you DJ, you have to count your beats. Therefore, 4 is the magic number and any multiples of it which include 8, 16, 32, & 64.
Music is measured in segments of 4 so in order to keep good timing you should count beats in 4′s or any of the other numbers related. Change-ups in music are usually every 32 beats. Most music will start a new change-up with a cymbal crash or something similar. When transitioning songs, you want to match the beats so they equally land together, meaning that if you count properly you should be able to mix the songs on first the beat of of change-up.

Try this out and see if it helps you better your mixing skills
If you have any questions about my DJ Lessons please feel free to email me at ryan@rm2project.com

These DJ Lessons are the things I believe makes a DJ good. With over 20 years of experience I believe I know what is important to make my readers better at the art of DJing.