collingwoodblogNearly two years ago my very own mother decided to start a blog.  The real-estate markets were steady and any guerilla marketing tactic seemed like a new and exciting new idea at the time.  My mom has always been a natural marketing talent (probably where I got my own interest in marketing) and she loves connecting with people.  However, she doesn’t have much of a tech background.

When I say she doesn’t have much tech background – I mean that I was plugging in printers and installing CD’s for her since I was about 8 years old.  Now with a blog, venturing onto the World Wide Web full of code and critics - I was both concerned and curious.

I remember her telling me from the very beginning that she was just going to persevere with the blog and at that exact moment she made the commitment to manage her blog for 1 full year no matter how it went.

So What Next?  Did it Top the Charts or Flop to the Bottom?

Now, nearly two years later I cannot help but be amazed by the results of her hard work and perseverance.  In our last time together we briefly looked over her blog, the successes and pitfalls, and discussed her journey from a lonely collection of articles to a first page blog that really connects with the real-estate market.  I asked her a couple questions, questions like:

Do you know much about SEO? “No”
Do you understand keyword relevance? “Not sure”

How about title tags? Anchor text? Outbound Links!? No, No, No.  Then the next question I was far too afraid to ask out loud – so I wondered silently, “what do you know?” I just kept asking myself, “how does a mother and real-estate agent with no technology background build a first page blog?”

The Layman’s Secret to SEO Success

After some thought, I realized that she didn’t need to know the exact ins and outs of the search engines just to become popular, build a reader base, and even climb positions.  No, all she needed was the three things she had all along: a passion for perseverance, the drive for self-improvement, and the patience for trial and error.

Over the years that she worked with her community real-estate blog, my mother developed many skills great for internet marketing and even SEO, without even knowing it.

The internet is changing daily, and more and more the people are starting to hold the power.  Web 2.0 is all about meaningful connections with such a negative connation on spamming that I dare even say the word.  So why make this point? It’s because a meaningful connection with someone can do wonders for a website at times, and you’ll never need to be a webmaster for that!

Alright so you can make meaningful connections, but what else could someone with no technology background possibly offer to the SEO table?

Quality.  I could write a thousand articles stuffed with keywords at every angle but the simple fact is that no one will end up reading the material if it isn’t relevant, useful and informative.  I sometimes ponder on that too.  How many wasted articles have been spammed with keywords, only to be rejected endlessly by the flowing crowds of uninterested prospects because it just wasn’t very good?

The Big Picture

It doesn’t take a webmaster to write gripping content; in fact, the best content will connect with the readers and leave little for them to ask – but with plenty to take away.

The big secret is that anyone is capable of smashing the online barriers and building a presence on the net.  You don’t need a background in technology, or programming, or internet marketing.  You only need some perseverance, the will to learn, and the courage to try.

I guess the truth is I’ll never stop learning from my mother.

Visit the blog that inspired it all: http://blog.collingwood-bluemountain.com

Regards,

Kris Scheben-Edey

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