Sal Surra - Webmaster & SEO Analyst » User Interfaces http://www.salsurra.com/blog Personal Blog for Thoughts, Opinioins, and Reviews of Various Things Sat, 17 Apr 2010 00:16:53 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.1 Happy Blogging http://www.salsurra.com/blog/happy-blogging.html http://www.salsurra.com/blog/happy-blogging.html#comments Sat, 16 May 2009 00:01:17 +0000 djs4mcs http://www.salsurra.com/blog/?p=59 1126728_home_work_close-up_3I’ve been blogging for about two years now and I have to say that I love blogging. Blogging is one of the few things that we can all do to help each other share thoughts, gain more knowledge, and maybe make a couple of bucks.  There are so many ways to do a blog, and things to blog about that I wonder why everyone doesn’t have a blog already. In fact, I’m so happy blogging that I run 4 personal blogs, as well as half of dozen blogs for my company.  In addition, my company is seeing the value of blogging and they are letting me set up even more blogs to help generate viral marketing on the web.  Blogs can be about anytime and everything.  The best blogs are the ones that really have good content and not just some collection of random posts and articles that a person gets off another site.  True bloggers know that the only way to build an audience to put out unique original content that is thought provoking and relevant. I can’t say how many times I go to a blog and get turned off when I realize the content is just something they grabbed from an article directory and re-posted it.  I personally never use this tactic and all of my blogs are hand written by myself with my own thoughts.

The following are some ideas of what to do with a blog.

1. Make a personal blog and share things in your life.

2. Make a hobby blog and share things about something you passionate about

3. Make a business blog and sharing ideas about a certain business subject

4. Make a general blog and post everything from how-tos to daily journals.

5. Make a sales blog where you are pitching a product or service

All of these things are good ideas for blogging, and some of them can actually make money in the process.  I’ve seen bloggers who just start out as something fun to do, and wind up making money in the process.  On the other hand, I’ve seen bloggers start out to make money and only end up losing it.  The best things is to blog about what you know and have fun blogging.

Happy Blogging!

]]> http://www.salsurra.com/blog/happy-blogging.html/feed 0 Title For My New Book About Social Marketing http://www.salsurra.com/blog/title-for-my-new-book-about-social-marketing.html http://www.salsurra.com/blog/title-for-my-new-book-about-social-marketing.html#comments Wed, 28 Jan 2009 09:20:10 +0000 djs4mcs http://www.salsurra.com/blog/?p=21 graphic_backlinks2I’m currently putting together thoughts on a new book about social marketing.  In doing so, I’m trying to figure out if the title should be very technical sounding title for the savvy-minded, or if it should be a more common sense approach to socializing and how it relates to every day people.  The book will cover the many new emerging social networks, how they work, which ones to be one, and for what reasons, as well as it will touch on how to apply those to various strategies on the web today.

I had a couple of thoughts about the title and I’m going throw them out here. It would be nice to hear from some of you about which ones you like or if you have a suggestion of your own please feel free to write a comment.

Proposed titles for my new book about social marketing.

1. Understanding Social Marketing

2. Social Marketing 101

3. Searching Social Marketing

4. Blogs, Feeds, and Social Oh, My!

5. Your Important, Socialize It!

6. Stop Emailing, Start Socializing

7. Make Money with Social Marketing

8. Social Marketing and SEO

9. What Social Marketing Actually Matters

10. Digg It, Buzz It, Twit It, Feed It, Just Make Sure To Socialize It

I look forward to hearing any other ideas or opinions on what you think a good title for the book would be.

]]> http://www.salsurra.com/blog/title-for-my-new-book-about-social-marketing.html/feed 2 Launched New Personal Site With Cool UI Tricks http://www.salsurra.com/blog/launch-new-personal-site-with-cool-ui-tricks.html http://www.salsurra.com/blog/launch-new-personal-site-with-cool-ui-tricks.html#comments Sat, 03 Jan 2009 09:26:36 +0000 djs4mcs http://www.salsurra.com/blog/?p=14 siteimageI just got finished updating my personal website and portfolio, and I put some cool new UI features on it.  I’m ready to officially launch the new personal site and look forward to some input.  I think the effects are pretty interesting and made are strickly with CSS and Javascript features, and that should make some people think and hopefully play with it once or twice.  I personally like the fold out effect on the home page.  When the personal div opens there is an option that says “Are you done with me”, click on that option and watch the cool effect that takes effect.  None of the page effects were done with flash or animation, and were all done with CSS and Javascript, with all data still being rendered on-page for search engines.  It’s a personal goal of mine to make sure all necessary data gets indexed by the engines.  It’s not that I don’t like flash, but I like to see how much I can do without it.  I really like the fade in a fade out effects as well.  How about the slide in navigation bar.  It’s a way of keeping data out of the way, but still have it available.  I’m going to be working with more effects on the site over the next few months, so stay tuned for more fun! You can visit the new site at SalSurra.com.

]]> http://www.salsurra.com/blog/launch-new-personal-site-with-cool-ui-tricks.html/feed 0 Working with a good UI makes sites development easy. http://www.salsurra.com/blog/working-with-a-good-ui-makes-sites-development-easy.html http://www.salsurra.com/blog/working-with-a-good-ui-makes-sites-development-easy.html#comments Wed, 24 Dec 2008 09:09:42 +0000 djs4mcs http://www.salsurra.com/blog/working-with-a-good-ui-makes-sites-development-easy I’ve been using various UI libraries over the past couple of years and the thing that I’ve learned most is that it’s better to use them then try to re-invent the wheel. I personally like to use Yahoo’s open source platform called YUI. It’s a great library of tools that can be downloaded and installed on any directory. It makes for setting up pages and having great UI a snap. They have tons of pre-set configurations and you can do everything from menu-building, page-building, interfaces, pagination, and other various effects that can give a website sticky content. You can find YUI at http://developer.yahoo.com/yui.

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